text:
Talk:1992

George H. W. Bush

 * January 8 - President of the United States George Bush becomes ill on a visit in Japan and vomits on the Japanese Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi.

Should this event really be stated here? It may sound funny, but it appears to be somewhat inadequate for a list of main events of 1992. Your opinions? -- Cordyph

Agree delete comment--BozMo 13:43, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Events
"January" should be a third level headline. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.168.81.175 (talk) 02:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Page layout years
There is a discussion on my talk page on page layout. For most of the last three hundred years there is inconsistency and duplication between the year in topic paragraph, the "see also" box and what is on the year by topic pages. Prior to 1950 I am pretty convinced we can painlessly (except for sore fingers) delete all of the year in topic paragraphs and ensure that the material goes into a "see also" box, creating such a box where none exists. Post 1950, particularly from the "year in US television" link a lot of material has been added to this paragraph as highlights (sometimes making up most of the page content pointed at). Personally I think we should still delete the paragraph, keep the box linking to the topic sites and move any particularly important parts of the year in topic paragraph to the main chronological list. This does involve undoing quite a bit of work which someone has done.

Therefore, unlike for prior to 1950 (where I've said no objection= I do it) for post 1950 I won't touch these pages unless a significant number of people agree with the change. (I am also unlikely to get the pre 1950 stuff done before summer unless the service speed improves dramatically). talk--BozMo 13:43, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Khojaly
Added the Khojaly massacre on February 25 - February 26 to this article. Information from: http://www.khojaly.org/ http://www.come.to/khojaly http://www.travel-images.com/az-xocali.html

Where are the births?
The births of 1992 are missing..............
 * Thanks for pointing that out, I've brought them back from an older version. --TM 21:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * i dont see births, like the daughter of curt cobain, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.17.77.48 (talk) 02:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * can someone edit allie dimeco's birthday? it's supposed to be on june 12, 1992 instead of september 9, 1992. Juan luveyo 23:30, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Done, but you don't have to ask on the talk page, in the future just take care of it youself. --Daniel J. Leivick 23:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The format of this article is different than all the other years
Individual years that have multiple events are bulleted rather than repeating the date.

What I mean is instead of having events done like this:

March 26 - event

March 26 - another event

It is done

March 26

-event

-another event

This may seem minor, but I have gone through all the years from 1950 and it looks a whole lot different. I think the format should be consistent throughout all the years.

See also / References
I would like you to add the song "MCMXCII" from the album (N)Utopia by the symphonic metal group Graveworm to this article.
 * why? /*Ryan Rix*/ (talk) 06:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism
The article for this particular year was heavily vandalized by this person: 141.150.19.22 Here you can see the damage he did: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1992&diff=87023052&oldid=87021706 I think that I.P. should be banned from wikipedia

No place for that anywhere, let alone wikipedia , an international website.: —Preceding unsigned comment added by King f22 (talk • contribs) 00:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Under the November 30th events someone has added "and i like chocolate". I don't know how you guys can change it but please do.

Table of Contents position
Why is the table of contents at the bottom of the page? I'm not sure how to fix this. Sirconnorstack (talk) 18:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Calendars are wrong have been fixed
The Calendars shown beside each month are wrong starting with February. 1992 is a leap year but here February does not have 29 days, skewing the rest of the calendar.98.27.14.177 (talk) 00:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

 * Looks like February was off, but the rest are fine. February is fixed now, though.  Thanks, 2help (talk) 05:41, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

 * February is wrong right now and so is March and maybe even more months. Calle Widmann (talk) 14:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

 * The calendars have been fixed.  ttonyb  (talk) 16:16, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

june 06 1992 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.86.199 (talk) 13:31, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Phones ringing off the hook
"October 3 – After performing a song protesting alleged child abuse by the Catholic Church, Sinéad O'Connor rips up a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live, causing huge controversy, leading the switchboards at NBC to ring off the hook."

Phones cant actually ring off their hook, this is an idiom, should it be here?--Billy Nair (talk) 21:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Dead link
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

 * http://www.newyorker.com/shouts/content/?050117sh_shouts
 * In 1992 on 2011-05-25 05:58:48, 404 Not Found
 * In 1992 on 2011-06-24 19:29:23, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 19:29, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Superbowl
Should the Superbowl be included for this year? Centralized discussion at WT:YEARS — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:07, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Alternate ways to spell 1992
There are several ways for spelling 1992. One is MCMXCII. Another kind of way of spelling 1992 is MCMLXXXXII.

Some people and companies choose MCMLXXXXII; others choose MCMXCII. Please clarify. Angela Maureen (talk) 03:31, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

December 19: original research?
Under the entry for Dec 19, it says unfounded suspicion. After reading the article linked as a reference, Im not sure the unfounded part is appropriate. Any thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamekeeper7 (talk • contribs) 23:51, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Good call. I've removed the word "unfounded". Cheers, -- Irn (talk) 00:00, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Dan Quayle "potatoe" incident
insists on including Dan Quayle correcting the spelling of the word "potato" as a significant event, arguing ""Small" events reveal as much about our culture as large. The "potatoe" incident received global attn, and highlighted cultural divns in the USA that prevail." I'm not sure what these cultural divisions are that you speak of, but as it stands in the article, the event does not mention them and is completely unsourced. Further, I don't see how these cultural divisions make the event relevant on an international scale - that is why does this belong in the 1992 article and not just the 1992 in the United States article? -- Irn (talk) 01:36, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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Arthur Gorrie
I don't know why this person has a Wikipedia article. Even if he deserves an article, I don't think he meets the slightly higher requirements for inclusion here. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:14, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

1992 presidential election
There are entirely too many events in regard the 1992 presidential election in the US. Included are entry and exit of major (and some minor) candidates, the first (New Hampshire) primary, when Clinton was predicted to win the nomination (remember, these are the same pundits who predicted (a different) Clinton to win the 2016 election), all three "presidential" debates, etc. Not all of these are (or should be) in even 1992 in the United States. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:12, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:52, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Benny Hill.JPG

Mac Miller image
I see no reason why Mac Miller's image should not appear in 1992. The argument that it should not appear unless it appears in 2018 seems an example of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.

See also WT:YEARS for a general discussion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:34, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Way too many Americans
I'm wondering why recent contributors to this article think they are doing Wikipedia a service by adding more and more Americans to the Births and Deaths sections. Deb (talk) 18:56, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Eclipses
See WT:YEARS for a matter relevant to this page. Arthur Rubin (alternate) (talk) 23:09, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Logan Lerman
Why does he deserve an image in the Births section? Doesn't seem that significant an actor. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:42, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Recent edits
There are four edits by which I consider disputed.
 * 1) Removal of the image of Avan Jogia
 * 2) Addition of the image of Camille Kostek
 * 3) Removal of the entry for Paulina Gaitán
 * 4) Addition of the entry for Camille Kostek

 #1 might be required by #2, and #2 requires #4, but there is no justification for #3. I consider #4 questionable, and #2 very questionable, as Camille's only notability seems to be being on the cover of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Adding importance tags, for the moment. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:08, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Also, see above. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:19, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

 * Kostek not only gets more pageviews than Gaitan (https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=latest-90&pages=Paulina_Gait%C3%A1n|Camille_Kostek), her page is also more developed (C-class) compared to Gaitan's stub. Kostek is also on the cover of the iconic Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, and first ever winner of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search. Gaitan on the other hand is a bit part actress who starred in a web TV series in Mexico-- prime candidate for the importance tag.
 * If your issue is ~another American, try getting a notable non-American for the month. Don't shoe-horn someone just because she's from outside the US. You even raised the same point in out discussion in your talk page. SMH. Maxen Embry (talk) 07:25, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Pageviews are usually considered, and in my opinion, should be considered irrelevant. Development of the page is irrelevant, although some have argued it should be relevant.  And I disagree with you that the Sports Illustrated traits are adequate for article notability, not to mention the higher requirements for listing in a year article and the significantly higher requirements for having an image in a year article.
 * If you want to consider this an impasse, I'm willing to go to WP:3O. It doesn't seem likely that my opinion will change, although it's possible some references not yet in the article would lead me to consider her sufficiently notable.  However, I'm not going to fight about it.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 07:34, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I should add that invisible comments are considered disruptive per se if disputed, unless consensus is established. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 07:45, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Miss World 2010 seems an even better choice for an image; replaced Camille's image with hers. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:58, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Washed up Miss World a decade ago vs. the current SI Swim cover model? SMH. Maxen Embry (talk) 12:10, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You are increasingly showing signs of ownership on this article, especially on your last revert citing unidentified "violation of guidelines" and "errors" just so you can revert the article to the version you wanted it to. Maxen Embry (talk) 08:30, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * My preferred version is still with Camille out entirely. However, there is strong consensus that invisible comments should be removed if challenged, unless consensus is established.  There seems to be a general consensus that tags should not be removed while under discussion for the first time.  Those are the guidelines you are rejecting.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 09:20, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Then you should accelerate the process by soliciting third opinion on the discussion you started to remove a tag you put there in the first place. I have made my case, but you seem to disregard it and introduce an American has-been beauty queen for some reason just to, yet again, disregard Kostek's listing. Also, refer to Culpo's article for her label/profession, you can't just revert it because you feel that "this is just wrong". This has been extremely cumbersome because unfortunately an editor looks to have taken residence and ownership on a particular page. I'm done.Maxen Embry (talk) 09:39, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I've contradicted all your additions, and I've been dinged for putting in invisible comments for which I thought there was consensus. As for "fashion influencer", the sources we have only have her word for it.  If it were in a reliable source, it might be appropriate.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:09, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * As you keep making different changes which I consider absurd or unjustified, there's no place for WP:3O to start. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:11, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "Absurd..." to you. "Unjustified..." to you. If you think I'm wrong that you're being irrational because you have taken ownership of the page, then start a WP:3O.Maxen Embry (talk) 19:53, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Culpo: https://wwd.com/business-news/media/olivia-culpo-gigi-hadid-oscars-rampage-ads-10807975/
 * Kostek: https://www.si.com/swim-daily/2019/04/26/camille-kostek-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-cover-model-2019 https://people.com/style/camille-kostek-covers-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-as-a-rookie/ Maxen Embry (talk) 19:53, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

You wrote: "If your issue is ~another American, try getting a notable non-American for the month. Don't shoe-horn someone just because she's from outside the US." Shoe-horn, no, but there is a case for positive action to address the problem of systemic bias. Deb (talk) 13:01, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I am very much into affirmative action but that is not even my point. I was just throwing back what Arthur has said to me in his talk page about his dislike of me putting an image of a female to break the consecutive male images for the month for the sake of diversity. Also, affirmative action should not override notability, and again, Gaitan's credits offers very little compared to Kostek's. If he were to identify a non-American who was born on Februar and who is more notable than any individual already listed, it would be very welcome. Maxen Embry (talk) 13:20, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

February birth listings
There are disagreements as to three points (I believe the others have been resolved):
 * 1) Should Paulina Gaitán be listed under February 19 births? (That is, does she have international notability?)
 * 2) Should Camille Kostek be listed under February 19 births? (That is, does she have international notability?)
 * 3) If point 2 is yes, which of Camille Kostek and Alexandria Mills have an image listed. (Both cannot be listed, as the images would then extend below the field).  I think there is agreement that the status quo ante of Avan Jogia's image appearing is less preferred than either of the two choices here.

