[HN Gopher] Scientists Find Second 'Short Sleep' Gene (2019)
___________________________________________________________________
Scientists Find Second 'Short Sleep' Gene (2019)
Author : fybs
Score : 42 points
Date : 2021-06-12 15:54 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ucsf.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ucsf.edu)
| cptskippy wrote:
| > Using a technique known as optogenetics, in which cells are
| modified so they can be activated by light, the researchers
| focused light on neurons in the pons to stimulate those in which
| ADRB1 was expressed.
|
| I feel like there's a Manchuria Candidate story waiting to
| written about this.
|
| That's cool as hell.
| mohn wrote:
| It is cool, but having fiber optics poking out of your head is
| pretty conspicuous.
|
| Chemogenetics (RASSLs/DREADDs)[0] and magnetogenetics[1] allow
| for more subtle activation. The interesting magnetogenetics
| results from the mid 2010s were not well-reproduced in the late
| 2010s, but the physical principle seems sound to me. I'm still
| hopeful that the technique will see successful application in
| mammals. Being able to turn the effect off quickly by stopping
| the external stimulation (vs. having to wait for drug
| metabolism/excretion in the case of chemogenetics) seems very
| useful.
|
| Edit: the magnetoreceptors I read about in 2018 were naturally
| occurring in some turbid-water-dwelling fish. If they don't
| work well outside the chemical environment of the fish brain,
| it may be a while before a suitable alternative receptor can be
| discovered/engineered and used effectively in mammals.
|
| Skepticism about the utility of magnetogenetics is definitely
| warranted, given how much RF pollution there is in our
| environment. If your patients have to live the rest of their
| lives in a shielded room (or wearing a helmet) to prevent
| unintentional stimulation, then it's not a very good therapy.
| It could still be useful for preclinical research where you
| have more control over your subjects' environment, though.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Receptor_activated_solely_by_a...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetogenetics
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| If there is one genetic quirk that I am extremely envious of,
| it's definitely this one. From the article:
|
| > But natural short sleepers actually seem to benefit from this
| quirk of their biology. Fu says researchers have found that short
| sleepers tend to be more optimistic, more energetic and better
| multitaskers. They also have a higher pain threshold, don't
| suffer from jet lag and some researchers believe they may even
| live longer.
|
| I'm the opposite, I guess I'd be categorized as a "long sleeper"
| - the "natural" length of my sleep is ~9 hours. I feel pretty
| chronically lethargic, and if I go under 8 hours for multiple
| nights in a row I feel completely awful and often end up getting
| sick.
| amelius wrote:
| There probably are downsides to this gene later in life.
| Evolution is always about tradeoffs.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Evolution happens through reproduction, which tends to happen
| earlier in life. So if some gene confers an advantage in
| early life but a disadvantage later on, it's likely the
| disadvantage won't stop it from spreading.
|
| If it's not widespread, it's either not an advantage that
| "matters" or maybe it possibly has some negative interaction
| with other traits that matter for reproduction.
| awillen wrote:
| That's not true - evolution is about the best genes for
| survivability and reproduction continuing to be passed along.
| The evolutionary perspective here wouldn't be that there are
| downsides to this, but rather that people with this mutation
| are better able to survive and reproduce, so we'd expect it
| to be passed onto more offspring over the generations.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, this happens in the long run. In the short term, when
| a single gene has massive benefit, there must be some
| negative effect too, otherwise the entire population would
| quickly get that gene and that's not what we see here.
| harry8 wrote:
| You are going to live long enough and be able to
| reproduce with about the same probability all other
| things equal whether you need 3 hours or 10 sleep
| nightly. There's very little evolutionary pressure even
| if you would massively and hugely prefer one of those
| over the other.
|
| The kind of non-survival genetics that could be selected
| for in the modern world are those that make multiple
| women (nature can be pretty sexist) want to throw caution
| to the wind and have babies fathered by a man with some
| desirable attribute. I have no idea if this actually
| happens in reality with heritable genes. Eg do basketball
| players pass on a greater than average amount of their
| genetics (more children with more women) by virtue of
| being tall making them more sexually desirable to those
| who might become single mothers? Plausible, I guess, but
| could easily be utterly false. I don't know how you'd
| test it even in the absence of ethical concerns.
| neutronicus wrote:
| Obvious answer:
|
| The benefit is real, but minor
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I wouldn't say "minor." In real terms, I think it's a
| huge advantage in our current society. But it's just not
| strongly selected for.
| farresito wrote:
| Maybe the downside is that someone who sleeps less will also
| tend to wander during the night, which increased the risk of
| dying before the modern world.
| grp000 wrote:
| I think that's down to risk management skills of an
| individual. It could also be the case that sleeping less
| means you're more aware of external threats and ambushes
| and you can be more productive.
| canadianfella wrote:
| No. Not always.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| Surely there must be some downside to it.
