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Penguins Take Thousands of Naps Every Day Penguins Take Thousands of Naps Every Day
(about 8 hours later)
Penguins are champion power nappers. Over the course of a single day, they fall asleep thousands of times, each bout a few seconds long, a new study has found.Penguins are champion power nappers. Over the course of a single day, they fall asleep thousands of times, each bout a few seconds long, a new study has found.
Although animals have a wide range of sleeping styles, penguins easily take the record for fragmented sleeping.Although animals have a wide range of sleeping styles, penguins easily take the record for fragmented sleeping.
“It’s really unusual,” said Paul-Antoine Libourel, a neuroscientist at the Neuroscience Research Center of Lyon in France who helped make the discovery. “This just highlights the fact that we don’t know much about sleep, and all animals are not sleeping like the way we read in textbooks.”“It’s really unusual,” said Paul-Antoine Libourel, a neuroscientist at the Neuroscience Research Center of Lyon in France who helped make the discovery. “This just highlights the fact that we don’t know much about sleep, and all animals are not sleeping like the way we read in textbooks.”
The study was published on Thursday in the journal Science.The study was published on Thursday in the journal Science.
The science of sleep got its start in the early 1900s when researchers used scalp electrodes to discover that people produce slow brain waves when dozing.The science of sleep got its start in the early 1900s when researchers used scalp electrodes to discover that people produce slow brain waves when dozing.
They found similar wave patterns in mice, pigeons and other captive animals. Over time, scientists discovered that pretty much every animal they studied spent some time each day unresponsive to their environment. Even jellyfish sleep despite their lack of a brain.
But how animals sleep varies a lot. Brown bats remain asleep for 20 hours a day, whereas giraffes get by on less than two hours. Human brains shut down entirely when we sleep, while seals can shut down a single side; with the other still awake, they can continue swimming as they doze.