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Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

science.org

241–250 of 325 posts

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, plants don't sleep, and neither do fungi or single celled organisms. Sleep seems to be a property specifically of animals.

Some plants do change to a "night" configuration though (closing leaves or petals, etc). Not sure if you could call it sleep.

I would be surprised by any organism that can sense its environment and doesn’t change behaviour at night. The difference is pretty extreme, whether its temperature, light or just all other beings changing what they’re doing. Even if you don’t notice yourself, you’ll probably be affected by second-order effects.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point. Maybe we found the mechanism to stay awake, but if that doesn't also translate to normalizing everything else that happens while sleeping, then who knows. Maybe people turn into wide awake zombies after a few days.

I mean you can suppress sleep right now with coffee, adrenaline and mind-control and this is what it results in.

Mind control? Do tell

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's almost exactly what people said about the appetite -- about the biochemical pathways which govern hunger, which are known to be massively redundant and overlapping. But then Ozempic was released and it turned out there was a shortcut after all. Which is not to say that such things are necessarily "healthy" or desirable, just that you can't rule out that biochemically-modifiable characteristics, however complex…

That's a pretty poor comparison. A drug that makes you not need sleep is more like a drug that prevents you from starving to death without eating.

I mean that would be TPN, where people can be kept alive indefinitely through intravenous fluids (and nutrients).

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#245
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the brain burns more power when doing mentally exhausting tasks than at idle, so it makes sense to have to recharge mitochondria in there. (the 'more' is not huge, like 5% - so it also makes sense to be tired after a lazy day I guess)

But we're sleepy every night regardless of how much or how little we have done mentally during the day. Doing more work (mental or physical) than usual will make us feel more tired, but the basic need for the 24hr sleep cycle is there regardless. We fundamentally sleep at night based on circadian rhythm (evolved from earth's 24hr day), not based on activity level. We do also feel tired after a strenuous activity, but…

And frankly, while a long day makes you feel more tired, I don't know that having to focus a lot or working out a bunch really makes me want to go to bed noticeably earlier.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly recommend red light therapy for this. There's a spreadsheet that contains [1] all the scientific research does on effect on mitochondria. [1]: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1ZKl5Me4XwPj4YgJC...

That’s a long list. Not all research is good research, or shows the effect you’re looking for. Where did this come from? Do you use red light therapy? For what? How often? Where do you focus it? I did manage to get some red light masks although I find it hard to fit into my routine

Would also be interested in a routine that makes sense.

People use habit stacking or habit chaining to get it into their routines - helps me tremendously to make new things a daily habit.

But this depends on how often red light therapy might be actually helpful.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#247

There is a difference between being physically tired as a result of metabolic effort, and being mentally tired/sleepy. Even if you lie on the couch all day you will still be tired come night time, and can not survive for long if deprived of sleep. It seems the mental need for sleep comes from the brain needing offline (no sensory input) downtime for "housekeeping" activities - perhaps essentially organizing and filin…

One of the ways this electron leak happens (from the chatGPT) is that fuel (NADH) exceeds energy demand (ATP). So a good way to push off the mental need for sleep is to get your body tired. So the processes aren’t quite perpendicular.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you can suppress sleep right now with coffee, adrenaline and mind-control and this is what it results in.

Mind control? Do tell

Haha.

I meant control by the mind, not hypnosis. (But maybe that also works?)

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was applicable to all neural networks, not just LLMs. Can we say that after ChatGPT's release in 2022, now antitech bros think everything is about LLMs specifically?

The statement was "AI frenzy almost convinced me that sleep was the training of our neural network with all the prompts of the day." Prompts are specific to LLMs. Most neural networks don't have prompts. Additionally, prompts happen during LLM inference, not LLM training. There are many non-technical people who claim they have experience "training" LLMs, when they are just an end user who added a lot of tokens to the…

You're being pretty pedantic about the specific term used. Everything they said makes sense if you change "prompts" to "training examples" and you wouldn't expect someone who hasn't implemented an AI model to know the difference.

It's like someone said while driving the car "let's give it some gas" and you said "but the tank is almost full" when they obviously meant "let's press the accelerator pedal"

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#250
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think GP was rigorous, but your comment is kind of pedantic, isn't it? Most people commenting here know that all models are false but some make good predictions, and achieving that status is enough for most laypeople to classify it as a (potential) answer. Going further, yes, this is a new theory among others, but afaik is the first one with strong evidence.

I don't mean it as an attack on GP, but no, I don't agree that this is pedantic. This happens constantly when science is popularized -- people read one article and leap to the conclusion that a problem has been revolutionized/solved/answered simply because they're reading about it -- and no, the HN audience is no better. Technophiles love a good scientific revolution story. It's very much a fundamental misunderstandi…

It might not be intended as an attack, but it does feels like one (especially that unnecesary jab at technophiles). Also I find it incredibly ironic that you are making so many assumptions about what GP meant, what HN audience understands from the article and what they will make of it just to make a point about philosophy of science and popsci.
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