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Episode 161 - Sleep

The Common Descent Podcast

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The Benefits of Sleeping With One Eye Open

We also see this unilateral eye closure in lots of reptiles. Turtles, lizards, crocodilians have all shown this. It's unclear whether they have half the brain asleep. So we don't know for sure that that's seeing mechanism going on. But one eye is open. And it will be open more often if potential threats have been noted to be nearby. That level of activity we see during REM sleep might be accomplished by the awake half of the brain. We also see with a lot of migrating and flying birds a lack of sleep - seasonal sleeplessness.

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