21:46, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Second opinion

 * 1) No objection to Paulina Gaitán staying.
 * 2) Camille Kostek should definitely be removed. Deb (talk) 07:45, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Third opinion

 * WP:3O requests aren't supposed to be signed. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:18, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
 * On here they can be signed, just not on the actual 3O page.  Erpert  blah, blah, blah... 04:16, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:54, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Dylan Sprouse Headshot.jpg

Please add under births

 * April 21
 * Joc Pederson, American baseball player

2604:2000:E010:1100:B1A6:EE6E:B37D:15DA (talk) 08:34, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

 * January 29 - Markel Brown, American basketball player

--2604:2000:E010:1100:C577:DCBB:5000:99A5 (talk) 05:43, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

 * What is the international significance of these players? Deb (talk) 12:09, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request
Under deaths, please add Australian cricket legend Bill O'Reilly for October.2603:8081:160A:BE2A:5575:A0C7:78C2:A6FB (talk) 19:49, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Asartea   Trick  undefined  Treat  04:54, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Barry Keoghan
Adding his date of birth in the October 1992 birth section. 2001:8003:30A7:D301:847F:6CF4:8AB4:3D6C (talk) 06:52, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * You will need to provide a reliable source for this date of birth. Deb (talk) 08:28, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Collage thoughts
Please let me know if anyone has any disagreements on the images included in the collage, and I will put it up for vote. Thanks The ganymedian (talk) 22:43, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I can't match the images to the captions. Is the Lego man with his back to us something to do with Rodney King, and if so, what? Deb (talk) 18:02, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, is there a need for two separate images for the Breakup of Yugoslavia, especially since one of them is just a not-very-good map? Deb (talk) 13:01, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request
Under births, for December 6, please add Malaysian politician Syed Saddiq. https://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/amphtml/sizing-syed-saddiq-012434169.html 2600:100C:A203:FD7F:81D1:70F4:A8EB:271F (talk) 08:44, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This person appears to be a mere MP, therefore not internationally notable and does not meet the criteria for inclusion in a Year article. Deb (talk) 11:57, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template.  Terasail [✉] 12:57, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-Protected edit request
For births, for March 6, please add Sam Bankman-Fried. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Meet-SBF-the-Bay-Area-born-crypto-mogul-at-the-17575495.php 208.127.190.114 (talk) 21:39, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅  Actualcpscm (talk) 14:42, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * - Inline reference to reliable source must be included for all new entries. Deb (talk) 15:19, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Deb! I apologise, that should have been done. However, I'm unsure why you removed the entry? The reliable source is given right above in the original request. I don't want to engage in edit warring, so I'm not gonna add it back for now; please clarify. Actualcpscm (talk) 15:26, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It's fine to restore it as long as you include a proper citation with it. Deb (talk) 15:30, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request
Under births, for September 2, please add Argentine football player Emiliano Martinez. https://www.espn.com/soccer/player/_/id/158626/emiliano-martinez 2600:100C:A210:2BB2:8C15:85B:199E:1B02 (talk) 06:34, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ casualdejekyll  13:38, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:1992


text:
2002 in film

2002 in film is an overview of events, including the highest-grossing films, award ceremonies, festivals, a list of country- and genre- specific lists of films released, notable deaths and film debuts. Paramount Pictures celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2002.

Highest-grossing films
The top 10 films released in 2002 by worldwide gross are as follows:

2002 was the first year to see three films cross the eight-hundred-million-dollar milestone, surpassing the previous year's record of two eight-hundred-million-dollar films. It also surpasses the previous year's record of having the most ticket sales in a single year (fueled by the success of various sequels and the first Spider-Man movie).

Events

 * March 1 — Paramount Pictures reveals a new-on screen logo that was used until December 2011 to celebrate its 90th anniversary.
 * May – The Pianist directed by Roman Polanski wins the "Palme d'Or" at the Cannes Film Festival.
 * May 3–5 – Spider-Man becomes the first film to earn $100 million in one weekend. This surpassed the previous all-time opening weekend record held by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, as well as the previous May opening weekend record held by The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The film went on to earn over $800 million worldwide, surpassing Batman to become the highest-grossing superhero film of all time and Men in Black to become Sony's most successful film.
 * May 16 – Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones opens in theaters. Although a huge success, it was the first Star Wars film not to be the highest-grossing of the year.
 * Amélie directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet wins the 2002 César Award for Best Film, Best Director, Best Music, and Best Art Direction. Amélie also became the highest-grossing French-language film in the United States ever.
 * Another French-language film Brotherhood of the Wolf also became the second-highest-grossing French-language film in the United States in the last two decades.

Awards
Palme d'Or (Cannes Film Festival):
 * The Pianist, directed by Roman Polanski, Poland

Golden Lion (Venice Film Festival):
 * The Magdalene Sisters, directed by Peter Mullan, U.K. / Ireland

Golden Bear (Berlin Film Festival):
 * Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi), directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Japan
 * Bloody Sunday, directed by Paul Greengrass, U.K. / Ireland

By country/region

 * List of American films of 2002
 * List of Argentine films of 2002
 * List of Australian films of 2002
 * List of Bangladeshi films of 2002
 * List of British films of 2002
 * List of Canadian films of 2002
 * List of French films of 2002
 * List of Hong Kong films of 2002
 * List of Indian films of 2002
 * List of Bengali films of 2002
 * List of Hindi films of 2002
 * List of Kannada films of 2002
 * List of Malayalam films of 2002
 * List of Marathi films of 2002
 * List of Punjabi films of 2002
 * List of Tamil films of 2002
 * List of Telugu films of 2002
 * List of Japanese films of 2002
 * List of Mexican films of 2002
 * List of Pakistani films of 2002
 * List of Russian films of 2002
 * List of South Korean films of 2002
 * List of Spanish films of 2002

By genre/medium

 * List of action films of 2002
 * List of animated feature films of 2002
 * List of avant-garde films of 2002
 * List of crime films of 2002
 * List of comedy films of 2002
 * List of drama films of 2002
 * List of horror films of 2002
 * List of science fiction films of 2002
 * List of thriller films of 2002
 * List of western films of 2002

Births

 * January 4 – Tunisha Sharma, Indian actress (died 2022)
 * January 18 – Samuel Joslin, British actor
 * January 20
 * Michael Barbieri, American actor
 * January 30
 * Tyla (South African singer), South African singer an songwriter
 * Joshua Colley, American actor
 * February 2 – Madina Nalwanga, Ugandan actress
 * February 13 – Sophia Lillis, American actress
 * February 23 – Emilia Jones, English actress, singer and songwriter
 * March 4 – Jacob Hopkins, American actor
 * March 10 – Júlia Gomes, Brazilian actress
 * March 15 – Sam McCarthy, American actor
 * March 27 – Ty Tennant, English actor
 * April 2 – Emma Myers, American actress
 * April 4 – Damian Hurley, English actor and model
 * April 8 – Skai Jackson, American actress
 * April 16 – Sadie Sink, American actress
 * May 6 – Emily Alyn Lind, American actress
 * May 7
 * Andrew Barth Feldman, American actor
 * Jake Bongiovi, American actor
 * May 16 – Isaac Kragten, Canadian actor
 * May 22 – Maisa Silva, Brazilian actress and television host
 * May 26 – Georgie Farmer, English actor
 * June 2 – Madison Hu, American actress
 * June 3 – Eva Bella, American actress
 * June 5 – Lewis MacDougall, Scottish actor
 * July 2 – Abraham Attah, Ghanaian actor
 * July 16 – Milly Shapiro, American actress and singer
 * July 24 – Benjamin Flores Jr., American actor and rapper
 * July 25 – Shunsuke Michieda, Japanese actor and singer
 * August 1 – Oona Laurence, American actress
 * August 12 – Iman Vellani, Pakistani-Canadian actress
 * August 16 – Talia Ryder, American actress
 * August 23 – Indiana Massara, Australian actress and singer
 * August 30 – Raffey Cassidy, English actress
 * September 6 – Asher Angel, American actor
 * September 8 – Gaten Matarazzo, American actor
 * September 13 – Chiara Aurelia, American actress
 * September 20 - Gabriel LaBelle, Canadian actor
 * September 22 – Cody Veith, American actor
 * September 24 – Elijah Richardson, American actor
 * September 27 – Jenna Ortega, American actress
 * September 28 – Kyline Alcantara, Filipino actress, singer and television host
 * September 30
 * Levi Miller, Australian actor
 * Maddie Ziegler, American actress
 * October 9 – Choi Min-young, South Korean actor
 * October 12 – Iris Apatow, American actress
 * October 16 - Madison Wolfe, American actress
 * October 26 - Julian Dennison, New Zealand actor
 * October 28 – Lola Tung, American actress
 * December 12 – Allegra Acosta, American actress
 * December 13 – AC Bonifacio, Canadian actress, dancer, singer, vlogger
 * December 17 – Guilherme Seta, Brazilian actor
 * December 23 – Finn Wolfhard, Canadian actor

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: 2002 in film


text:
Shopping hours

Customs and regulations for shopping hours (times that shops are open) vary between countries and between cities.

