Circadian rhythms and disrupted sleep cycles were the hot topics during a live 30-minute chat that I hosted on Friday, June 1, with SA Blogs Editor Bora Zivkovic. An edited transcript follows. Thanks to SA Senior Product Manager Angela Cesaro for technical support. (For further reading on circadian rhythm research, you can start by looking [...]

It may seem to you that, much like their barnyard animal namesake, men’s reproductive organs the world over participate in a mindless synchrony of stiffened salutes to the rising sun. In fact, however, such "morning wood" is an autonomic leftover from a series of nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT) episodes that occur like clockwork during the [...]

Tonight I will go to bed when I am tired, and tomorrow I will rise when I please: My Mars time experiment is over. For five weeks I’ve stayed put geographically, but my circadian rhythms have marched westward, advancing two-thirds of a time zone each morning to match the 24.65-hour day of our neighbor planet. [...]

Editor’s note: Researchers exploring Mars via rover and satellite have to adapt to the longer day on the Red Planet. Katie Worth, whose Can Earthlings Adapt to the Longer Day on Mars? for Scientific American last month describes the consequences of sleep-pattern changes, is trying it out herself. Follow her experiences in living on “Mars time” at [...]

Editor’s note: Researchers exploring Mars via rover and satellite have to adapt to the longer day on the Red Planet. Katie Worth, whose Can Earthlings Adapt to the Longer Day on Mars? for Scientific American last month describes the consequences of sleep-pattern changes, is trying it out herself. Follow her experiences in living on “Mars [...]

“The witching hour, someone had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves.” Roald Dahl, “The BFG,” about five minutes before [...]

Editor’s note: Researchers exploring Mars via rover and satellite have to adapt to the longer day on the Red Planet. Katie Worth, whose Can Earthlings Adapt to the Longer Day on Mars? for Scientific American last month describes the consequences of sleep-pattern changes, is trying it out herself. Follow her experiences in living on “Mars time” [...]

Editor’s note: Researchers exploring Mars via rover and satellite have to adapt to the longer day on the Red Planet. Katie Worth, whose Can Earthlings Adapt to the Longer Day on Mars? for Scientific Americanearlier this week describes the consequences of sleep-pattern changes, is trying it out herself. Follow her experiences in living on “Mars time” [...]

Editor’s note: Researchers exploring Mars via rover and satellite have to adapt to the longer day on the Red Planet. Katie Worth, whose Can Earthlings Adapt to the Longer Day on Mars? for Scientific American describes the consequences of sleep-pattern changes, is trying it out herself. Follow her experiences in living on “Mars time” at [...]

Editor’s note: Researchers exploring Mars via rover and satellite have to adapt to the longer day on the Red Planet. Katie Worth, whose Can Earthlings Adapt to the Longer Day on Mars? for Scientific American describes the consequences of sleep-pattern changes, is trying it out herself. Follow her experiences in living on “Mars time” at [...]

Editor’s note: Researchers exploring Mars via rover and satellite have to adapt to the longer day on the Red Planet. Katie Worth, whose Can Earthlings Adapt to the Longer Day on Mars? for Scientific American describes the consequences of sleep-pattern changes, is trying it out herself. Follow her experiences in living on “Mars time” at [...]

Editor’s note: Researchers exploring Mars via rover and satellite have to adapt to the longer day on the Red Planet. Katie Worth, whose Can Earthlings Adapt to the Longer Day on Mars? for Scientific American describes the consequences of sleep-pattern changes, is trying it out herself. Follow her experiences in living on “Mars time” at [...]

In dreams, could we discover where the mysterious feeling of revelation comes from? In "Too Hard for Science?" I interview scientists about ideas they would love to explore that they don’t think could be investigated. For instance, they might involve machines beyond the realm of possibility, such as particle accelerators as big as the sun, [...]

Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is known to increase the chances of causing an accident. For instance, marijuana can impair drivers’ reaction time. But what about drowsiness? As many as a third of all fatal car crashes might involve fatigued drivers, according to research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And [...]

Last month, psychiatrists at Stanford University announced that sleepwalking is on the rise. More than 8.4 million adult Americans—3.6 percent of the population over 18—are prone to sleepwalking. That’s up from a 2 percent prevalence the same authors found a decade ago. And as the latest issue of Scientific American Mind notes, a subset of [...]

It’s always nice to get the full recommended seven or nine hours of sleep every day. But life—and work—often gets in the way. And getting too little sleep can decrease attention and short-term memory and can also alter rational judgment—in addition to increasing the risk for some diseases and making it harder to lose weight. [...]

Sleep deprivation can lead to plenty of unwise decisions, which researchers have long tied to flagging attention and short-term memory. But a new study shows how just one night of missed sleep can make people more likely to chase big gains while risking even larger losses—independent of their tapering attention spans. A team of Duke [...]

Laying up for a solid night’s sleep might not sound like the best recipe for weight loss, but loads of research has pointed to the importance of sufficient shut-eye to losing weight. And a small new study shows that not getting enough sleep might severely cut into people’s ability to lose extra fat.  Researchers found [...]

Our eyes swivel restlessly in their sockets during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, an aptly named period of intense dreaming that makes up 20 to 25 percent of total sleep time. Whether this fidgeting is random or serves a function has never been clear, but a new study suggests that our eyes shift their gaze [...]

Dreams might be helping your brain do more than express Freudian fixations or practice escapes from prehistoric predators. They are there, in part, to help you learn, according to a new study from Harvard University. The idea that dreams can help with creative problem-solving has been discussed for decades, along with observations that sleep boosts [...]

The July/August issue of Scientific American Mind made its debut online late last week. Here I divulge some of the more surprising and useful lessons from its pages. Dozing Dangerously Sleepwalking is one of the strangest phenomena I have ever witnessed. Despite its name, it doesn’t resemble any other kind of sleep I’ve seen. To [...]

Among animal welfare professionals, those who work at zoos might have the toughest jobs. Keepers and curators at zoo must alternately serve as biologists, psychologists, trainers, chefs, janitors, and educators. Often, those hardworking individuals take on multiple roles at once. Another important job that keepers and curators perform at the zoo is that of gerontologist. [...]