Physics of a random biological process

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Abstract
We analyze the successive fluctuations of the daytime and nighttime sleep pattern of a newborn baby by using tools of far-from-equilibrium statistical physics. We find that this class of natural random biological process displays a remarkable long-range power-law correlation that extends for, at least, the first six months of life. Such a scaling behavior might help to characterize the underlying dynamics of the (early) growth and development of humans through analyzing the time series generated when asleep.