Solving Sleep's Mysteries

Meet some of the people featured in the March 2016 issue of The Scientist.

Scientists still don’t know why animals sleep or how to define the ubiquitous behavior.

March 2016's selection of notable quotes

Researchers are uncovering the link between sleep and learning and how it changes throughout our lives.

Mapping the dreaming brain through neuroimaging and studies of brain damage

Ideas abound for why some animal species sleep so much more than others, but definitive data are elusive.

Poor slumber during pregnancy may have consequences beyond gestation.

Why can science still not define this most basic biological process?

Regulatory and compliance expectations for animal-based research are demanding, while public and political scrutiny of animal research is rising.

Assessing body position in addition to activity may improve monitoring of sleep-wake periods.

An overview of the human sleep cycle

A web of cell types in one of the brain’s chief wake centers keeps animals up—but also puts them to sleep.

Metabolic activity, not light, drives the circadian clock in cyanobacteria.

Serotonin’s long-debated role in sleep promotion is temperature-dependent.

Unearthing the root causes of narcolepsy keeps Emmanuel Mignot tackling one of sleep science’s toughest questions.

Research Fellow, Cyclotron Research Center, University of Liège. Age: 35

How to store microbiome samples without losing or altering diversity

Newer CRISPR tools for manipulating transcription will help unlock noncoding RNA’s many roles.

New insomnia drugs are coming on the market, but drug-free therapy remains the most durable treatment.

Understanding the sleeping brain may be the key to unlocking the secrets of the human mind.

Herding Hemingway's Cats, Hair: A Human History, Restless Creatures, and The Mind Club

Renowned sleep researcher Nathaniel Kleitman and a colleague spent a month underground to test the body’s natural rhythms.