Insomniac mice and life in the fast lane
How many times do we wish we had more hours in the day?
US researchers have identified a rare genetic variation in humans that allows them to function normally on less sleep than us average 8 hour-a-night people – see link. They have also managed to transfer this genetic trait into mice creating a colony of insomniac rodents.
With our knowledge of genetic manipulation, cloning and nuclear transfer this has all sorts of implications past helping us cram a bit more into the day. Human enhancement has been a hot topic of late – see “Are we going Cyborg” on recent GNTIS post.
Soldiers in the battlefield often operate under sleep deprived conditions. I am sure the military would love to find a way to ensure their soldiers work optimally on as little sleep as possible. And there are people seriously pondering how to enhance future soldiers – physically and mentally. Check out this report on Human Enhancement and Ethics by the Ethics and Emerging Sciences group.
And check this Wired article that outlines what the US military have in mind for any budding grunt, though much of this doesn’t involve permanent enhancement by tweaking the genes. But would they, if they could?
Maybe truckies would prefer some of this therapy to popping the other ‘head buzzers’ that keep them driving through the night.
Of course, there are all sorts of people with serious sleep disorders that this knowledge may eventually help, but it is always fun to draw that ‘long bow’ and pretend you are a science fiction writer – or is that non-fiction?
Jason Major