Humans evolved to get better sleep in less time

   

   With finals week among us, I figured that an article about human sleep patterns would be most appropriate, since a lot of students are currently not getting any sleep.  On average humans are able to function adequately on approximately seven hours of sleep.  However some of our closer primate relatives such as the southern pig-tailed macaques need 14-17 hours of sleep.  Researchers at Duke set out to determine how humans possible evolved to sleep less.
        After studying over 21 different primate species sleep patterns the researchers determined that humans sleep less, but get more quality hours of sleep. Deep sleep state is called rapid eye movement sleep, which makes up 25% hours of our sleep, however in primates only 5% of their sleep is REM sleep.  A theory was that humans have developed this sleep pattern because of the artificial light that we are exposed to by televisions, computers, and cell phones.  However research was conducted on hunter-gather societies in South America and Africa with no technology and it was found that they sleep even less than we do.
         Overall I think we can thank evolution for the change in the sleep pattern of humans to enable us to sleep shorter amount of time with more quality hours.  This way we can stay up studying all night for an 8:30 am exam wake up after 3 hours of sleep and have enough sleep to ace the exam.

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Related Post

Social Behavior can be Inherited

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/science/genes-play-major-role-in-primate-social-behavior-study-finds.html?_r=0



 

Scientists Susanne Shultz, Christopher Opie and Quentin Atkinson from Oxford University have found that social behavior and role can be inherited. Their hypothesis for the study was that Primate species tended to have the same social structure as their close relatives, regardless of how and where they live. This theory goes against the previous one that related species living in different environments should display a variety of social structures. They did this by looking at a primate family tree of 217 primate species whose social organization was known. They found their hypothesis true. For example many of the Old World monkeys such as baboons and macaques lived in several different places around the world and eat different foods. They all generally have the same social systems which suggests that their common ancestry and the inherited genes that shape behavior are a stronger influence than ecology on their social structure.

 

Findings of the Scientists at Oxford

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7372/full/nature10601.html