Jan 3, 2018
The article was published on Jan 3, 2018, confirming it is up-to-date. The Atlantic posts their articles just today October 8, showing its currency.
27 Matching Annotations
- Oct 2018
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www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
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he precise benefits of sleep are still mysterious, and for many biologists, the unknowns are transfixing.
This is the thesis sentence. Veronique brings up a point about the fact of the matter is that the "benefits of sleep are still mysterious."
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Why Do We Need to Sleep?
The tittle seems kind of simple that I can read and understand it easily. The content of the article is totally related to what I want to know about this topic, showing the article's relevance.
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In the first half of the 20th century, other researchers began to tape electrodes to the scalps of human subjects, trying to peer within the skull at the sleeping brain.
This is a topic sentence. Veronique describes what is happening when researchers try to look "within the skull at the sleeping brain". She told that the EEGs changes through different stages of sleep.
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In the first half of the 20th century, other researchers began to tape electrodes to the scalps of human subjects, trying to peer within the skull at the sleeping brain. Using electroencephalographs, or EEGs, they discovered that, far from being turned off, the brain has a clear routine during the night’s sleep. As the eyes close and breathing deepens, the tense, furious scribble of the waking mind on the EEG shifts, morphing into the curiously long, loping waves of early sleep. About 35 to 40 minutes in, the metabolism has slowed, the breathing is even, and the sleeper is no longer easy to wake. Then, after a certain amount of time has passed, the brain seems to flip a switch and the waves grow small and tight again: This is rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep, when we dream. (One of the first researchers to study REM found that by watching the movements of the eyes beneath the lids, he could predict when infants would wake—a party trick that fascinated their mothers.) Humans repeat this cycle over and over, finally waking at the end of a bout of REM, minds full of fish with wings and songs whose tunes they can’t remember.
Negative: This paragraph has some medical terms (such as EEGs, REM) that I am not familiar with, so I think the information is more appropriate for those who already have previous knowledge of sleep and diseases relate to sleep.
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Full of rooms of gleaming equipment, quiet chambers where mice slumber, and a series of airy work spaces united by a spiraling staircase, it’s a place where tremendous resources are focused on the question of why, exactly, living things sleep.
Veronique describes the chambers where the experiments were conducted. As a freelance journalist, she breaks down the rigidity of a science article by using descriptive elements.
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The Atlantic Daily
This link is functional, showing it is an active site that everyone reads it, and the information is updated daily. Furthermore, I can find all the latest and popular news on the banner. All these elements are clickable and functional as well.
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As researchers probe outward into the mysterious darkness of sleepiness, these discoveries shine ahead of them like flashlight beams, lighting the way.
Veronique says that "researchers probes outward into the darkness of sleepness" , and they still looking for the answer.
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We are convinced, for ourselves, that SIK3 is one of the central players,” says Yanagisawa.
Quote from an expert.
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These days, Yanagisawa and collaborators are working on a vast screening project aimed at identifying the genes related to sleep.
Topic sentence.
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Yanagisawa himself has always had a taste for epic projects, like screening thousands of proteins and cellular receptors to see what they do.
Topic sentence. She tells us that Yanagisawa and his collaborators realized a neurotransmitter named orexin. Without this substance, mice was "falling asleep."
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One group at the Tsukuba institute, led by Yu Hayashi, is destroying a select group of brain cells in mice, a procedure that can have surprising effects.
This information can be verified in another source, and Yu Hayashi explored the role and the mechanism of REM sleep, confirming the site's accuracy as well.
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There are still many unknowns about how this would work, and researchers are working many other angles in the quest to get to the bottom of sleep pressure and sleep.
This is the topic sentence.
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Chiara Cirelli and Giulio Tononi, sleep researchers at the University of Wisconsin, suggest that since making these connections, or synapses, is what our brains do when we are awake, maybe what they do during sleep is scale back the unimportant ones, removing the memories or images that don’t fit with the others, or don’t need to be used to make sense of the world. “Sleep is a way of getting rid of the memories in a way that is good for the brain,” Tononi speculates.
I can verify this information in another source which is the article titled " The Purpose of Sleep, To Forget, Scientists Say," which was published in The New York Times on February 2, 2017. It reinforces the accuracy of the site.
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Sleep-inducing substances may come from the process of making new connections between neurons.
This is the topic sentence. She brings up a point that the "new connections between neurons" creates "sleep-inducing substances."
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if adenosine puts us under at the moment of transition from wakefulness to sleep, where does it come from
Topic sentence. Veronique raises a question that the origin of adenosine that cause the "transition from wakefulness to sleep," and "there isn't a consensus" about the answers.
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The search for the hypnotoxin was not unsuccessful.
Topic sentence. She concludes that "search for the hypnotoxin" was successful. However, they still haven't "fully explained" how the body control the sleep pressure.
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Biological research into sleep pressure began more than a century ago.
Topic sentence.
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If you needed more proof that sleep, with its peculiar many-staged structure and tendency to fill your mind with nonsense, isn’t some passive, energy-saving state, consider that golden hamsters have been observed waking up from bouts of hibernation—in order to nap.
Topic sentence. She mentions that our minds are full of "nonsense", and sleep "isn't some passive, energy-saving state."
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Sleep pressure changes these brain waves.
This is the topic sentence. The writer thinks that the changes of brain waves depend on sleep pressure.
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Surely, the identity of this hypnotoxin, as the French researcher called it, would reveal why animals grow drowsy.
This is a closing sentence.
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The more time you spend thinking about sleep pressure, the more it seems like a riddle game out of Tolkien:
Topic sentence. Veronique compares the unknown knowledge about sleep that scientists are looking for with "dark matter." She also raises some questions asking about "what builds up" when we are awake causing us to the need of sleep and whether it "diserses during sleep."
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Even simple jellyfish have to rest longer after being forced to stay up, one researcher marvels, referring to a new paper where the little creatures were nudged repeatedly with jets of water to keep them from drifting off.
Style of evidence: Facts.
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On the table, dishes of vegetable and seafood tempura sit cooling, forgotten in the face of these enigmas.
This is a closing sentence, showing us how complicated the problem is.
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Whatever sleep gives to the sleeper is worth tempting death over and over again, for a lifetime.
This is the topic sentence. Veronique shows us sleep is "a risky habit is so common" because it is dangerous to sleep at night in the past during "the hurried scramble for survival".
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Ask researchers this question, and listen as, like clockwork, a sense of awe and frustration creeps into their voices.
The information comes from scientists of the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine, showing the accuracy of this article. In addition, I can find related information in BBC News, meaning this information is reliable.
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Veronique Greenwood
She is a science journalist, and her works were posted on The New York Times, The Atlantic, BBC Future, etc. We can contact her through her email attached at the bottom of this article, so that confirms the site's authority.
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