Word: sleeps
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...farmhouses and pastoral symphonies on either bank. Until this summer, visitors who wished to savor the creamy countryside of Normandy had to cope with traffic and train schedules. But now, if they wish, they can finally take to the water and its welcome privacies. The M.S. Normandie, the first sleep-aboard luxury cruise ship to shuttle the Seine, made its maiden voyage from Honfleur to Paris this month, arriving to fireworks and Gershwin and a flotilla of welcoming rivercraft...
...ship glides along at 13 m.p.h. during the day and ties up at night, so that passengers may eat and sleep in peace without missing any of the scenery. Guests are well advised to pack carefully: shoes with nonslip soles, much film, a copy of Madame Bovary, binoculars and five fewer pounds than their ideal weight. This is, after all, the province of dense cheeses, Calvados, orchards and plump, happy cows munching the grassy slopes and thinking buttery thoughts...
...best-known rhythms are circadian, from the Latin, meaning "about a day." The sleep-wake cycle is the most obvious, but the body's production of hormones also fluctuates significantly over 24 hours. Says Charles Ehret, president of General Chronobionics, a research and consulting company in Hinsdale, Ill.: "Chemically, you are a very different person at noon than you are at night...
Investigators analyzing the blowup of the Challenger shuttle and the disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have found that in each case, critical errors were made by people struggling with unusual work schedules and lack of sleep. The two nuclear plant accidents happened in the wee hours of the morning. Similarly, most truck wrecks related to fatigue occur between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. "Shift workers classically have to perform when their brains are trying to put them to sleep," observes Dr. Charles Czeisler of Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital. "They are fighting the internal clock." Many...
Scientists are also exploring ways of resetting the body's clocks. Among the possible methods: using exercise, changing diet, or varying the amount of light or sleep. Even chemical intervention is being considered. Says neurobiologist Fred Turek of Northwestern University: "One of our goals is to find safe drugs that can speed up your clock or slow it down." Such techniques offer the possibility that one day, humans will be not just captives but masters of biological time...