Why Starved Flies Need Less Sleep

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/62869/title/Why_starved_flies_need_less_sleep

Researchers have found that when fruit flies are starved they can stay awake longer than flies that are well fed. In an experiement to test this theory, the fruit flies that were given a good amount of food struggled to stay awake and active, while the fruit flies left without food were fully active and had no trouble staying awake. They say that mutated fruit flies have a higher amount of lipids, a type of fat, which makes them more vulnerable to sleep deprivation, but if they are given no food then they can stay up several hours past their normal "bed time" before they die. Researchers' conclusion to this is that animals need to stay awake when they are starved or they will not find food, and if they give in to sleep they will become food for another animal. Eventually the starved fruit fly gives in to the sleep deprivation and animals have to eat sometime or they will die, so it doesn't last forever.
In my opinion, I think that this discovery is amazing. The fact that fruit flies stay awake longer without food is fascinating to me. It reminds me of that pilot that didn't eat a thing while flying across the Atlantic Ocean just so he could stay awake, even though he had a bunch of sandwiches to eat. Whenever I have a full stomach I am able to sleep, but without food my growling stomach torments me until I replenish it. I think that this is a very important puzzle piece to understanding why humans and animals sleep. Figuring that out will unlock a world of opportunities for science and the human race.