Shopping days and impact of holidays
Some countries, particularly those with predominantly Christian populations or histories, do not allow Sunday shopping. In Islamic countries, some shops are closed on Fridays for noontime prayers. In Israel many shops are closed on Friday evenings and Saturdays during the daytime for Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath).

Each state in Australia sets its own standard trading hours, but in most of the country the shops are open seven days a week for at least part of the day. These also depends on their day-to-day needs.

For some shops and other businesses in culturally Christian countries, Christmas Day is the only day in the year that they are closed.

In the United States and Canada, nearly all retail stores are open every day of the year except for Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and Easter Sunday. Some suburban and smaller communities often close on Sundays. For example, Bergen County, New Jersey, next to New York City, completely bans Sunday shopping. Nearly all stores in the United States have restricted hours on Sundays (most often 11 am or noon to 5 - 7 pm), and stores close early on important holidays, such as Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and Independence Day. Banks, post offices and other government offices either are closed on weekends, or close early on Saturdays. Many other non-retail establishments remain closed on weekends.

In Islamic countries shops may have special opening hours during Ramadan.

In Israel, many shops are closed on religious holidays other than Shabbat, especially on Yom Kippur when nearly all businesses are closed.

Australia
Shop trading hours in Australia are regulated by individual states and territories.

The Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory and the states of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, totally or almost totally deregulate shopping hours. All retail businesses in the two territories, regardless of size or product offer, are allowed to decide their trading hours to suit their individual customer demand. Non-essential shops in the three states are required to remain closed on Christmas Day and Good Friday, ANZAC Day (until 1 pm), and in Tasmania and NSW on Easter Sunday, and in NSW on Boxing Day (outside the Sydney special trading precinct). Shops in the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory can remain open on any public holiday. The two main supermarket operators, Woolworths and Coles, generally trade between 6 am and midnight every day, although some inner-city shops in Sydney and Melbourne operate twenty-four hours. In Canberra, stores such as Woolworths Kmart and Coles were open 24/7; however during the Covid-19 pandemic store closures, these stores did not reopen with 24/7 shopping hours.

Melbourne generally has the most relaxed rules. Almost all shopping centres in Melbourne now trade until 9 pm on Thursdays and Fridays as well as being open longer hours on Sundays. Interstate late night trading only occurs on either Thursday or Friday rather than both.

Melbourne is also famous for beginning the trend of 36-hour overnight trades in the lead-up to Christmas. Some of the larger shopping centres will open from 8 am December 23 until 6 pm on Christmas Eve. Centres often open to 10 pm or midnight on most other nights in the fortnight before Christmas, and the first few days of the annual Boxing Day Sales.

Trading hours in the Australian Capital Territory have been deregulated since the repeal of the Trading Hours Act 1996 [ACT] on 29 May 1997.

Shopping hours in South Australia are still regulated, but there have been numerous changes to relax the laws. Nonetheless, trading laws are still face complicated and confusing: legal trading hours vary depending on size and product offer. Supermarkets that trade with fewer than seven workers and with a trading floor less than 500 m2 are exempt from the laws. Larger supermarkets are required by law to close at 9 pm on Mondays to Fridays, and 5 pm on Saturdays; they are permitted to trade on Sundays and public holidays only from 9 am to 5 pm, except ANZAC Day, which is 12 noon to 5 pm; they must remain closed on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Christmas Day.

In all areas of Queensland, trading hours of major supermarkets are Monday to Saturday from 7 am to 9 pm and Sundays and public holidays from 9 am to 6 pm. Most major shopping centres close at 5 pm every day, except for "late night shopping" on one night a week. Supermarkets in major shopping centres must still cease trading at 9 pm, with special access for just the supermarket.

In rural areas of Western Australia below the 27th parallel, local governments nominate shop closing hours to the State government, which, if accepted, are implemented by ministerial order. Shopping hours in the state's capital, Perth, are regulated by laws similar to South Australia's. Trading hours are stipulated in law, and are based on size and product offer. As in South Australia, smaller, independently operated supermarket retailers are exempted. Chain supermarkets are required to close Monday to Friday at 9 pm, Saturdays at 5 pm, and are permitted to trade on Sundays and public holidays only from 11 am to 5 pm.

Austria
The situation in Austria is very similar to that in Germany, with most public holidays being based on Catholic holidays as the country is predominantly Roman Catholic. Until the 1990s, all shops closed around noon on Saturday and did not reopen until Monday morning. Entrepreneurs such as Richard Lugner lobbied for an expansion of shopping hours, and laws are gradually being changed, with more and more exceptions granted. Meanwhile, as in Germany, filling stations and train stations in big cities have taken on the role of Nahversorger ("local providers", supplying the local population with groceries) outside regular shopping hours.

Until very recently, shopping hours remained very restrictive. In 2008 Austria modified its 2003 Öffnungszeitengesetz ("opening times law"). The new regulations allow stores to open from 6:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. on weekdays, and on Saturday until 6:00 p.m. but they are restricted to a total of 72 open hours per week. Bakeries can open 30 minutes earlier at 5:30 a.m. Shops are closed on Sunday, but there are exceptions for tourist locations, train stations, airports, and the Christmas season.

Canada
Store hours in Canada are regulated by each province or territory and, in some provinces, individual municipalities as well.

As a general rule, there is little regulation of shopping hours across the country. In the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, as well as all three territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut), there are no restrictions at all and stores can open 24/7 every day. Nova Scotia permits any store to open every day of the year except Remembrance Day (November 11).

The remaining provinces (Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador) require stores to close on most major holidays. Furthermore, three provinces have further restrictions on Sunday openings. In Manitoba, stores may open on Sundays only with municipal approval and only between 9 am - 6 pm (although exceptions for essential services apply). New Brunswick allows Sunday opening all year only with both municipal and provincial approval; otherwise it is permitted only from August until the New Year. Some communities in New Brunswick (such as Woodstock, Miramichi, Sussex) restrict Sunday hours of operation to 12 pm - 5 pm.

The province of Quebec is the only province in Canada that regulates shopping hours outside of Sundays and holidays. As a general rule, stores are permitted to open only between 8 am and 9 pm weekdays and 8 am - 5 pm weekends, excluding holidays. There are several exceptions, however, notably several supermarkets in Montreal, which are open later hours or 24 hours a day.

In practice, few stores in Canada (except a few grocery stores) remain open 24 hours. Most shopping centres open from 10 am-9pm Monday to Friday, 9:30 am - 6 pm (or in some cases 9 pm) on Saturday and 12 pm - 5 pm or 6 pm on Sunday. Many larger stores, such as Walmart Canada, and most major grocery stores remain open 8 am - 10 pm Monday to Saturday and 10 am - 6 pm (in some provinces 8 am - 10 pm) on Sunday, except in provinces where further restrictions apply. The Sobeys chain stays open from 7 am - 11 pm on weekdays and Saturdays, though some locations are open twenty-four hours. Many Loblaws brand stores such as Zehrs Markets and Real Canadian Superstore are open from 7 am - 11 pm, 7 days a week.

China
Trading hours in China, including Hong Kong and Macau special administrative regions, are commercial decisions and are not regulated. Most shops are open on public holidays. Some convenience stores are open twenty-four hours and every day of the year, but only a few large supermarkets are open twenty-four hours a day.

During the Chinese New Year, many shops in China close for a few days, from Chinese New Year's Eve to the first day of the Chinese New Year. Or more often, to the third day of the Chinese New Year. Some shops in Hong Kong and Macau operate on Chinese New Year holidays, especially supermarket chains.

Croatia
Shopping hours in Croatia are currently unregulated after the Constitutional Court struck down a ban on Sunday shopping, which had been in effect from mid-2008 until mid-2009.

Most large out-of-town supermarkets are open between 07:30/08:00-21:00/22:00, Monday to Sunday. Shopping malls usually open at 09:00 and also close at 22:00, every day. Smaller supermarkets close earlier on Sundays, typically at 13:00. Other shops in urban areas are generally closed on Sundays.

Bakeries and newspaper kiosks often open very early in the morning, at 05:30 or 06:00, and open every day but not twenty-four hours. Filling stations and convenience stores along major roads as well as some pharmacies (at least one in each major city, five in Zagreb ) operate twenty-four hours.

Denmark
Standard operating hours for most businesses are generally 8:00/8:30 - 17:30. Since 1 October 2012, Danish shops have been allowed to be open every day around the clock, except on public holidays and after 3 pm on Christmas Eve's Day and New Year Eve's Day. Shops with a turnover of less than DKK 32.2 million (2012 figure, indexed) are allowed to be open every day of the year. Still in many small towns shops are usually closed on Saturday after 2 pm and on Sunday. Some small shops are closed on Monday.

Finland
Sunday shopping was first introduced in 1994.

In 1989 shops were allowed to be open on Sundays in sparsely populated areas. In the autumn of 1994 the law was extended to apply to the conurbanations i.e. densely populated areas, but only in December and on six specifically designated Sundays.

In 1997 it was legislated that the grocery shops could be open on Sundays during the whole summer. At the same time the closing hour was set at later; 21:00.

In 2000 small markets — less than 400 m2 in sales area — were encouraged to be open on Sundays all year around, with the exception of four days. Also the legislation concerning (super)markets bigger than 400 m2 in sales area was clarified by discarding the law of six designated Sundays and replacing it with Sunday opening hours from May to August and from November to December.

