Life Lines by Dr. Dolittle

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Tag Archive for ‘sleepless’

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If only I were a fruit fly…

  Oh, to be a Drosophila. A new study published in Science Advances reports that male Drosophila have an amazing tolerance for sleep deprivation. I wish I could say the same about humans. Like people, sleep duration in flies varies between individuals, with some animals getting only a few minutes of sleep a day. In many other species, chronic sleep deprivation is associated with shorter lifespans. In this new study, researchers […]

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Could research on fruit flies improve human sleep?

A new study conducted by researchers at Cincinnati Children’s in collaboration with Kyoto University has provided evidence that drosophila and mammals have similar proteins in their brain that help regulate the rhythm of body temperatures that are important in normal metabolism as well as sleep. According to a quote from Dr. Fumika Hamada, a lead study author, “We’re looking for a mechanistic understanding of how body temperature rhythms are regulated. […]

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