In article <ewass-260794112952 at hmc25.ninds.nih.gov> ewass at helix.nih.gov (Eric Wassermann) writes:
>In article <CtJvIo.FJ9 at murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
>asa3h at galen.med.Virginia.EDU (Adam Stephen Arthur) wrote:
>>>>>> I ran across an interesting thing about dolphin brains last
>> year. Appparently their two hemispheres are alternately
>> active. The original reference was (if I remember correctly)
>> in Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind" but I ran it down and
>> found it quite fascinating. EEG recordings showed delta wave
>> patterns in one hemisphere (sleep?) while the other was active
>> and vice versa. The supposition was that since they are
>> aquatic mammals, this was a mechanism to keep them moving at
>> all times; the organism as a whole never slept. The
>> possible implications for human hemisphericity are interesting.
>>>> I'd love to hear if anyone knows whether other species (aquatic
>> mammals or otherwise) do anything similar from someone out
>> there who studies this sort of thing.
>>Birds do it (but not bees or educated fleas).
Not all birds. Pigeons, for example, don't seem to. I can't recall the
reference offhand, but I believe the bird species tested were long distance
migrators. But my memory is vague on this.
Eric
--
Eric Mintz | "Run! Seek Shelter! The 7-year dung
Department of Biology | frogs are migrating!"
University of California, Santa Cruz | -- Robotman (actually, his tour guide)