On 15 December 2015, the Finnish parliament voted to remove all opening hour restrictions for all retailers. The law came into effect on 1 January 2016.

Many stores are open every day. Larger supermarkets and hypermarkets are open from 7:00 or 8:00 to 21:00 or 22:00, and smaller shops from 10:00 to 18:00 or 19:00.

The only stores with regulated hours are the nationally owned Alko alcohol shops, which are open from 9:00 to 21:00 on weekdays and from 9:00 to 18:00 on Saturdays. On Sundays all Alko stores are closed.

The sale of alcoholic beverages of over 2.8% is limited from 9:00 to 21:00 on each day of the week.

Germany
In Germany, shopping days and opening hours were previously regulated by a federal law called the "Shop Closing Law" (Ladenschlussgesetz), first enacted in 1956 and last revised on 13 March 2003. On 7 July 2006, however, the federal government handed over the authority to regulate shopping hours to the sixteen states (Länder). Since then, states have been allowed to pass their own laws regulating opening hours.

The federal Ladenschlussgesetz still applies in Bavaria and Saarland, which have not passed their own laws. Under this law, shops may not open prior to 6 am and may not stay open later than 8 p.m. from Monday to Saturday. Shops must also stay closed on Sundays and public holidays (both federal and state), and special rules apply concerning Christmas Eve (December 24) should that day fall on a weekday.

There are several exceptions, including petrol stations and shops located in railway stations and airports, which may stay open past the normal hours. Most petrol stations in larger cities, and all situated on Autobahns, are open twenty-four hours. Shops in so-called "tourist zones" may also open outside the normal hours, but they are restricted to selling souvenirs, handcrafted articles and similar tourist items. In connection with fairs and public market days, communities are allowed four days per year (normally Sundays) on which shops may open outside the normal restrictions; such shop openings may not take place during primary church services and they must close by 6 pm. Bakeries may open for business at 5.30 am and may also open for a limited time on Sundays. Restaurants, bars, theatres, and cultural establishments are generally unaffected by the shop opening time restrictions. As most public holidays in Germany are religiously based, and since the religious holidays (Protestant and Catholic) are not uniform across Germany, shops may be closed due to a public holiday in one state, and open in a neighbouring state. Bavaria even differentiates between cities with Protestant or Catholic majorities.

The Ladenschlussgesetz has been the subject of controversy, as larger stores (and many of their customers) would prefer to have fewer restrictions on shopping hours, while trade unions, small shop owners and the church are opposed to a further loosening of the rules. On June 9, 2004, the German supreme court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) rejected a claim by the German department store chain Kaufhof AG that the shop-closing law was unconstitutional. Among other things, the court cited Article 140 of the German constitution (Grundgesetz) (which in turn invokes Article 139 of the 1919 Weimar Constitution) protecting Sundays and public holidays as days of rest and recuperation. Nonetheless, the court in effect invited the federal parliament (Bundestag) to reconsider whether the states should regulate hours instead of the federal government.

So far, no state has passed a regulation that allows general store opening on Sundays.

States with no restrictions from Monday to Saturday and varying regulations for Sunday:
 * Baden-Württemberg
 * Berlin
 * Brandenburg
 * Bremen
 * Hamburg
 * Hesse
 * Lower Saxony
 * Schleswig-Holstein

States with no restrictions from Monday to Friday and varying regulations for Saturday and Sunday:
 * Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
 * North Rhine-Westphalia
 * Saxony-Anhalt
 * Thuringia

States where shops can open between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. from Monday to Saturday; regulations for Sunday vary:
 * Rhineland-Palatinate
 * Saxony

States with no liberalisation of opening hours exceeding the federal Ladenschlussgesetz:
 * Bavaria
 * Saarland

Ireland
Shops in Ireland may, with few exceptions (such as those involved in the sale of alcohol), open whenever they want, including Sundays and public holidays.

Here are typical hours:

 * Monday - Wednesday, Saturday: 8:00/9:00/10:00 - 17:00/18:00/19:00
 * Thursday - Friday: 8:00/9:00/10:00 - 20:00/21:00/22:00
 * Sunday: 9:00/10:00/11:00 - 17:00/18:00/19:00

Many supermarkets are open twenty-four hours or have longer opening hours (like 8:00 - 22:00) every day.

Large shopping centres are typically open longer hours every day (e.g. 09:00 - 21:00/22:00 weekdays, 09:00 - 19:00 Saturdays, 10:00 - 19:00 Sundays).

In the two weeks running up to Christmas, it is common for many shops to have extended opening hours; some may operate twenty-four hours however the 24 hr openings are extremely uncommon and would be mainly in the large cities. On Christmas Eve most shops have shut their doors by 6 pm, some close by 3 pm.

Most shops (other than petrol stations or convenience stores) in smaller towns and villages don't open at all on Sundays. Almost all shops (except certain petrol stations, convenience stores) are closed on Christmas Day, though most are open on all other holidays.

Convenience stores and some chemists (drugstores) normally open at 09:00 and close between 18:00 and 21:00. New Year's Day is also Sunday hours.

In rural areas or in traditional trades, Businesses used to take a half day on Wednesdays, however this no longer happens.

Alcohol is allowed to be sold only between 10:30 and 22:00 from Monday to Saturday and 12:30 to 22:00 on Sundays, but this does not affect opening hours (supermarkets will often block access to alcoholic products outside of these times). Alcohol can now be sold on Good Friday as-well as having the pubs open.

Japan
In Japan, most shops open at 10:00, and close at 20:00 (8 pm). Banks are open from 09:00-15:00 on weekdays, and closed on weekends; post offices are open from 09:00-17:00 on weekdays, and closed on weekends. Convenience stores are open round the clock.

Mexico
In Mexico City, in large shopping centers, stores are generally open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Restaurant and cinema hours are different, as are those of independent shops and markets.

Netherlands
Regular opening hours are Monday 11:00 - 18:00; Tuesday-Friday: 09:30 - 18:00; Saturday: 09:30 - 17:00; Sunday (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Almere, Leiden and smaller tourist towns): 12:00 - 18:00. In many other towns shops are open every first Sunday of the month (koopzondag). Shops are allowed to stay open until 22:00 from Monday to Saturday. Except in busy tourist areas, in or near railway stations, or for big box retailers such as Media Markt, most close at 18:00 on weekdays, and 17:00 on Saturdays, unlike Germany where retailers have taken fuller advantage of liberalization laws and most stay open till at least 19:30. Many supermarkets (including outlets of the market leader Albert Heijn, several DIY stores and IKEA) stay open until 20:00, 21:00 or 22:00. Most towns have their weekly shopping evening (koopavond), when shops stay open until 21:00, on Thursday or Friday. In touristic towns (like Amsterdam's city centre) supermarkets are allowed to open on Sundays between 07:00 and 22:00. Many towns have one or more supermarkets (avondwinkels) that are open until later in the evening, occasionally all night. Convenience stores also have longer shopping hours; they are at many larger railway stations ("Albert Heijn to go") and in some busy streets.

A regular size supermarket that is open until midnight seven days a week is the Albert Heijn at Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam (in the landside area of the airport, not just for air travelers).

On public holidays, shops that close on Sundays are usually also closed, and other shops tend to have Sunday opening hours. On Christmas Day and New Year's Eve almost all shops are closed.

For specific opening hours (openingstijden) in the Netherlands there are several websites.

Serbia
Shopping hours in Serbia are unregulated. Large supermarkets are usually open from 07:00/07:30/08:00 to 22:00 from Monday to Sunday. Shopping malls open at 09:00 or 10:00 and also stay open until 22:00. Smaller supermarkets close earlier on Sundays, at 15:00 or 16:00.

Unlike neighbouring Croatia, many fast food outlets, bakeries, kiosks and convenience stores in urban areas operate twenty-four hours. Even some hypermarkets, like Tempo and Metro, are open twenty-four hours.

Singapore
Shopping hours for shopping malls are usually from 10:00 to 22:00 from Monday to Sunday. Automotive shops like tire outlets are usually from 09.30 to 19:00. Some supermarkets are open twenty-four hours. Most stores do not open on the first day of Chinese New Year because of low demand patronage.

Sweden
In Sweden there is no longer any law regarding shopping hours except for the nationally owned Systembolaget alcohol shops, which close at 20:00 at the latest on weekdays and 15:00 on Saturdays. On Sundays no alcohol is sold at all, although it is served in restaurants. Shopping centres and food shops are generally open every day; grocery stores often until 22:00 all days of the week and shopping centers usually until 20:00 on weekdays and 18:00 on weekends. Usually shopping centers are closed on New Year's Day, Midsummer's Day and Christmas Day, but grocery stores are open even those days albeit fewer hours than usual. Although there aren't any law that regulate business hours in general, labour laws do not allow work between midnight and 5 am in many professions including grocery stores and most shops.

Switzerland
Shopping hours are governed by cantonal law and vary accordingly, the only confederally mandated store holiday being August 1 (the national holiday), as per article 110 III of the Swiss Constitution. Most often, stores will be open from 8 or 9 am to 7 or 8 pm, 9 pm one day a week (usually a Thursday or a Friday) depending on the region. On Saturday and the day before public holidays, most stores close at around 4 or 5 pm. Stores are also generally closed on Sundays; see Sunday shopping in Switzerland.

United Kingdom
In Great Britain, many retail stores are open every day. Some large supermarkets are open for twenty-four hours, (except on Sundays in England and Wales). Most stores do not open on Easter Sunday, New Year's Day or Christmas Day and have reduced hours on other public and bank holidays.

Typical store shopping hours:
 * Mondays - Saturdays: 9:00 am to 5:30 pm, or 10:00 am to 8:00 pm/10:00 pm.
 * Sundays: 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, or 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, or 12 noon to 6:00 pm.

