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All kinds of companies sell special lights that supposedly can wake up jet-lagged travelers -- or even cure the "wintertime blues." The Air Force thinks there may be something to the lamps. It's shopping for a "Short-Wavelength Countermeasure for Circadian Desynchrony."
"An effective photic stimulus" could correct the imbalance between a person's normal sleep pattern "and the requirements for alert human performance on imposed environmental schedules (e.g., facilitate adjustments to â??jet lag,â?� or shift work, etc.)," an Air Force request for proposals notes. Now, the trick is to figure out what exactly is the "optimal dose" of light.
For decades, the U.S. military has been tried all sorts of ways to keep its soldiers and pilots awake. During World War II, G.I.s were issued rations of amphetamines (as were German, Japanese, and British troops.) In the early days of the Afghanistan war these "go pills" were blamed for a particularly ugly "friendly fire" incident. A newer drug, modafinil, in being pushed in the military as asafer alternative, New Scientist notes.
Darpa is working on more exotic answers to sleeplessness, too. Columbia University psychologists, working under a Darpa grant, are keeping people awake for 48 hours straightâ??and then zapping their brains with focused magnetic waves, to keep their cognitive capacities intact. Lexicon
Genetics has found genetic targets in mice that seem to make sleep itself more restorative, enhancing learning and memory. And Wisconsin professor Giulio Tononi is breeding a strain of fruit flies that gets by on just a third the normal amount of sleep. If his research keeps progressing -- and that's one big, fat if -- maybe some day, far off, troops may not need any kind of lamp at all to stay awake.
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* Pentagon's PCs Bend to Your Brain
* DARPA to Build Star Wars Binoculars
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* Stronger, Tougher, Faster: Building Next-Gen G.I.s
* Supercharging Soldiers' Cells
* Pig Manure Key to Soldier Chow?
* Darpa Chief Speaks
