aeon-lakes

Sleep deprived humans micro sleep with increasing frequency as we get more sleep deprived and that is probably protective. Probably ...

The diabolical rat experiments were by Rechstaffen et al. This is the final paper in the series:

Rechtschaffen, A., Bergmann, B. M., Everson, C. A., Kushida, C. A., & Gilliland, M. A. (2002). Sleep deprivation in the rat: X. Integration and discussion of the findings. 1989. Sleep, 25(1), 68-87.

I doubt anyone is queuing up to do it on humans, so hopefully we never know for sure. ;-)

Yes. Sleep deprived rats die.

Sleep deprived humans don't seem to die directly from sleep deprivation. But we do suffer ill health from it and that almost certainly has an impact on longevity.

Sad to see this wasn't answered. It's probably the main reason Malaysia has such a large diaspora of educated citizens who've made a life outside of the country.

We did a stint with Mercy Ships long ago in Ghana. I used to drive the ship vans out to village clinics. Driving the conditions was certainly challenging and the antics of local drivers made it more so. My "favourite" bit was seeing the human load balancers on top of way overloaded lorries scurrying around to rearrange the load onto the inside of upcoming corners to make taking it "safer" —and then putting it all back again for the straights.

When we arrived in port with the MV Anastasis, I was a little surprised to see steel grills put up on every available access while we were on our way in. And even more surprised to be greeted by a group of angry and thwarted looking local gentlemen hanging off the one outside the 'shop' area when I went there to attend to something, even before we'd docked up properly. Until a wall of containers had been put up around the ship at the dock to make an 'airlock' area for the vehicles, we had an armed guard at the gang plank! Have the port areas become a bit less 'hot' in the last 20 years?