![]() ![]() “Northern elephant seals exhibit unparalleled flexibility in their sleep duration… No other mammal goes from sleeping about two hours a day for over 200 days to sleeping 10.8 hours a day,” Kendall-Bar tells the New York Times’ Annie Roth, adding that she hopes this research will aid conservation efforts. The team found that while the seals only slept about two total hours while out at sea, after returning to land, they snooze for more than ten hours at a time. ![]() They then applied this algorithm to data previously gathered from more than 300 seals to get a population-level look at elephant seal sleeping habits. Using the information they collected, the researchers created an algorithm to identify periods of sleep from the dive data. Remarkably, the seal’s brain reliably wakes them out of it before running out of oxygen… Imagine waking up on the bottom of a pool-it sends a shiver down the spine.” ![]() “This is not light sleep but real paralytic, deep sleep that would have humans snoring. “The thing I find remarkable is that any mammal would fall asleep while drifting hundreds of meters below the water surface,” co-author Terrie Williams, a comparative ecophysiologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, tells BBC News’ Victoria Gill. But when the seals switched to REM, a phase of sleep when some muscles become temporarily paralyzed, they seemed to lose control of their bodies and began a distinctive spiral downward to the ocean floor, “like a falling leaf,” Kendall-Bar says in the statement. She found that elephant seals could maintain their body posture as they were in their slow-wave sleep, the deepest phase of non-REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. After running some tests on herself, she attached the head caps to 13 juvenile female seals-five in a lab and eight in the wild-and collected data over several days. This is the first study to record the brain activity of a free-ranging, wild marine mammal, per a statement. To learn more about the seals’ sleeping habits, Jessica Kendall-Bar, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, developed a novel swim cap-like device with electrodes to measure the animals’ brain activity and body sensors to collect movement and heart rate data. So, scientists have long wondered when, if at all, elephant seals were getting their shut eye. Unlike dolphins and sea lions, elephant seals cannot perform unihemispheric sleep-or sleeping with only one part of the brain while the other remains alert. “If you’re diving all the time, if you’re spending 90 percent of your time at sea underwater without access to air, when the hell do you sleep?” “There’s a bit of a conundrum,” Chris McKnight, an ecophysiologist at the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St Andrews in Scotland who wasn’t involved in the study, tells NPR’s Ari Daniel. In the ocean’s depths, the darkness helps them hide. The massive mammals come up to breathe for only a few minutes at a time between dives to avoid becoming the meal of a hungry shark or orca. In a new study published last week in Science, researchers report that elephant seals have mastered an extreme power-napping strategy while in the open ocean-they’ll sleep for only about two hours per day in quick, ten-minute chunks.Įlephant seals spend about seven months of the year searching for prey at sea, diving up to 2,500 feet deep and spending up to half an hour underwater without air. But now, scientists have discovered these animals may be rivaled by their marine namesakes: elephant seals. Unused AARP Rewards points expire 12 months after they are earned, in monthly batches on a rolling basis.The African bush elephant holds the world record for the mammal that clocks the fewest hours of sleep per night, dozing off in bursts that together add up to just two hours. Performance is not indicative of cognitive health and not predictive of future performance or medical conditions. Various factors may affect performance, including sleep, tiredness, focus, and other social, environmental, or emotional factors. ![]() Staying Sharp games are intended for entertainment and recreational purposes only. Features including the Cognitive Assessment and Lifestyle Check-Ins, Additional Tests, exercises, and challenges assess performance at a particular moment in time on certain discrete cognitive tasks. Nothing in the service should be considered, or used as a substitute for, medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Staying Sharp is based on a holistic, lifestyle approach to brain health that encourages users to incorporate into their daily lives activities that are associated with general wellness. Legal Disclaimer: Staying Sharp, including all content and features, is offered for informational purposes and to educate users on brain health care and medical issues that may affect their daily lives. ![]()
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