If you think you can function on minimal sleep, here’s a wake-up call: Parts of your brain may doze off even if you’re totally awake, according to a new study in rats.

Scientists observed the electrical activity of brains in rats forced to stay up longer than usual. Problem-solving brain regions fell into a kind of “local sleep”—a condition likely in sleep-deprived humans too, the study authors say.

Surprisingly, when sections of the rats’ brains entered these sleeplike states, “you couldn’t tell that [the rats] are in any way in a different state of wakefulness,” said study co-author Giulio Tononi, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Despite these periods of local sleep, overall brain activity—and the rats’ behaviors—suggested the animals were fully awake.

This phenomenon of local sleep is “not just an interesting observation of unknown significance,” Tononi said. It “actually affects behavior—you make a mistake.”

For example, when the scientists had the rats perform a challenging task—using their paws to reach sugar pellets—the sleep-deprived animals had trouble completing it.

Read More: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/04/110427-sleep-deprived-brains-nature-science-health-rat-asleep-awake/?source=link_fb20110428brainsleeping

During your lifetime, you’ll eat about 60,000 pounds of food, that’s the weight of about 6 elephants.

Honolulu is the only place in the United States that has a royal palace.

The pudús are two species of South American deer they are the world’s smallest deer. Pudús range in size from 32 to 44 centimeters (13 to 17 in) tall and up to 85 centimeters (33 in) long. As of 2009, both species are classified as Vulnerable.

“Q” is the only letter in the alphabet not appearing in the name of any U.S. state.

The lowest temperature ever recorded in Hawaii was 12°, measured on May 17, 1979, at the Mauna Kea Observatory on the Big Island. Most states have record lows well below 0°, except for Florida, which has an all-time low of -2°. That record was set in Tallahassee on Feb. 13, 1899.

The most valuable toy soldier in the world is the first handcrafted 1963 G.I. Joe prototype, sold in 2003 for $200,000 to Baltimore businessman Stephen A. Geppi at a Heritage Comics auction in Dallas. [Guinness]

Birds of America; $11.4 million:
This 3-foot tall book includes 1,000 life-size illustrations of 435 birds drawn by West Indian-born American artist John James Audubon in the 1830s. [Guinness]
*What about Bill Gates’ $30 million purchase of Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebook “Codex?” According to Guinness, Codex does not technically qualify as a book as it’s filled with mostly sketches and notes. Sorry, Bill.