Sunday shopping has become more popular, and most but not all shops in towns and cities are open for business. Shops 280 m2 and larger in England and Wales are allowed to trade for only six hours on Sundays; shops in Northern Ireland may open from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm. In Scotland, in theory, Sunday is considered the same as any other day, and there are no restrictions. In practice, however, some shops do not open on Sunday or open for only four hours in smaller towns. In some Free Church dominated areas, for example Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, Sunday is considered a day of rest and consequently very few if any shops open at all.

United States
In the United States, the various levels of government generally do not regulate the hours of the vast majority of retailers (though there are exceptions, such as the blue law), and with the main exception being shops licensed to sell spirits and other alcoholic beverages (for shopping hours, see alcohol sale hours by state) and car dealerships. Shopping hours vary widely based on management considerations and customer needs. Key variables are the size of the metropolitan area, the type of store, and the size of the store.

Las Vegas, Nevada is the notable exception to all the traditions just described. Las Vegas is world-famous for its 24-hour local culture since it is an area with large gaming and tourism industries that operate 24/7. Since many of the employees in the city's primary industries work overnight shifts — and because Nevada has few laws in regard to operating hours for any type of commercial activity — many businesses cater to such workers. Thus, Las Vegas is home to many 24-hour car dealerships, dental clinics, auto mechanics, computer shops, and even some smaller clothing stores.

Typical store shopping hours:
 * Monday - Saturday 9 - 10 a.m. to 8 - 10 p.m. (9:00 - 10:00 to 20:00 - 22:00)
 * Sunday 11 - 12 noon to 5 - 7 p.m. (11:00 - 12:00 to 17:00 - 19:00)

Supermarkets usually open at earlier hours, between 6 or 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. (7:00 - 22:00) every day. Boutiques and smaller shops often close early at 5 or 6 p.m. (17:00 or 18:00), and usually close once or twice a week, most often on Sunday.

Nearly all stores are closed on Easter, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. In recent years, however, several department stores and discount stores have started opening during the evening on Thanksgiving Day; see Black Friday for more details. Early closing (half days) occur on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. Some stores might have reduced hours on other major holidays.

All malls and department stores, as well as most other stores remain open longer hours between Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas Eve for Christmas and holiday shopping. Many are open until 11 p.m. (23:00), and a few even longer.

Few stores remain open twenty-four hours; the main exceptions to this rule are most Walmarts throughout the country (especially Supercenters, which combine a discount store and full supermarket); many convenience stores, especially those that also sell motor fuel; and some drug stores like CVS, especially in larger cities like New York City and Las Vegas.

Some stores, especially in suburban and rural areas, might remain closed on Sundays for any reason (such as most retail in Bergen County, New Jersey due to the blue law, which is next to New York City, and home to four major malls and has the largest retail in the nation).

title: Shopping hours


text:
Thiotimoline

Thiotimoline is a fictitious chemical compound conceived by American biochemist and science fiction author Isaac Asimov. It was first described in a spoof scientific paper titled "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" in 1948. The major peculiarity of the chemical is its "endochronicity": it starts dissolving before it makes contact with water.

Asimov went on to write three additional short stories, each describing different properties or uses of thiotimoline.

Chemical properties
In Asimov's writings the endochronicity of thiotimoline is explained by the fact that in the thiotimoline molecule, there is at least one carbon atom such that, while two of the carbon's four chemical bonds lie in normal space and time, one of the bonds projects into the future and another into the past. Thiotimoline is derived from the bark of the (fictitious) shrub Rosacea karlsbadensis rufo, and the thiotimoline molecule includes at least fourteen hydroxy groups, two amino groups, and one sulfonic acid group, and possibly one nitro compound group as well. The nature of the hydrocarbon nucleus is unknown, although it seems in part to be an aromatic hydrocarbon.

Background
In 1947 Asimov was engaged in doctoral research in chemistry and, as part of his experimental procedure, he needed to dissolve catechol in water. As he observed the crystals dissolve as soon as they hit the water's surface, it occurred to him that if catechol were any more soluble, then it would dissolve before it encountered the water.

By that time Asimov had been writing professionally for nine years and would soon write a doctoral dissertation. He feared that the experience of writing readable prose for publication (i.e. science fiction) might have impaired his ability to write the turgid prose typical of academic discourse, and decided to practice with a spoof article (including charts, graphs, tables, and citations of fake articles in nonexistent journals) describing experiments on a compound, thiotimoline, that was so soluble that it dissolved in water up to 1.12 seconds before the water was added.

Asimov wrote the article on 8 June 1947, but was uncertain as to whether the resulting work of fiction was publishable. John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, accepted it for publication on 10 June, agreeing to Asimov's request that it appear under a pseudonym in deference to Asimov's concern that he might alienate potential doctoral examiners at Columbia University if he were revealed as the author.

Some months later Asimov was alarmed to see the piece appear in the March 1948 issue of Astounding under his own name, and copies of the issue circulated at the Columbia chemistry department. Asimov believed that Campbell had done so out of greater wisdom. His examiners told him that they accepted his dissertation by asking a final question about thiotimoline, resulting in him having to be led from the room while laughing hysterically with relief. The article made Asimov famous for the first time outside science fiction, as chemists shared copies of the article. He heard that many children went to the New York Public Library trying to find the nonexistent journals.

"The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline"
In 1952, Asimov wrote a second spoof scientific paper on thiotimoline called "The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline". Like the first, it included charts, graphs, tables, and citations of fake articles from fake journals (along with one real citation: Asimov's own earlier spoof article from Astounding, which was listed tongue-in-cheek as the Journal of Astounding Science Fiction). This second article described the use of thiotimoline to establish a quantitative classification of "certain mental disorders". It also expounds a putative rationale for thiotimoline's behaviour: namely that the chemical bonds in the compound's structural formula are so starved of space that some are forced into the time dimension. According to the second article, thiotimoline's time of solubility varies depending on the determination of the person adding the water. It also claims that one effect is that when people with multiple personalities add the water, some parts of the thiotimoline dissolve before others, due to some of the individual's personalities being more determined than others. "The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline" appeared in the December 1953 issue of Astounding.

The first two thiotimoline "articles" appeared together in Asimov's first collection of science essays, Only a Trillion (1957), under the joint title "The Marvellous Properties of Thiotimoline". Asimov also included the original article in his 1972 collection The Early Asimov. The first article also appeared in Fifty Years of the Best Science Fiction from Analog  (Davis Publications, 1982).

"Thiotimoline and the Space Age"
Asimov wrote a third thiotimoline article on 14 November 1959 called "Thiotimoline and the Space Age". Instead of a fake scientific paper, this third article took the form of an address by Asimov to the 12th annual meeting of the American Chronochemical Society, a nonexistent scientific society. In his address, Asimov "describes" his first experiments with thiotimoline in July 1947, and timing the compound's dissolution with the original endochronometer, "the same instrument now at the Smithsonian". Asimov laments the skepticism with which chronochemistry has been greeted in America, noting with sorrow that his address has only attracted fifteen attendees. He then contrasts the thriving state of chronochemistry in the Soviet Union, with the research town of Khrushchevsk, nicknamed "Tiotimolingrad", established in the Urals.

According to Asimov, two Scottish researchers have developed a "telechronic battery", which uses a series of 77,000 interconnected endochronometers to allow a final sample of thiotimoline to dissolve up to a day before water is added to an initial sample. Asimov says there is "strong, if indirect, evidence that the Soviet Union possesses even more sophisticated devices and is turning them out in commercial quantities". He believes that the Soviets are using telechronic batteries to determine ahead of time whether satellite launches will be successful.

Finally, Asimov describes attempts to create a "Heisenberg failure", to get a sample of thiotimoline to dissolve without later adding water to it. In every case where the thiotimoline dissolved, some accident occurred that caused some water to be added to it at the proper time. Several attempts to create a Heisenberg failure in the mid-1950s coincided with a series of hurricanes striking New England in such a manner as to suggest that nature would find a way to add water whatever man decided, if man were to be resolute in not adding water. Asimov speculated that Noah's flood might have been brought about by thiotimoline experiments among the ancient Sumerians. He then concludes with some speculation about thiotimoline's potential applications as a weapon of mass destruction by deliberately using it to artificially induce hurricanes.

"Thiotimoline and the Space Age" appeared in the October 1960 issue of Astounding, which was then in the final stages of changing its name to Analog. The article was reprinted in full in Opus 100 (1969) and The Asimov Chronicles: Fifty Years of Isaac Asimov (1989).

"Thiotimoline to the Stars"
Asimov's final piece on thiotimoline was a short story titled "Thiotimoline to the Stars", which he wrote for Harry Harrison's anthology Astounding (1973). In it, Admiral Vernon, Commandant of the Astronautic Academy, gives a speech to the graduating "Class of '22". Vernon's speech explains that thiotimoline was first mentioned in 1948 by a semi-mythical scientist named Azimuth or Asymptote, but that serious study of the compound didn't begin until the 21st century scientist Almirante worked out the theory of hypersteric hindrance. Later scientists worked out ways to form endochronic molecules into polymers, allowing large structures such as spaceships to be built out of endochronic materials. One effect of endochronicity is that if one fails to add water to an object that has reacted to water, the object will travel into the future in search of water to interact with.

An individual with sufficient inborn talent, Vernon explains, can perfectly balance a starship's endochronicity with relativistic time dilation, so that a ship traveling at relativistic speeds can age at the same rate as the rest of the universe, allowing it to return to its starting point within months, rather than centuries, of its departure. Vernon emphasizes that starship pilots are expected to match endochronicity with relativity exactly: a sixty-second difference between the two is regarded as barely acceptable, and a 120-second difference is considered grounds for dismissal. Vernon also emphasizes that endochronic molecules are unstable, and must be renewed before each trip, so that an endochronic ship that finds itself lost might not have sufficient endochronicity to return to its proper time. A ship that finds itself in the future might be able to re-endochronize itself if the technology still exists; a ship that finds itself in the past will be marooned there.

