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FUR SEALS dozing at sea stop themselves drowning by resting one side of their
brain at a time. One hemisphere remains active to control the opposite flipper
so that the seal stays afloat. Such a sophisticated adaptation suggests that
sleep is a vital function. And that is Stanley Coren’s emphatic message in Sleep
Thieves: An Eye-opening Exploration Into the Science & Mysteries of Sleep
(The Free Press, $24, ISBN 0 684 82304 7). Sleep deprivation is a growing
malaise of today’s society, in his opinion, turning people into “intelligent
idiots” with sometimes catastrophic consequences.