The white-crowned sparrow is an astonishing example of avian sleep deprivation during long-distance flights. This small, quotidian bird is capable of a spectacular feat that the American military has spent millions of research dollars studying. The sparrow has an unparalleled, though time-limited, resilience to total sleep deprivation, one that we humans could never withstand. If you sleep-deprive this sparrow in the laboratory during the migratory period of the year (when it would otherwise be in flight), it suffers virtually no ill effects whatsoever. However, depriving the same sparrow of
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