Penguins Nap Over 10,000 Times a Day
not cut it: not good enough or not sufficient for a particular purpose
In Antarctica, chinstrap penguins sleep thousands of times a day, but only for a few seconds each time. Researchers on King George island used brain implants and video cameras to study their sleep in the wild. The penguins took quick naps more than 10,000 times a day, adding up to 11 hours of sleep daily. Whether standing up or lying down, they never enter deep sleep, staying alert to protect their young.
Unlike humans, these penguins don’t seem to be negatively affected by their lack of deep sleep. While people can get some restorative benefits from short naps, four seconds isn’t going to cut it.
Sample sentences
1. For a professional athlete, just training on weekends doesn’t cut it.
2. If you’re baking a cake, guessing the measurements won’t cut it; you need to be exact.
3. Studying only the night before a big exam isn’t going to cut it.
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Constantly on the nod, chinstrap penguins catch seconds-long bursts of sleep 10,000 times per day