Why Some Sleep Better Than Others

-According to Forbes Magazine.
The discovery of the gene, known as Dec2, was published in August in Science and became the first gene in humans known to control sleep quantity. The idea that a gene might determine sleep duration seemed improbable prior to this study, but the researchers also replicated the effect in mice and in fruit flies.

"Without that you could not convince anyone, not even myself," says Ying-Hui Fu, Ph.D, one of the UCSF researchers.

It's an important discovery, but not because it explains why so few Americans get the requisite eight hours of sleep; the fact that it was found in only two participants out of several hundred means that it's likely the gene is rare.

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