時差N小時:起床時間到了

Yael: It's time once again for the mailbag. Let's seewhat we have today. Dear A Moment of Science: Iwent to sleep one time and slept for twenty years.What in the world happened to me? Signed Rip.

雅艾爾：又到了讀信時間。來看看今天收到了什么。親愛的《科學一刻》欄目組：有一次我睡著了，一下子就過了20年。我究竟發(fā)生了什么事?署名瑞普。

Don: Well, Rip, you came to the right place. Whathappened is that your circadian rhythms got screwedup.

唐：好的，瑞普，你的選對地方了。你身上出現(xiàn)了晝夜節(jié)律紊亂。

Yael: Circadian rhythm. That's named after those insects that come out of the ground everyseven years isn't it?

雅艾爾：晝夜節(jié)律。這個術(shù)語來自于那些每七年才爬出地面的昆蟲，對嗎?

Don: No, no. Those are cicadas. This is circadian. It's from the Latin for "about a day."

唐：不，不。那些昆蟲是蟬。英文單詞蟬的變體就是circadian，出自拉丁語，意思是“大約一天。”

Yael: I knew that.

雅艾爾：我知道這一點。

Don: Anyway, the brain has an internal clock that affects a lot of bodily functions, such astemperature, when we get hungry, hormone levels, and so forth. Scientists believe this clockalso governs when we go to sleep and when we wake up.

唐：總之，大腦內(nèi)部有生物鐘，影響著身體的許多功能。當我們感到饑餓時，荷爾蒙水平持平，諸如此類。科學家們相信這種生物鐘也支配著人們睡覺和起床的時間。

Yael:I think I see how this clock works. We usually go to sleep at about the same time everynight, and for most of us about eight hours later we wake up.

雅艾爾：我想我明白生物鐘是如何工作的。我們每晚通常在一個點睡覺，大多數(shù)人睡足8小時后就自然醒來。

Don: Right. It's believed that we fall asleep at about the same time each night becausechemical activity in the brain induces sleep. Then for most of us about eight hours later ourbrain clock switches on chemical activity that wakes us up—assuming the neighbor's barkingdog doesn't awaken us first.

唐：對，我們之所以會在每晚同一時間入睡，是因為大腦內(nèi)部的化學活動會促進睡眠。然后八小時后，大多數(shù)人大腦內(nèi)促進起床的化學活動啟動——假設不被鄰居家的狗吵醒。

Yael:That's cool. With all this talk about sleep, I think I'm ready for a nap.

雅艾爾：太酷了。講了那么多關(guān)于睡眠的知識，現(xiàn)在我真的想小睡一會兒。

Don: Me too.

唐：我也是。