micro-napping
by Mike Fainzilber
the penguin
and the soldier
This haiku deals with unique modes of sleep and sleep deprivation and relates to a study on nesting penguins in the wild, where the authors used remote monitoring techniques to determine sleep patterns. They found that wild chinstrap penguins sleep over 10,000 times a day, for an average of 4 seconds each time – totaling ~11 hours sleep per 24. This is an extreme case of microsleeps, interspersed by brief awake periods, and may help the penguins to guard their eggs during breeding season in the penguin colony. The parallels with the fitful short sleeps of a human soldier are highlighted in the haiku.
Further reading:
‘Nesting chinstrap penguins accrue large quantities of sleep through seconds-long microsleeps’, 2023, Libourel, P-A., et al. Science, available: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adh0771
‘Penguins snatch seconds-long microsleeps’, 2023, Harding, C.D. & Vyazovskiy, V.V., Science, available: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adl2398
Author bio:
Mike Fainzilber’s day job is a biologist. He began writing haiku and senryu during the pandemic, and this side effect of COVID-19 has not worn off yet. Editors in his two spheres of activity have been known to suggest that he should best restrict his efforts to the other sphere. Find out more about Mike’s research via his lab’s website and connect with him on Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/mfainzilber.bsky.social .
Read more sciku by Mike: ‘The deepest shade’, ‘Jellyfish’, and ‘In the Deep’, and ‘The Blood and the Run’.