Did I post Goodbye Winter a few days ago!
All these photographs were taken on Friday, 14th March, 2025
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Picture Parade Four Hundred and Sixty-Four
Year: 2025
More about how we sleep.
Matthew Walker addresses how sleep can be our superpower.
‘Sleep is your life-support system and Mother Nature’s best effort yet at immortality, says sleep scientist Matt Walker. In this deep dive into the science of slumber, Walker shares the wonderfully good things that happen when you get sleep — and the alarmingly bad things that happen when you don’t, for both your brain and body. Learn more about sleep’s impact on your learning, memory, immune system and even your genetic code — as well as some helpful tips for getting some shut-eye.’ It is fascinating.
Before we go to the TED Talk video here is biographical information on Matthew Walker:
Matt Walker is a brain scientist trying to understand why we sleep.
Why you should listen:
Matt Walker’s research examines the impact of sleep on human health and disease. He got his PhD from the Medical Research Council in London, UK, and subsequently became a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He’s currently a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science.
Walker has received funding awards from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and he’s a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. He has shared his research on the importance of sleep on television and radio outlets including CBS’s “60 Minutes,” National Geographic, NOVA Science, NRP and the BBC. He is the author of the international bestseller Why We Sleep and host of the TED original series Sleeping with Science.
Matt has eighteen videos on sleep. He has these videos under the general approach to the subject:
Sleep is your life-support system and Mother Nature’s best effort yet at immortality, says sleep scientist Matt Walker. In this deep dive into the science of slumber, Walker shares the wonderfully good things that happen when you get sleep — and the alarmingly bad things that happen when you don’t, for both your brain and body. Learn more about sleep’s impact on your learning, memory, immune system and even your genetic code — as well as some helpful tips for getting some shut-eye. This text taken from here.
Then more generally one can go here and read:
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Background
Sleep is far more than just a period of rest—it’s a complex, active process during which the brain cycles through distinct stages, each marked by unique patterns of brain activity.
While scientists still debate sleep’s true purpose, research has proven it to be essential for survival. Both humans and animals suffer severe consequences without sleep, including cognitive decline, emotional instability, and eventual death. More than a third of adults regularly experience poor sleep, leading to increased risks of heart attack, Alzheimer’s disease, and motor vehicle accidents.
Brainwaves
During both wake and sleep states, the brain generates electrical rhythms called brainwaves, which represent oscillating patterns of brain cells (known as neurons) working together. Different brainwaves are associated with specific states of consciousness. For example, high-frequency beta waves dominate during alertness, while sleep features primarily theta and delta waves.
Stages
The drive to sleep is regulated by our circadian rhythm, a sort of body clock mediated by a brain region called the hypothalamus. Once asleep, the human sleep cycle proceeds through four stages, each characterized by unique brainwave patterns and physiological changes.
Light sleep (stages 1-2) begins as our heartbeat and breathing slow, muscles relax, and brainwaves transition from wakeful alpha waves to relaxed theta waves. Brief bursts of electrical activity called sleep spindles are especially prevalent during stage 2 and play a critical role in memory consolidation and learning.
Deep sleep (stage 3) is characterized by further decreased heart rates and slow delta brainwaves. This stage is most prevalent in the first half of the night and provides the majority of sleep’s restorative benefits.
Rapid eye movement sleep occurs in stage 4, about 90 minutes after falling asleep. During this stage, brain activity surges to near-waking levels, eyes move rapidly behind closed eyelids, and major muscles are temporarily paralyzed to prevent us from acting out our vivid dreams (how dreams work). After REM, the cycle begins again, with adults typically completing four to five cycles per night.
Mechanisms
During sleep, the brain performs several critical functions: consolidating short-term memories into long-term storage, preparing neurons for learning the following day, repairing tissues, and boosting the immune system.
Recent science has even shed light on a specialized “cleaning system” where cerebrospinal fluid is pumped through the brain to carry away toxic compounds that accumulate during wakefulness.
Disorders
Sleep disorders are exceedingly common and highlight the importance of a functioning sleep cycle. As an example, narcolepsy occurs when patients lack hypocretin, a brain chemical essential for regulating the sleep cycle. Patients with narcolepsy experience sudden, irresistible sleep episodes and can fall directly into REM sleep rather than progressing through the normal stages.
Other common disorders include insomnia (difficulty falling or staying asleep), sleep apnea (interrupted breathing during sleep), and REM behavior disorder (muscle paralysis fails during REM sleep).
Future
Scientists continue to explore promising avenues for improving our sleep and treating sleep disorders. Advanced brain imaging may soon allow us to visualize sleep’s cleaning mechanisms in real-time.
Meanwhile, the rise of wearable sleep trackers is generating unprecedented amounts of sleep data—though researchers caution that current technology may not accurately measure sleep stages. Future developments in wearable sensors will likely bridge this gap, enabling earlier detection and better management of altered sleep.
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Clearly this is an area of research that continues and, presumably, will come up with more detailed evidence. As was stated just a few paragraphs above: ‘Sleep disorders are exceedingly common … ‘
One of the common characteristics of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is sleep interruption. Not every single night but maybe two or three times a week.
Hopefully it will not be many years before PD sufferers can rely on getting a good nights sleep practically every night.
