(つ◔౪◔)つ━☆゚.*・。゚ The 2023 TKSST Gift Guide ✩°。⋆・゚  
Get smart curated videos delivered to your inbox.   SUBSCRIBE
The Kid Should See This

Do jellyfish sleep?

Watch more with these video collections:

At first glance, humans seem to have very little in common with Cassiopea, a primitive jellyfish. Cassiopea is brainless, spineless, and spends essentially its entire life sitting upside down on the ocean floor, pulsating every few seconds. However, Caltech scientists have now discovered that, as different as our daily schedules may seem, humans and jellyfish actually start and end their days with the same behavior: sleep. This finding that jellyfish sleep implies that sleep is an ancient behavior, largely untouched by millennia of evolution.

From CalTech.edu: Listen to graduate students and study co-authors Ravi Nath, Claire Bedbrook, and Michael Abrams as they discuss their research on the Cassiopea jellyfish and its sleep-like behaviors—”the first example of sleep in animals without a brain.” Their nightly behaviors include a decrease of rhythmic bell pulsing, slower reactions to changes around them, and when kept active at night, a decrease in activity the next day.

Watch them without narration:

Related listening at SciFri: What Is Sleep? A ‘Superpower,’ a ‘Power Cleanse’.

Follow this with the benefits of a good night’s sleep and why do we sleep and how do different animals sleep? Plus: More jellyfish.

🌈 Watch these videos next...

Yawns, a collection film by The Mercadantes

Rion Nakaya

Why do we sleep and how do different animals sleep?

Rion Nakaya

What is it like to live in space? Astronaut Chris Hadfield reports from ISS

Rion Nakaya

What can you make with CalTech’s smart chain mail?

Rion Nakaya

What 3 tips can help you study effectively?

Rion Nakaya

Three quarters of deep-sea animals are bioluminescent

Rion Nakaya

This unidentified jellyfish has ‘gobsmacked’ a jellyfish expert

Rion Nakaya

There’s no such thing as a jellyfish

Rion Nakaya

The Mindfulness of the Jellyfish

Rion Nakaya