Finally, Vernon reveals that the auditorium where he is giving his speech is actually an endochronic starship, and that during his speech, they have all flown to the outskirts of the Solar System. The graduates felt no acceleration because canceling out time dilation also caused the canceling out of inertia. When Vernon concludes his speech, the graduates will be landing in the United Nations Port at Lincoln, Nebraska, where they will be spending the weekend.

After they land, Vernon receives an awful shock and passes out when his pilot informs him that the ship is surrounded by Indians. Vernon wrongly assumed the pilot meant Red Indians, and thought that they had landed centuries in the past. But the pilot only meant that they had landed at the correct time but near Calcutta, India.

Asimov included "Thiotimoline to the Stars" in his 1975 collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories.

Other references to thiotimoline
In Glen Bever's story "And Silently Vanish Away" a chemist with the unique ability to use psychokinetic catalysis to speed up difficult reactions is shocked by a lab explosion and the mixture he was working on gets changed. Under analysis the structure never appears to be the same twice and when the substance is injected into lab rats they start to silently and suddenly vanish. It is found that one part of the compound is a molecule which spreads out into four dimensions. The four-dimensional molecule is thiotimoline. The story appeared in the November 1971 issue of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact.

Topi H. Barr's story "Antithiotimoline" deals with a chemist who accidentally creates a thiotimoline-like compound which extrudes only into the past, enabling the scientist to create images of past events. The narrator complains that thiotimoline is extremely difficult to obtain, and suspects that the CIA or other agencies are controlling the supply for their own reasons. The story appeared in the December 1977 issue of Analog.

Spider Robinson's story "Mirror mirror, off the wall", published in Time Travelers Strictly Cash in 1981, also references thiotimoline.

In Robert Silverberg's 1989 story "The Asenion Solution", thiotimoline is used to send excess quantities of plutonium-186 to the end of time, where they will fall over the brink into anti-time and lead to the Big Bang. "The Asenion Solution" appeared in the Asimov festschrift Foundation's Friends.

The November/December 2001 and March/April 2002 issues of the IEEE Design & Test of Computers included spoof articles on the use of thiotimoline for debugging computers.

In the game We Happy Few, a mysterious liquid called "motilene" acts as the primary source of electrical power in the setting, and is pumped throughout the city in pipes in lieu of a traditional electrical grid, or alternatively placed into special jars to act as portable batteries. A research note can be found in one location which makes reference to "thiomotilene crystals" and their "endochronic properties", which in turn strongly suggests motilene's name be derived from thiotimoline.

title: Thiotimoline


text:
Rapid eye movement sleep

Rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep or REMS) is a unique phase of sleep in mammals (including humans) and birds, characterized by random rapid movement of the eyes, accompanied by low muscle tone throughout the body, and the propensity of the sleeper to dream vividly.

The REM phase is also known as paradoxical sleep (PS) and sometimes desynchronized sleep or dreamy sleep, because of physiological similarities to waking states including rapid, low-voltage desynchronized brain waves. Electrical and chemical activity regulating this phase seem to originate in the brain stem, and is characterized most notably by an abundance of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, combined with a nearly complete absence of monoamine neurotransmitters histamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. Experiences of REM sleep are not transferred to permanent memory due to absence of norepinephrine.

REM sleep is physiologically different from the other phases of sleep, which are collectively referred to as non-REM sleep (NREM sleep, NREMS, synchronized sleep). The absence of visual and auditory stimulation (sensory deprivation) during REM sleep can cause hallucinations. REM and non-REM sleep alternate within one sleep cycle, which lasts about 90 minutes in adult humans. As sleep cycles continue, they shift towards a higher proportion of REM sleep. The transition to REM sleep brings marked physical changes, beginning with electrical bursts called "ponto-geniculo-occipital waves" (PGO waves) originating in the brain stem. REM sleep occurs 4 times in a 7-hour sleep. Organisms in REM sleep suspend central homeostasis, allowing large fluctuations in respiration, thermoregulation and circulation which do not occur in any other modes of sleeping or waking. The body abruptly loses muscle tone, a state known as REM atonia.

In 1953, Professor Nathaniel Kleitman and his student Eugene Aserinsky defined rapid eye movement and linked it to dreams. REM sleep was further described by researchers, including William Dement and Michel Jouvet. Many experiments have involved awakening test subjects whenever they begin to enter the REM phase, thereby producing a state known as REM deprivation. Subjects allowed to sleep normally again usually experience a modest REM rebound. Techniques of neurosurgery, chemical injection, electroencephalography, positron emission tomography, and reports of dreamers upon waking have all been used to study this phase of sleep.

Electrical activity in the brain
REM sleep is called "paradoxical" because of its similarities to wakefulness. Although the body is paralyzed, the brain acts as if it is somewhat awake, with cerebral neurons firing with the same overall intensity as in wakefulness. Electroencephalography during REM deep sleep reveals fast, low amplitude, desynchronized neural oscillation (brainwaves) that resemble the pattern seen during wakefulness, which differ from the slow δ (delta) waves pattern of NREM deep sleep. An important element of this contrast is the 3–10 Hz theta rhythm in the hippocampus and 40–60 Hz gamma waves in the cortex; patterns of EEG activity similar to these rhythms are also observed during wakefulness. The cortical and thalamic neurons in the waking and REM sleeping brain are more depolarized (fire more readily) than in the NREM deep sleeping brain. Human theta wave activity predominates during REM sleep in both the hippocampus and the cortex.

During REM sleep, electrical connectivity among different parts of the brain manifests differently than during wakefulness. Frontal and posterior areas are less coherent in most frequencies, a fact which has been cited in relation to the chaotic experience of dreaming. However, the posterior areas are more coherent with each other; as are the right and left hemispheres of the brain, especially during lucid dreams.

Brain energy use in REM sleep, as measured by oxygen and glucose metabolism, equals or exceeds energy use in waking. The rate in non-REM sleep is 11–40% lower.

Brain stem
Neural activity during REM sleep seems to originate in the brain stem, especially the pontine tegmentum and locus coeruleus. REM sleep is punctuated and immediately preceded by PGO (ponto-geniculo-occipital) waves, bursts of electrical activity originating in the brain stem. (PGO waves have long been measured directly in cats but not in humans because of constraints on experimentation; however, comparable effects have been observed in humans during "phasic" events which occur during REM sleep, and the existence of similar PGO waves is thus inferred.) These waves occur in clusters about every 6 seconds for 1–2 minutes during the transition from deep to paradoxical sleep. They exhibit their highest amplitude upon moving into the visual cortex and are a cause of the "rapid eye movements" in paradoxical sleep. Other muscles may also contract under the influence of these waves.

Forebrain
Research in the 1990s using positron emission tomography (PET) confirmed the role of the brain stem and suggested that, within the forebrain, the limbic and paralimbic systems showed more activation than other areas. The areas activated during REM sleep are approximately inverse to those activated during non-REM sleep and display greater activity than in quiet waking. The "anterior paralimbic REM activation area" (APRA) includes areas linked with emotion, memory, fear and sex, and may thus relate to the experience of dreaming during REMS. More recent PET research has indicated that the distribution of brain activity during REM sleep varies in correspondence with the type of activity seen in the prior period of wakefulness.

The superior frontal gyrus, medial frontal areas, intraparietal sulcus, and superior parietal cortex, areas involved in sophisticated mental activity, show equal activity in REM sleep as in wakefulness. The amygdala is also active during REM sleep and may participate in generating the PGO waves, and experimental suppression of the amygdala results in less REM sleep. The amygdala may also regulate cardiac function in lieu of the less active insular cortex.

Chemicals in the brain
Compared to slow-wave sleep, both waking and paradoxical sleep involve higher use of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which may cause the faster brainwaves. The monoamine neurotransmitters norepinephrine, serotonin and histamine are completely unavailable. Injections of acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, which effectively increases available acetylcholine, have been found to induce paradoxical sleep in humans and other animals already in slow-wave sleep. Carbachol, which mimics the effect of acetylcholine on neurons, has a similar influence. In waking humans, the same injections produce paradoxical sleep only if the monoamine neurotransmitters have already been depleted.

Two other neurotransmitters, orexin and gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA), seem to promote wakefulness, diminish during deep sleep, and inhibit paradoxical sleep.

Unlike the abrupt transitions in electrical patterns, the chemical changes in the brain show continuous periodic oscillation.

Models of REM regulation
According to the activation-synthesis hypothesis proposed by Robert McCarley and Allan Hobson in 1975–1977, control over REM sleep involves pathways of "REM-on" and "REM-off" neurons in the brain stem. REM-on neurons are primarily cholinergic (i.e., involve acetylcholine); REM-off neurons activate serotonin and noradrenaline, which among other functions suppress the REM-on neurons. McCarley and Hobson suggested that the REM-on neurons actually stimulate REM-off neurons, thereby serving as the mechanism for the cycling between REM and non-REM sleep. They used Lotka–Volterra equations to describe this cyclical inverse relationship. Kayuza Sakai and Michel Jouvet advanced a similar model in 1981. Whereas acetylcholine manifests in the cortex equally during wakefulness and REM, it appears in higher concentrations in the brain stem during REM. The withdrawal of orexin and GABA may cause the absence of the other excitatory neurotransmitters;  researchers in recent years increasingly include GABA regulation in their models.

Eye movements
Most of the eye movements in "rapid eye movement" sleep are in fact less rapid than those normally exhibited by waking humans. They are also shorter in duration and more likely to loop back to their starting point. About seven such loops take place over one minute of REM sleep. In slow-wave sleep, the eyes can drift apart; however, the eyes of the paradoxical sleeper move in tandem. These eye movements follow the ponto-geniculo-occipital waves originating in the brain stem. The eye movements themselves may relate to the sense of vision experienced in the dream, but a direct relationship remains to be clearly established. Congenitally blind people, who do not typically have visual imagery in their dreams, still move their eyes in REM sleep. An alternative explanation suggests that the functional purpose of REM sleep is for procedural memory processing, and the rapid eye movement is only a side effect of the brain processing the eye-related procedural memory.

