Animals may have 'active' sleep phases similar to human REM cycles.
Young jumping spiders dangle by a thread through the night, in a box, in a lab. Every so often, their legs curl and their spinnerets twitch — and the retinas of their eyes, visible through their translucent exoskeletons, shift back and forth.
, they found that the creatures had brief REM-like spells about every 17 minutes. The eye-darting behavior was specific to these bouts: It didn’t happen at times in the night when the jumping spiders stirred, stretched, readjusted their silk lines or cleaned themselves with a brush of a leg. Rößler isn’t the only researcher thinking about such questions in animals distantly removed from ourselves. Today, researchers are finding signs of REM sleep in a broader array of animals than ever before: in spiders, lizards, cuttlefish, zebrafish. The growing tally has some researchers wondering whether dreaming, a state once thought to be limited to human beings, is far more widespread than once thought.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
What Happens to Animals in The Ocean During a Hurricane?When strong hurricanes hit land, the uprooted trees, destroyed homes, and other devastation are highly visible.
Read more »
CultureLab: The weird ways animals sense the world – Ed Yong on his book An Immense WorldWhether it’s the hidden colours of ultraviolet that bees can see, the complex rhythms and tones of birdsong that we’re unable to hear, or the way a dog can smell the past in incredible detail, the way humans experience the world is not the only way.Every animal has its own ‘umwelt’ – a unique sensory experience that allows it to perceive the world differently. As humans we can barely begin to understand what the world looks like to many of the other creatures that inhabit the Earth. But author Ed Yong is helping to paint a picture…In this episode of CultureLab, Christie Taylor speaks to Ed about the paperback release of his book An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, which looks at more than 100 different species and explores the amazing ways their sensory worlds are shaped by light, sound, vibrations, heat and even electrical charge.To read about subjects like this and much more, visit newscientist.com.
Read more »
Burbank High School students learn science, reasearch by raising animalsThe students that are part of the Agricultural Sciences Program at Burbank High School are focusing on the science and research of animals.
Read more »
Invasive species are animals, too: Considering a humane approachInvasive alien species are animals that may pose a threat to biodiversity, but it's time to deal with that threat in a more ethical way. 'We need to take a humane, long-term view and learn to co-exist, as some species considered invasive are here to stay,' argues Cebuan Bliss, an environmental researcher at Radboud University.
Read more »