Modafinil is just the first of a wave of new lifestyle drugs that promise to do for sleep what the contraceptive pill did for sex - unshackle it from nature. Since time immemorial, humans have structured their lives around sleep. In the near future, we will, for the first time, be able to significantly structure the way we sleep to suit our lifestyles.

"The more we understand about the body's 24-hour clock the more we will be able to override it," says Russell Foster, a circadian biologist at Imperial College London. "In 10 to 20 years we'll be able to pharmacologically turn sleep off.

Interesting article...don't know whether to be horrified or excited about the prospects of working on my thesis 24 hours a day:)

[ I'm horrified. As much excitement I feel for the prospect of having the time to do all the various personal projects on my mind, the reality is that the 40 hour work week would probably begin to expand naturally. Pretty soon, not sleeping would be the way you get ahead of the competition, and people would be expected (socially i mean) to put in that effort. I already chafe under the existing US system of 40 hour work weeks and 2 weeks off per year... if i had to work more hours, I'd be pretty unhappy.

On top of which, I'm skeptical. Sleep seems pretty fundamental. I'm not in any way convinced that we can ever really do away with it and not face very serious repercussions. -k]

Get ready for 24-hour living