Circulation, respiration, and thermoregulation
Generally speaking, the body suspends homeostasis during paradoxical sleep. Heart rate, cardiac pressure, cardiac output, arterial pressure, and breathing rate quickly become irregular when the body moves into REM sleep. In general, respiratory reflexes such as response to hypoxia diminish. Overall, the brain exerts less control over breathing; electrical stimulation of respiration-linked brain areas does not influence the lungs, as it does during non-REM sleep and in waking.

Erections of the penis (nocturnal penile tumescence or NPT) normally accompany REM sleep in rats and humans. If a male has erectile dysfunction (ED) while awake, but has NPT episodes during REM, it would suggest that the ED is from a psychological rather than a physiological cause. In females, erection of the clitoris (nocturnal clitoral tumescence or NCT) causes enlargement, with accompanying vaginal blood flow and transudation (i.e. lubrication). During a normal night of sleep, the penis and clitoris may be erect for a total time of from one hour to as long as three and a half hours during REM.

Body temperature is not well regulated during REM sleep, and thus organisms become more sensitive to temperatures outside their thermoneutral zone. Cats and other small furry mammals will shiver and breathe faster to regulate temperature during NREMS—but not during REMS. With the loss of muscle tone, animals lose the ability to regulate temperature through body movement. (However, even cats with pontine lesions preventing muscle atonia during REM did not regulate their temperature by shivering.) Neurons that typically activate in response to cold temperatures—triggers for neural thermoregulation—simply do not fire during REM sleep, as they do in NREM sleep and waking.

Consequently, hot or cold environmental temperatures can reduce the proportion of REM sleep, as well as amount of total sleep. In other words, if at the end of a phase of deep sleep, the organism's thermal indicators fall outside of a certain range, it will not enter paradoxical sleep lest deregulation allow temperature to drift further from the desirable value. This mechanism can be 'fooled' by artificially warming the brain.

Muscle
REM atonia, an almost complete paralysis of the body, is accomplished through the inhibition of motor neurons. When the body shifts into REM sleep, motor neurons throughout the body undergo a process called hyperpolarization: their already-negative membrane potential decreases by another 2–10 millivolts, thereby raising the threshold which a stimulus must overcome to excite them. Muscle inhibition may result from unavailability of monoamine neurotransmitters (restraining the abundance of acetylcholine in the brainstem) and perhaps from mechanisms used in waking muscle inhibition. The medulla oblongata, located between pons and spine, seems to have the capacity for organism-wide muscle inhibition. Some localized twitching and reflexes can still occur. Pupils contract.

Lack of REM atonia causes REM behavior disorder, those affected physically act out their dreams, or conversely "dream out their acts", under an alternative theory on the relationship between muscle impulses during REM and associated mental imagery (which would also apply to people without the condition, except that commands to their muscles are suppressed). This is different from conventional sleepwalking, which takes place during slow-wave sleep, not REM. Narcolepsy, by contrast, seems to involve excessive and unwanted REM atonia: cataplexy and excessive daytime sleepiness while awake, hypnagogic hallucinations before entering slow-wave sleep, or sleep paralysis while waking. Other psychiatric disorders including depression have been linked to disproportionate REM sleep. Patients with suspected sleep disorders are typically evaluated by polysomnogram.

Lesions of the pons to prevent atonia have induced functional "REM behavior disorder" in animals.

Dreaming
Rapid eye movement sleep (REM) has since its discovery been closely associated with dreaming. Waking up sleepers during a REM phase is a common experimental method for obtaining dream reports; 80% of neurotypical people can give some kind of dream report under these circumstances. Sleepers awakened from REM tend to give longer, more narrative descriptions of the dreams they were experiencing, and to estimate the duration of their dreams as longer. Lucid dreams are reported far more often in REM sleep. (In fact these could be considered a hybrid state combining essential elements of REM sleep and waking consciousness.) The mental events which occur during REM most commonly have dream hallmarks including narrative structure, convincingness (e.g., experiential resemblance to waking life), and incorporation of instinctual themes. Sometimes, they include elements of the dreamer's recent experience taken directly from episodic memory. By one estimate, 80% of dreams occur during REM.

Hobson and McCarley proposed that the PGO waves characteristic of "phasic" REM might supply the visual cortex and forebrain with electrical excitement which amplifies the hallucinatory aspects of dreaming. However, people woken up during sleep do not report significantly more bizarre dreams during phasic REMS, compared to tonic REMS. Another possible relationship between the two phenomena could be that the higher threshold for sensory interruption during REM sleep allows the brain to travel further along unrealistic and peculiar trains of thought.

Some dreaming can take place during non-REM sleep. "Light sleepers" can experience dreaming during stage 2 non-REM sleep, whereas "deep sleepers", upon awakening in the same stage, are more likely to report "thinking" but not "dreaming". Certain scientific efforts to assess the uniquely bizarre nature of dreams experienced while asleep were forced to conclude that waking thought could be just as bizarre, especially in conditions of sensory deprivation. Because of non-REM dreaming, some sleep researchers have strenuously contested the importance of connecting dreaming to the REM sleep phase. The prospect that well-known neurological aspects of REM do not themselves cause dreaming suggests the need to re-examine the neurobiology of dreaming per se. Some researchers (Dement, Hobson, Jouvet, for example) tend to resist the idea of disconnecting dreaming from REM sleep.

Effects of SSRIs
Previous research has shown that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have an important effect on REM sleep neurobiology and dreaming. A study at Harvard Medical School in 2000 tested the effects of paroxetine and fluvoxamine on healthy young adult male and females for 31 days: a drug-free baseline week, 19 days on either paroxetine or fluvoxamine with morning and evening doses, and 5 days of absolute discontinuation. Results showed that SSRI treatment decreased the average amount of dream recall frequency in comparison to baseline measurements as a result of serotonergic REM suppression. Fluvoxamine increased the length of dream reporting, bizarreness of dreams as well as the intensity of REM sleep. These effects were the greatest during acute discontinuation compared to treatment and baseline days. However, the subjective intensity of dreaming increased and the proclivity to enter REM sleep was decreased during SSRI treatment compared to baseline and discontinuation days.

Creativity
After waking from REM sleep, the mind seems "hyperassociative"—more receptive to semantic priming effects. People awakened from REM have performed better on tasks like anagrams and creative problem solving.

Sleep aids the process by which creativity forms associative elements into new combinations that are useful or meet some requirement. This occurs in REM sleep rather than in NREM sleep. Rather than being due to memory processes, this has been attributed to changes during REM sleep in cholinergic and noradrenergic neuromodulation. High levels of acetylcholine in the hippocampus suppress feedback from hippocampus to the neocortex, while lower levels of acetylcholine and norepinephrine in the neocortex encourage the uncontrolled spread of associational activity within neocortical areas. This is in contrast to waking consciousness, where higher levels of norepinephrine and acetylcholine inhibit recurrent connections in the neocortex. REM sleep through this process adds creativity by allowing "neocortical structures to reorganise associative hierarchies, in which information from the hippocampus would be reinterpreted in relation to previous semantic representations or nodes."

Timing

In the ultradian sleep cycle, an organism alternates between deep sleep (slow, large, synchronized brain waves) and paradoxical sleep (faster, desynchronized waves). Sleep happens in the context of the larger circadian rhythm, which influences sleepiness and physiological factors based on timekeepers within the body. Sleep can be distributed throughout the day or clustered during one part of the rhythm: in nocturnal animals, during the day, and in diurnal animals, at night. The organism returns to homeostatic regulation almost immediately after REM sleep ends.

During a night of sleep, humans usually experience about four or five periods of REM sleep; they are shorter (~15 min) at the beginning of the night and longer (~25 min) toward the end. Many animals and some people tend to wake, or experience a period of very light sleep, for a short time immediately after a bout of REM. The relative amount of REM sleep varies considerably with age. A newborn baby spends more than 80% of total sleep time in REM.

REM sleep typically occupies 20–25% of total sleep in adult humans: about 90–120 minutes of a night's sleep. The first REM episode occurs about 70 minutes after falling asleep. Cycles of about 90 minutes each follow, with each cycle including a larger proportion of REM sleep. (The increased REM sleep later in the night is connected with the circadian rhythm and occurs even in people who did not sleep in the first part of the night.)

In the weeks after a human baby is born, as its nervous system matures, neural patterns in sleep begin to show a rhythm of REM and non-REM sleep. (In faster-developing mammals, this process occurs in utero.) Infants spend more time in REM sleep than adults. The proportion of REM sleep then decreases significantly in childhood. Older people tend to sleep less overall, but sleep in REM for about the same absolute time (and therefore spend a greater proportion of sleep in REM).

Rapid eye movement sleep can be subclassified into tonic and phasic modes. Tonic REM is characterized by theta rhythms in the brain; phasic REM is characterized by PGO waves and actual "rapid" eye movements. Processing of external stimuli is heavily inhibited during phasic REM, and recent evidence suggests that sleepers are more difficult to arouse from phasic REM than in slow-wave sleep.

Deprivation effects
Selective REMS deprivation causes a significant increase in the number of attempts to go into REM stage while asleep. On recovery nights, an individual will usually move to stage 3 and REM sleep more quickly and experience a REM rebound, which refers to an increase in the time spent in REM stage over normal levels. These findings are consistent with the idea that REM sleep is biologically necessary. However, the "rebound" REM sleep usually does not last fully as long as the estimated length of the missed REM periods. After the deprivation is complete, mild psychological disturbances, such as anxiety, irritability, hallucinations, and difficulty concentrating may develop and appetite may increase. There are also positive consequences of REM deprivation. Some symptoms of depression are found to be suppressed by REM deprivation; aggression may increase, and eating behavior may get disrupted. Higher norepinepherine is a possible cause of these results. Whether and how long-term REM deprivation has psychological effects remains a matter of controversy. Several reports have indicated that REM deprivation increases aggression and sexual behavior in laboratory test animals. Rats deprived of paradoxical sleep die in 4–6 weeks (twice the time before death in case of total sleep deprivation). Mean body temperature falls continually during this period.

