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230 points mdp2021 | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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avar ◴[] No.41868092[source]
This article doesn't even try to address what I feel is the deeper and more interesting question (but probably one that can't be answered): Why is it that horses, cows, giraffes and birds have all had to come up with a purely passive solution of "locking" themselves in place, either via their joints (for the four-legged), or via the tendon mechanism described here for birds?

I.e. why wasn't in simpler in evolutionary terms to come up with some mechanism where 1% of the brain was dedicated to the relatively simple task of "station keeping", while the rest of the brain could benefit from sleep?

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meindnoch ◴[] No.41868139[source]
Also, why didn't any animal evolve a way to avoid sleep completely?
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interludead ◴[] No.41868270[source]
Sleep has crucial role in survival and well-being
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jajko ◴[] No.41868891[source]
Yeah but what role? 24h always at least a bit running brain has also crucial role in survival.

I get some form of maintenance is needed, but 8h every day seems like an overkill for very significant disadvantages. Many other mammals require significantly less sleep.

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1. Agentus ◴[] No.41869105[source]
According to sleep scientist mathew walker, it serves multiple roles, replenishment of resources obviously, but also behavior refinement (whatever you practice during the day gets practiced excessively while asleep), and sleep also is a creative and solution search.

He mentions that sleep is so crucial that despite how vulnerable it makes organisms to be debilitated 8 or whatever many hours a day, what it provides more than counterbalances that massive evolutionary vulnerability.