[Guest]

I was just curious. In the absence of any other light from the outside, can we fully regulate the frog day-night cycles without doing harm to the frog? I mean can we just turn on the lights from 7 PM to 7 AM and have the frogs up and about during what is effectively night for most of us. Or do have frogs have some sixth sense about when it is day and night even if they are in a dark room?

 

[Guest]

I think it is possible because humans can be taught the same thing. My lights come on at 9 am and off at 10pm my frogs are hidden and sleep until about 830 am when they start to become active and hunker down at about 930 pm every night. They do have an internal clock but it can be ajusted over time because i used to have my lights set for 7 and 7 and they did the same thing. changed time to give me more viewing.

 

[edwardsatc]

Never tried it myself but I know several froggers that do this during the summer in order to keep the tanks cool during the heat of the day. The frogs seem to adjust quite quickly with no apparent negative affects.


Donn

 

[benmz]

They will absolutely change their day/night cycle. Many froggers do this in summer to keep them cool. Since the lights produce significant amounts of heat, you can reverse your cylce to light and warm your frogs when the temperature of the day is lower. meaning turing them on at say 7pm- off at 7am. Of course this would have to be done in a fairly dark area so that the sunlight doesn't affect them.

-Ben Zomer

 

[andersonii85]

circadian rhythm

Hello. I just wanted to say that what you all are talking about is the alteration of circadian rhythms. It is interesting because for some animals their sleep/wake cycle is mostly genetic. However, it also has a learned component, as someone said- researchers in France have put humans in a chamber that had no light in it or any other cues (watches, TV, etc.) and the observed them to see their sleep patterns. They then found ways of changing these patterns based on cues. This has been done to the extreme in fruit flies, where there are now flies that have a 1 hour sleep cycle and a 23 hour wake cycle. Good stuff.

Justin

 

[kyle1745]

Re: circadian rhythm

Can I get a 1 hour sleep cycle I could get a ton more done...

Hello. I just wanted to say that what you all are talking about is the alteration of circadian rhythms. It is interesting because for some animals their sleep/wake cycle is mostly genetic. However, it also has a learned component, as someone said- researchers in France have put humans in a chamber that had no light in it or any other cues (watches, TV, etc.) and the observed them to see their sleep patterns. They then found ways of changing these patterns based on cues. This has been done to the extreme in fruit flies, where there are now flies that have a 1 hour sleep cycle and a 23 hour wake cycle. Good stuff.

Justin

 

[andersonii85]

Re: circadian rhythm

Can I get a 1 hour sleep cycle I could get a ton more done...

LOL......Interesting thought, but it wouldn't work. We would need to eat so much food just to maintain our metabolism; plus, the study done on the flies showed that the flies had a sort of o.c. disorder- they would clean themselves for most of the time instead of foraging for food.

Justin

 

[mindcrash]

I read somewhere that scientists don't know why humans needed sleep and thought that it might not be completely necessary.

I can't remember where i read that, and it was quite a while ago, so take it with a few grains of salt.

 

[Guest]

i have heard the same thing mindcrash. it was a harvard study done in '98 or '99 where they basically simulated a sleep cycle with different chemicals and nutrients that fooled the body into thinking that it was asleep while the brain continued to present alpha and beta waves just like they were awake. the study proved that it was possible for the body to maintain that way, but showed signifigant psychological deterioration of the subjects. Hence forth they basicaly said "we dont know why, but you definitely need to sleep"

probably wasted several millon taxpayer dollars to tell us what our bodies already do. sleep is good =)