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Article: Dreams are made of this; Sleep.(Why do we sleep and dream?)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- October 29, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Another exhausting night on the exercise wheel
Studies are shedding light on the mystery of sleep
ANYONE who has ever owned a hamster will know that the animal spends an inordinate amount of time sleeping. Depending on your point of view, that might be a good or bad thing. Hamsters are small and, broadly speaking, the smaller the animal, the more sleep it needs. While elephants need as little as three or four hours of sleep per day, tiny opossums will snooze for 18 to 20 hours. Flipper, however, doesn't seem to sleep at all--at least not in any way that humans know it. In the bottlenose dolphin, each side of the brain appears to take it in turns to do ...