The message of “eight hours of sleep a night” is ubiquitously heard in human health circles. Most problems, many say, can be solved with a few more hours of shut-eye. However, one of the most intelligent mammals on earth, the African Elephant, is challenging our notions of sleep and its purpose for all creatures great and small. In a recent study of two wild African elephants it was found that they “get by just fine on about two hours of sleep a day. Much of that shut-eye comes while standing up — the animals sleep lying down only once every three or four days.” By using a highly precise fitbit-style tracking system this data may allow their species to break sleep records for mammals. This study is revolutionary according to neuroethologist Paul Manger of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg who stated, “most of what scientists previously knew about sleeping elephants came from captive animals.” Interestingly in zoos and enclosures, elephants have been recorded snoozing about “three hours to almost seven over a 24-hour period.” Evidently, captive animals, who face far less challenges for food and safety than wild, seem to be able to sleep more. However, these specifically tracked animals are something special as the two females wearing activity recorders for about a month averaged less sleep than any other recorded mammals. Manger believes “especially intriguing is the elephants’ ability to skip a night’s sleep without needing extra naps later.” The results of the experiment are yielding the question of what sleep’s purpose truly is and begging scientists to rethink their theories. “Ideas that sleep restores or resets aspects of the brain for peak performance can’t explain animals that sleep only a little and don’t need catch-up rest...The results also don’t fit well with the thought that animals need sleep to consolidate memories” says Niels Rattenborg of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany. However, it remains unclear how these findings for two females will translate to entire elephant populations. But the results “do fit a trend that links larger species with shorter sleep and smaller species with longer sleep” according to Manger. Manger and his colleagues are hypothesizing that sleep duration might be related to a daily time budget. Bigger animals may sleep less as they need that time for tasks to sustain their size. Building and maintaining an elephant body, may take more feeding time than maintaining a minute bat body (bats sleep over 18 hours a day).
This article and its premise about the concept of sleep’s purpose will be transformative in our society. As we better understand the thing so many of us do for nearly a third of our lives, we may better understand ourselves. Although elephants seem very different than humans, we are both mammals and perhaps we will learn something about surviving off less sleep which would make our societies even more productive. Although just speculation this could make a major difference in the way our society functions. Additionally, this article exemplifies how keeping animals in captivity may interfere with their natural sleep cycles which may perhaps be unhealthy for them.
The author of this article, Susan Milius, overall wrote a wonderful piece. I particularly enjoyed her use of quotes as well as her evident in-depth research about the topic. By including the ideas and point of views of many leading researchers on the topic Milius asserts a sense of authority and intellectual exploration of the complex issue.Additionally, Milius does an excellent job juxtaposing the sleep length of elephants versus bats in order to assert her notion that smaller animals sleep longer while large sleep less. However, Milius did err a little with her assertion of the significance of her article. For example, I felt that she never really included any ideas about why this research matters. Although, she provided in-depth details about the fitbit technology used and the findings found, Milius never stated why any of this matters. Even though the reader should come to their own conclusions I think it would have been advantageous is Milius had added just one short sentence about where this research may lead and its impact on how we view sleep’s purpose.
I read the article and review of “Wild Elephants Clock Shortest Shut-eye Recorded for Mammals” by Science News and I found it was an enjoyable read. I liked how the author gave a common fact many humans know and contradicted it using other sources, such as elephants. It challenged what we think we know and gave us an opposing view. Also, I liked how the author talked about that what scientists know and what they understand comes from captivated animals, not wild ones. This really opened my eyes to all of the other information that could have been altered just because they can control the experiment. Lastly, I liked how the author introduced quotes, one given by a professeur at the Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany. He talks about how unclear the information and data really is and how he plans to go ahead to prove it. As you can see, there were many good aspects of this article that just made it more interesting and relevant to the reader in general.
ReplyDeleteEven though there are many positive aspects, there are also some negative aspects. First, I did not like how the author did not really explain why the common concept of getting eight hours of sleep every night is wrong, he simply brought it up and shifted the view towards another subject, which was elephants. Also, I did not like how the author brought up how important this topic was but did not state why this matters and what she plans to do with this information. Without this information, it is an open-ended argument with no plans for the future. Although there are some crucial negative aspects, I believe the positives outweigh the negatives because of the significant research and thought in this idea.
I learned a lot from reading this article. First, I learned about the sleep cycle and length of elephants, which I did not even think about prior to this. Also, I learned about how influential the habitat of the animals are to the results of an experiment: Captivity may interfere with animals’ natural sleeping habits and cycles which may be unhealthy for them. This article changed my view on society a great deal because it made me realize that if captivity affects an animal's’ sleep cycle, how much else about an animal’s activities can it affect? Overall, I learned a lot from reading this article and I look forward to learning more about this topic in the future.