|
| If it weren't so, one would have expected this gene to spread
| across the human genepool millions of years ago.
|
| There must be something that is overlooked.
|
| Perhaps, optimism is not a good ticket to survival: _I am quite
| optimistic that this larger, scary looking animal has no
| intention to eat me._
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Not necessarily. 1) It could be a relatively recent mutation.
| 2) It's probably not particularly important for sexual
| selection.
| woopwoop wrote:
| I would imagine short sleepers need more calories.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| Its only recently that humans gained the ability to control
| the illumination and temperature of their work environment.
|
| Sleeping less would have been of no advantage when you have
| 8hours+ of night for each 24 hour period anyway.
| neutronicus wrote:
| Used to be, boredom killed humans like curiosity kills cats
|
| Turning off for 9 hours was a defense mechanism
| IshKebab wrote:
| That's a particularly implausible hypothesis.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| Given all the very advantageous qualities this gene has
| to offer, there must be at leas some considerable
| downsides to it indeed.
| malshe wrote:
| I am a long sleeper as well and I don't see any downside to it!
| balfirevic wrote:
| It's like adding 1-2 hours to the commute, only worse because
| you can't listen to anything during that time and you have to
| do it on weekends, the days you WFH and during vacations too.
| edeion wrote:
| On the flip side, I see longer sleep routine as an opportunity
| to dream more.
|
| (Says one who needs 10 hours of sleep to function at normal
| performance :))
| StrangeClone wrote:
| Will I be rejected during job interviews based on genes?
| didibus wrote:
| Now it would be interesting to see if both type of short sleeper
| from both gene similarly don't suffer any health effects and have
| the same health benefits, or if it's only one of them.
|
| The way this gene effect was described, it doesn't make sense why
| they'd see no negative side effect, since it promotes "waking
| up". The other gene felt more like it allowed the brain to sleep
| more efficiently and require less sleep.
| packhughes wrote:
| I'm sure the dna companies are salivating at their ability to
| sell another $60 gene report.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Why does this bother you?
|
| People drop $60 on video games, $50 on going to a movie, $100
| on lottery tickets, $500 on cigarettes, and $2000 on first-
| class flights every day, and most of these are no big deal,
| just a person spending their money on entertainment in their
| own life.
|
| If they want to spend $60 out of mild curiosity on a genetic
| test, I don't understand why it merits some kind of particular
| scorn.
| packhughes wrote:
| It's the first thing I thought of when I read the headline.
| Capitalism has turned me into cynical asshole. How people
| spend their money is no concern of mine.
| fb13 wrote:
| True until you look at gambling and _other_ products
| engineered to maximize addiction.
| dang wrote:
| Could you please stop creating accounts for every few
| comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is
| in the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to
| be a community, users need some identity for other users
| to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames
| and no community, and that would be a different kind of
| forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&
| type=comme...
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| Do people really do that?
|
| Personally, I do not read usernames and have never had
| the experience on _H.N._ of recognizing a username as I
| have on some other fora that have signatures, avatars,
| profile pages, and other such facilities to create an
| identity.
|
| The culture of _H.N._ also favors giving technical,
| impersonal comments, which consequently leave out even
| more of a personal identity.
|
| I have really never felt on _H.N._ that I was responded
| to in a way that connected me to anything I said prior;
| no one brought such a thing up.
| dang wrote:
| Are you asking whether people relate to each other on HN?
| Of course they do. It's a key aspect of the community
| here.
|
| Users who undermine that system, in the way that I
| described above, are in a sense freeloading off the
| community established by others.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| > _Are you asking whether people relate to each other on
| HN? Of course they do. It 's a key aspect of the
| community here._
|
| I'm asking whether people actually pay attention to
| usernames to any significant degree and recognize them.
| grzm wrote:
| For another point of reference, I do. Reading comments, I
| also see people refer to and recognize community members
| such as 'tptacek, 'rayiner, 'dragonwriter,
| 'DoreenMichele, and many others. For what it's worth, I
| also recognize your username. Given the number of people
| on HN, I'm sure there are others that really don't pay
| much attention, but I know for a fact that there are also
| those that do.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| I suppose.
|
| The reason I wondered was because I never had anyone
| reference anything I said prior to me, whereas I've had
| this happen on _4chan_ to me, a forum _sans_ usernames
| because someone recognized my writing style or opinions.
| oblak wrote:
| I manage about 6 hours on average. Sometimes 3-4, sometimes but
| not often, even 7. Been like that for as long as I can remember.
|
| If there's an advantage to this, it's yet to manifest itself in a
| way that I can recognize. Plus, it's boring because days aren't
| 28 hours long despite my needs. I would totally opt to need 8
| hours if that would help me retain health and good looks.
|
| Focusing on something often drags me down to 3-4 hours for up to
| 15 days or so. It's exhausting though and I bounce back to my
| medium after a good 6.5-7 hour sleep.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-06-12 23:01 UTC)