Gene Variation That Lets People Get by on Fewer Zees Is Transferred into Mice

A University of Utah sleep expert has joined with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Stanford University to identify a genetic variation in humans, which the scientists also developed in mouse models, that allows a rare number of people to require less sleep than others. The discovery arose after a 68-year-old woman contacted Jones' collaborators to volunteer for sleep research, telling him she had an unusually early morning wake-up time. Both the woman and her daughter go to bed between 10 and 10:30 p.m. and wake up between 4 and 4:30 in the morning. Yet, their 18-hour day does not affect their energy level or ability to function. More on "healthcare.utah.edu":[ http://healthcare.utah.edu/publicaffairs/news/current/ChrisJonesSleepGene1.html]

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