I like to find art and write poems and read magazines and listen to my iPod and daydream and walk my neighbor's dog - that one's my favorite

Friday, June 27, 2008

Sleep in invertebrates
The electrophysiological study of sleep in small invertebrates is complicated. However, even such simple animals as fruit flies appear to sleep, and systematic disturbance of that state leads to cognitive disabilities.[6] There are several methods of measuring cognitive functions in fruit flies. A common method is to let the flies choose whether they want to fly through a tunnel that leads to a light source, or through a dark tunnel. Normally, flies are attracted to light. But if sugar is placed in the end of the dark tunnel, and something the flies dislike is placed in the end of the light tunnel, the flies will eventually learn to fly towards darkness rather than light. Flies deprived of sleep require a longer time to learn this and also forget it more quickly. If an arthropod is experimentally kept awake longer than it is used to, then its coming rest period will be prolonged. In cockroaches that rest period is characterized by the antennae being folded down and by a decreased sensitivity to external stimuli.[7] Sleep has been described in crayfish, too, characterized both by passivity and increased thresholds for sensory stimuli as well as changes in the EEG pattern, markedly differing from the patterns found in crayfish when they are awake.[8]

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The thing about blogging is that it has now become the new tool by which the world is changed. Politics, fashion, art, television – you name it, we got it. It's not just the Internet anymore: it's YOUR Internet, it's OUR Internet. You can put your whole life online, and people will actually look at it, read it, feel it as if they almost knew you. Maybe that article you uploaded just for fun and because you thought it was cool will be discovered by a magazine editor who happens to be a blog junkie, or maybe that geeky little film you made at film camp will be watched by Wes Anderson – and even if he doesn't call you up and “discover you,” it's still really cool that he saw your video. When thinking about the Internet, I think of the ocean (and this metaphor is purely because I live in the Midwest): It's always there, it affects the weather, it affects the moon, it affects our lives even in Nebraska. Same with the Internet. It's there, it just affects different things.And you can't just yank out a big plug and BOOM, there goes the Internet. So this is my contribution to the huge ocean of Internet, the gigantic voice that we can all use.