Tea at Trianon: Evolution and Sleep

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, February 1, 2021

Evolution and Sleep

From Live Science:

Sleep is near universal in the animal kingdom, seen in humans and all mammals, as well as in insects and even roundworms. However, all these creatures have some form of central nervous system, or brain, and so scientists didn't know whether the evolution of sleep preceded that of brains, or vice versa. Jellyfish, a relative of hydras that also lack a brain, have also demonstrated sleeplike behavior, Live Science previously reported. But the new study adds to these findings by showing that hydras not only sleep but also respond to the same molecules that regulate sleep in humans and other advanced animals.
"Based on our findings and previous reports regarding jellyfish, we can say that sleep evolution is independent of brain evolution," Itoh said. For the study, the researchers used a video-recording system — essentially a "hydra cam" — to monitor the hydras' movement and determine whether they had entered a sleeplike state, or a state of reduced movement that could be disrupted with a flashlight. They found that hydras had cycles of active and sleep states that lasted about four hours each. (Read more.)