The US decline in butterflies
The natural world is quite remarkable!
This article was published in The Conversation last Thursday, the 6th March, 2025.
Where we live in rural Southern Oregon is glorious and photos of our locale have been published before. However, I wanted to share this article with you all.
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Butterflies declined by 22% in just 2 decades across the US – there are ways you can help save them
Eliza Grames, Binghamton University, State University of New York
If the joy of seeing butterflies seems increasingly rare these days, it isn’t your imagination.
From 2000 to 2020, the number of butterflies fell by 22% across the continental United States. That’s 1 in 5 butterflies lost. The findings are from an analysis just published in the journal Science by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Powell Center Status of Butterflies of the United States Working Group, which I am involved in.
We found declines in just about every region of the continental U.S. and across almost all butterfly species.
Overall, nearly one-third of the 342 butterfly species we were able to study declined by more than half. Twenty-two species fell by more than 90%. Only nine actually increased in numbers.
Some species’ numbers are dropping faster than others. The West Coast lady, a fairly widespread species across the western U.S., dropped by 80% in 20 years. Given everything we know about its biology, it should be doing fine – it has a wide range and feeds on a variety of plants. Yet, its numbers are absolutely tanking across its range.
Why care about butterflies?
Butterflies are beautiful. They inspire people, from art to literature and poetry. They deserve to exist simply for the sake of existing. They are also important for ecosystem function.
Butterflies are pollinators, picking up pollen on their legs and bodies as they feed on nectar from one flower and carrying it to the next. In their caterpillar stage, they also play an important role as herbivores, keeping plant growth in check.
Butterflies can also serve as an indicator species that can warn of threats and trends in other insects. Because humans are fond of butterflies, it’s easy to get volunteers to participate in surveys to count them.
The annual North American Butterfly Association Fourth of July Count is an example and one we used in the analysis. The same kind of nationwide monitoring by amateur naturalists doesn’t exist for less charismatic insects such as walking sticks.
What’s causing butterflies to decline?
Butterfly populations can decline for a number of reasons. Habitat loss, insecticides, rising temperatures and drying landscapes can all harm these fragile insects.
A study published in 2024 found that a change in insecticide use was a major factor in driving butterfly declines in the Midwest over 17 years. The authors, many of whom were also part of the current study, noted that the drop coincided with a shift to using seeds with prophylactic insecticides, rather than only spraying crops after an infestation.
The Southwest saw the greatest drops in butterfly abundance of any region. As that region heats up and dries out, the changing climate may be driving some of the butterfly decline there. Butterflies have a high surface-to-volume ratio – they don’t hold much moisture – so they can easily become desiccated in dry conditions. Drought can also harm the plants that butterflies rely on.
Only the Pacific Northwest didn’t lose butterfly population on average. This trend was largely driven by an irruptive species, meaning one with extremely high abundance in some years – the California tortoiseshell. When this species was excluded from the analyses, trends in the Pacific Northwest were similar to other regions.
When we looked at each species by its historical range, we found something else interesting.
Many species suffered their highest losses at the southern ends of their ranges, while the northern losses generally weren’t as severe. While we could not link drivers to trends directly, the reason for this pattern might involve climate change, or greater exposure to agriculture with insecticides in southern areas, or it may be a combination of many stressors.
There is hope for populations to recover
Some butterfly species can have multiple generations per year, and depending on the environmental conditions, the number of generations can vary between years.
This gives me a bit of hope when it comes to butterfly conservation. Because they have such short generation times, even small conservation steps can make a big difference and we can see populations bounce back.
The Karner blue is an example. It’s a small, endangered butterfly that depends on oak savannas and pine barren ecosystems. These habitats are uncommon and require management, especially prescribed burning, to maintain. With restoration efforts, one Karner blue population in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve in New York rebounded from a few hundred individuals in the early 1990s to thousands of butterflies.
Similar management and restoration efforts could help other rare and declining butterflies to recover.
What you can do to help butterflies recover
The magnitude and rate of biodiversity loss in the world right now can make one feel helpless. But while national and international efforts are needed to address the crisis, you can also take small actions that can have quick benefits, starting in your own backyard.
Butterflies love wildflowers, and planting native wildflowers can benefit many butterfly species. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has guides recommending which native species are best to plant in which parts of the country. Letting grass grow can help, even if it’s just a strip of grass and wildflowers a couple of feet wide at the back of the yard.
Supporting policies that benefit conservation can also help. In some states, insects aren’t considered wildlife, so state wildlife agencies have their hands tied when it comes to working on butterfly conservation. But those laws could be changed.
The federal Endangered Species Act can also help. The law mandates that the government maintain habitat for listed species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in December 2024 recommended listing the monarch butterfly as a threatened species. With the new study, we now have population trends for more than half of all U.S. butterfly species, including many that likely should be considered for listing.
With so many species needing help, it can be difficult to know where to start. But the new data can help concentrate conservation efforts on those species at the highest risk.
I believe this study should be a wake-up call about the need to better protect butterflies and other insects – “the little things that run the world.”
Eliza Grames, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Binghamton University, State University of New York
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Thank you, Eliza, for promoting this article.
If only one person is inspired to make the changes Eliza recommends then republishing this article has been a success.
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