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Office workers bemoan driving home in the dark. Night owls relish the chance to sleep in. As clocks tick toward the end of daylight saving time, many sleep scientists and circadian biologists are pushing for a permanent ban because of potential ill effects on human health. Losing an hour of afternoon daylight sounds like a gloomy preview for the dark winter months, and at least one study found an increase in people seeking help for depression after turning the clocks back to standard time in November — in Scandinavia. (10/31)

Someone already drowsy or irritable during the day shouldn’t take this weekend’s time change as a license to sleep in or go to bed later, he said, because they’re only shifting their poor sleep habits. Such an abrupt change — even just an hour — can wreak havoc on our circadian rhythms, the 24-hour cycles of living beings that determine sleeping and feeding patterns, and can be affected by stimuli including sunlight and temperature. (Carney, 10/31)

Will you enjoy an extra hour of sleep when daylight saving time ends Sunday? Many sleep-deprived seniors, after dutifully setting back their clocks Saturday night, will mark the occasion doing what they’re often doing in the wee hours: tossing and turning, nudging snoring spouses, and fretting about being awake. (Weisman, 10/31)

The brain waves generated during deep sleep appear to trigger a cleaning system in the brain that protects it against Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. Electrical signals known as slow waves appear just before a pulse of fluid washes through the brain, presumably removing toxins associated with Alzheimer's, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science. (Hamilton, 10/31)

Laura Lewis and her team of researchers have been putting in late nights in their Boston University lab. Lewis ran tests until around 3:00 in the morning, then ended up sleeping in the next day. It was like she had jet lag, she says, without changing time zones. It’s not that Lewis doesn’t appreciate the merits of a good night’s sleep. She does. But when you’re trying to map what’s happening in a slumbering human’s brain, you end up making some sacrifices. “It’s this great irony of sleep research,” she says. “You’re constrained by when people sleep.” (Harrison, 10/31)