It has been suggested that acute REM sleep deprivation can improve certain types of depression—when depression appears to be related to an imbalance of certain neurotransmitters. Although sleep deprivation in general annoys most of the population, it has repeatedly been shown to alleviate depression, albeit temporarily. More than half the individuals who experience this relief report it to be rendered ineffective after sleeping the following night. Thus, researchers have devised methods such as altering the sleep schedule for a span of days following a REM deprivation period and combining sleep-schedule alterations with pharmacotherapy to prolong this effect. Antidepressants (including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, tricyclics, and monoamine oxidase inhibitors) and stimulants (such as amphetamine, methylphenidate and cocaine) interfere with REM sleep by stimulating the monoamine neurotransmitters which must be suppressed for REM sleep to occur. Administered at therapeutic doses, these drugs may stop REM sleep entirely for weeks or months. Withdrawal causes a REM rebound. Sleep deprivation stimulates hippocampal neurogenesis much as antidepressants do, but whether this effect is driven by REM sleep in particular is unknown.

In other animals

Although it manifests differently in different animals, REM sleep or something like it occurs in all land mammals—as well as in birds. The primary criteria used to identify REM are the change in electrical activity, measured by EEG, and loss of muscle tone, interspersed with bouts of twitching in phasic REM.

The amount of REM sleep and cycling varies among animals; predators experience more REM sleep than prey. Larger animals also tend to stay in REM for longer, possibly because higher thermal inertia of their brains and bodies allows them to tolerate longer suspension of thermoregulation. The period (full cycle of REM and non-REM) lasts for about 90 minutes in humans, 22 minutes in cats, and 12 minutes in rats. In utero, mammals spend more than half (50–80%) of a 24-hour day in REM sleep.

Sleeping reptiles do not seem to have PGO waves or the localized brain activation seen in mammalian REM. However, they do exhibit sleep cycles with phases of REM-like electrical activity measurable by EEG. A recent study found periodic eye movements in the central bearded dragon of Australia, leading its authors to speculate that the common ancestor of amniotes may therefore have manifested some precursor to REMS.

Observations of jumping spiders in their nocturnal resting position also suggest a REM sleep-like state characterized by bouts of twitching and retinal movements and hints of muscle atonia (legs curling up as a result of pressure loss caused by muscle atonia in the prosoma).

Sleep deprivation experiments on non-human animals can be set up differently than those on humans. The "flower pot" method involves placing a laboratory animal above water on a platform so small that it falls off upon losing muscle tone. The naturally rude awakening which results may elicit changes in the organism which necessarily exceed the simple absence of a sleep phase. This method also stops working after about 3 days as the subjects (typically rats) lose their will to avoid the water. Another method involves computer monitoring of brain waves, complete with automatic mechanized shaking of the cage when the test animal drifts into REM sleep.

Possible functions
Some researchers argue that the perpetuation of a complex brain process such as REM sleep indicates that it serves an important function for the survival of mammalian and avian species. It fulfills important physiological needs vital for survival to the extent that prolonged REM sleep deprivation leads to death in experimental animals. In both humans and experimental animals, REM sleep loss leads to several behavioral and physiological abnormalities. Loss of REM sleep has been noticed during various natural and experimental infections. Survivability of the experimental animals decreases when REM sleep is totally attenuated during infection; this leads to the possibility that the quality and quantity of REM sleep is generally essential for normal body physiology. Further, the existence of a "REM rebound" effect suggests the possibility of a biological need for REM sleep.

While the precise function of REM sleep is not well understood, several theories have been proposed.

Memory
Sleep in general aids memory. REM sleep may favor the preservation of certain types of memories: specifically, procedural memory, spatial memory, and emotional memory. In rats, REM sleep increases following intensive learning, especially several hours after, and sometimes for multiple nights. Experimental REM sleep deprivation has sometimes inhibited memory consolidation, especially regarding complex processes (e.g., how to escape from an elaborate maze). In humans, the best evidence for REM's improvement of memory pertains to learning of procedures—new ways of moving the body (such as trampoline jumping), and new techniques of problem solving. REM deprivation seemed to impair declarative (i.e., factual) memory only in more complex cases, such as memories of longer stories. REM sleep apparently counteracts attempts to suppress certain thoughts.

According to the dual-process hypothesis of sleep and memory, the two major phases of sleep correspond to different types of memory. "Night half" studies have tested this hypothesis with memory tasks either begun before sleep and assessed in the middle of the night, or begun in the middle of the night and assessed in the morning. Slow-wave sleep, part of non-REM sleep, appears to be important for declarative memory. Artificial enhancement of the non-REM sleep improves the next-day recall of memorized pairs of words. Tucker et al. demonstrated that a daytime nap containing solely non-REM sleep enhances declarative memory—but not procedural memory. According to the sequential hypothesis, the two types of sleep work together to consolidate memory.

Sleep researcher Jerome Siegel has observed that extreme REM deprivation does not significantly interfere with memory. One case study of an individual who had little or no REM sleep due to a shrapnel injury to the brainstem did not find the individual's memory to be impaired. Antidepressants, which suppress REM sleep, show no evidence of impairing memory and may improve it.

Graeme Mitchison and Francis Crick proposed in 1983 that by virtue of its inherent spontaneous activity, the function of REM sleep "is to remove certain undesirable modes of interaction in networks of cells in the cerebral cortex"—a process they characterize as "unlearning". As a result, those memories which are relevant (whose underlying neuronal substrate is strong enough to withstand such spontaneous, chaotic activation) are further strengthened, whilst weaker, transient, "noise" memory traces disintegrate. Memory consolidation during paradoxical sleep is specifically correlated with the periods of rapid eye movement, which do not occur continuously. One explanation for this correlation is that the PGO electrical waves, which precede the eye movements, also influence memory. REM sleep could provide a unique opportunity for "unlearning" to occur in the basic neural networks involved in homeostasis, which are protected from this "synaptic downscaling" effect during deep sleep.

Neural ontogeny
REM sleep prevails most after birth, and diminishes with age. According to the "ontogenetic hypothesis", REM (also known in neonates as active sleep) aids the developing brain by providing the neural stimulation that newborns need to form mature neural connections. Sleep deprivation studies have shown that deprivation early in life can result in behavioral problems, permanent sleep disruption, and decreased brain mass. The strongest evidence for the ontogenetic hypothesis comes from experiments on REM deprivation, and from the development of the visual system in the lateral geniculate nucleus and primary visual cortex.

Defensive immobilization
Ioannis Tsoukalas of Stockholm University has hypothesized that REM sleep is an evolutionary transformation of a well-known defensive mechanism, the tonic immobility reflex. This reflex, also known as animal hypnosis or death feigning, functions as the last line of defense against an attacking predator and consists of the total immobilization of the animal so that it appears dead. Tsoukalas argues that the neurophysiology and phenomenology of this reaction shows striking similarities to REM sleep; for example, both reactions exhibit brainstem control, cholinergic neurotransmission, paralysis, hippocampal theta rhythm, and thermoregulatory changes.

Shift of gaze
According to "scanning hypothesis", the directional properties of REM sleep are related to a shift of gaze in dream imagery. Against this hypothesis is that such eye movements occur in those born blind and in fetuses in spite of lack of vision. Also, binocular REMs are non-conjugated (i.e., the two eyes do not point in the same direction at a time) and so lack a fixation point. In support of this theory, research finds that in goal-oriented dreams, eye gaze is directed towards the dream action, determined from correlations in the eye and body movements of REM sleep behavior disorder patients who enact their dreams.

Oxygen supply to cornea
Dr. David M. Maurice, an eye specialist and former adjunct professor at Columbia University, proposed that REM sleep was associated with oxygen supply to the cornea, and that aqueous humor, the liquid between cornea and iris, was stagnant if not stirred. Among the supportive evidence, he calculated that if aqueous humor was stagnant, oxygen from the iris had to reach the cornea by diffusion through aqueous humor, which was not sufficient. According to the theory, when the organism is awake, eye movement (or cool environmental temperature) enables the aqueous humor to circulate. When the organism is sleeping, REM provides the much needed stir to aqueous humor. This theory is consistent with the observation that fetuses, as well as eye-sealed newborn animals, spend much time in REM sleep, and that during a normal sleep, a person's REM sleep episodes become progressively longer deeper into the night. However, owls experience REM sleep, but do not move their head more than in non-REM sleep and it is well known that owls' eyes are nearly immobile.

Other theories
Another theory suggests that monoamine shutdown is required so that the monoamine receptors in the brain can recover to regain full sensitivity.

The sentinel hypothesis of REM sleep was put forward by Frederick Snyder in 1966. It is based upon the observation that REM sleep in several mammals (the rat, the hedgehog, the rabbit, and the rhesus monkey) is followed by a brief awakening. This does not occur for either cats or humans, although humans are more likely to wake from REM sleep than from NREM sleep. Snyder hypothesized that REM sleep activates an animal periodically, to scan the environment for possible predators. This hypothesis does not explain the muscle paralysis of REM sleep; however, a logical analysis might suggest that the muscle paralysis exists to prevent the animal from fully waking up unnecessarily, and allowing it to return easily to deeper sleep.

Jim Horne, a sleep researcher at Loughborough University, has suggested that REM in modern humans compensates for the reduced need for wakeful food foraging.

Other theories are that REM sleep warms the brain, stimulates and stabilizes the neural circuits that have not been activated during waking, or creates internal stimulation to aid development of the CNS; while some argue that REM lacks any purpose, and simply results from random brain activation.

Furthermore, eye movements are also theorized to play a role in certain psychotherapies such as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR).

title: Rapid eye movement sleep