2016 Year End Media Charts

Top Songs of 2016
Rank	Song	Artist	Plays
1	Lazarus	David Bowie	99
2	Decks Dark	Radiohead	98
3	Youth	Glass Animals	95
4	Hello	Adele	90
5	Starboy	The Weeknd	90
6	The Gift of Music	Dream Theater	88
7	Runaway	Against the Current	87
8	Can't Stop the Feeling	Justin Timberlake (Trolls)	82
9	She's So Lovely	Beach House	79
10	You With Me	Jimmy Eat World	78
11	Be Mean	DNCE	76
12	Adventure of a Lifetime	Coldplay	72
13	Make Me Like You	Gwen Stefani	70
14	Mountain at My Gates	Foals	70
15	Love & Hate	Michael Kiwanuka	67
16	Califorinia	Grimes	66
17	Spirits	The Strumbellas	66
18	Up & Up	Coldplay	62
19	Road Blaster	M83	61
20	The Numbers	Radiohead	61
21	Try Everything	Shakira (Zootopia)	60
22	Cold Little Heart	Michael Kiwanuka	58
23	All I Ask	Adele	57
24	Army	Ellie Goulding	56
25	Dancing in Glass	St. Lucia	56
26	Frankie Sinatra	The Avalanches	56
27	Auld Wives	Bear's Den	56
28	Amazing Day	Coldplay	55
29	Cake By the Ocean	DNCE	52
30	River Lea	Adele	52
31	Present Tense	Radiohead	51
32	Venus Fly	Grimes	51
33	Me, Myself, & I	G-eazy, Bebe Rexha	49
34	Leaving Earth	Seven Lions	47
35	Love Somebody	St. Lucia	47
36	Go!	M83	46
37	Here	Alessia Cara	45
38	You Don't Get Me High Anymore	Phantogram	45
39	Solitude	M83	45
40	Goldmine	Colbie Caillat	44
41	Can't Get Enough	The Phantoms	43
42	Death With Dignity	Sufjan Stevens	43
43	Blackstar	David Bowie	42
44	Falling	Michael Kiwanuka	41
45	Tennessee Whiskey	Chris Stapleton	41
46	Country Down	Beck	41
47	Sandcastles	Beyonce	40
48	We Turn Red	Red Hot Chili Peppers	39
49	Broken Glass	Sia	39
50	True Love Waits	Radiohead	39
2016
Top Albums
Rank	Album	Artist	Units (M)
1	A Moon Shaped Pool	Radiohead	5.8
2	Blackstar	David Bowie	5.0
3	25	Adele	4.7
4	Junk	M83	4.6
5	Love & Hate	Michael Kiwanuka	3.8
6	A Head Full of Dreams	Coldplay	3.8
7	Art Angels	Grimes	3.7
8	DNCE	DNCE	3.6
9	Lemonade	Beyonce	3.5
10	The Mountain Will Fall	DJ Shadow	3.2
Top Books
Rank	Book	Author	Units (M)
1	The Nightingale	Kristin Hannah	3.5
2	Dark Matter	Blake Crouch	2.8
3	The Girl on the Train	Paula Hawkins	2.7
4	Homecoming	Yaa Gyasi	2.3
5	The Nix	Nathan Hill	1.7
6	The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up	Marie Kondo	1.6
7	The Silk Roads	Peter Frankopan	1.4
8	The Invention of Nature	Andrea Wulf	1.2
9	All the Light We Cannot See	Anthony Doerr	1.1
10	The Gene	Siddhartha Mukherjee	0.9
Top Movies
Rank	Movie		Units (M)
1	The Little Prince		12.9
2	The Big Short		12.8
3	Zootopia		10.6
4	Captain Fantastic		10.3
5	The Revenant		8.9
6	Deadpool		8.8
7	The Light Between Oceans		8.7
8	The Accountant		8.2
9	In the Heart of the Ocean		7.9
10	Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens		7.6

Was Sleep Inherited from Sponges? A Case for the Sleep Gene

Searching the internet, I was surprised to find that a solid case for the "sleep gene" hasn't yet been made.  Surely something as universal as sleep should be embedded in our genes somewhere.  A few months ago, researchers at the University of Tsukuba were able to isolate some genes in mice that are thought to be responsible for sleep.  The question becomes: since we evolved from rodents, might we also have sleep genes among the many sequences of our genome that haven't been examined yet?  The answer is probably yes. 

The reason we sleep might have to do with the genes we inherited from immobile organisms eons ago.  It's generally agreed that we evolved from fishes, that fishes evolved from flatworms, and that flatworms evolved from sponges.  Our ability to sleep may be genetically linked to these immobile sponges, which were among the first multi-cellular organisms that couldn't move.  Lifeforms that were even more primitive, such as the bacteria they evolved from, aren't known to have had the ability to sleep, suggesting that it's a phenomenon only associated with the animal kingdom. 

The ability of the first animals to move came as a result of convergence, which is a re-attainment of the genetic ability that a prior species on its genome had, activated after eons of dormancy.  In this case, the flatworms that evolved from sponges would have converged with the bacteria they'd evolved from, since bacteria was the only thing on its genome that could move on its own.  Furthermore, the fact that bacteria and other single-cell organisms don't sleep (or even rest) suggests that a metabolic change was imminent once the first immobile multi-cellular creatures came into existence. 

The ability for animals to sleep may also be convergent.  The part of the genome we inherited from sponges may have forced us to regain the metabolism necessary in order to perform functions our bodies couldn't do when awake, such as a resetting of the immune system and repairing tissue.  Our bodies would have learned these critical functions using the part of the genome that correlates with a lower sponge metabolism. 

Let's be clear though: sponges as we know them today don't sleep.  You need a nervous system in order to do that.  What's suggested here isn't an actual inheritance, but more of a way for animals to retain the benefits of a slow metabolism by using sleep as a model for immobility.  Regardless, there may have been a transition species of sponge that was able to sleep- a species that strongly resembled the worm it would evolve into.  Such a species of sponge in time would have had to develop a nervous system.  Where you draw the line between sponge and worm doesn't matter; in order to retain its balance, the worm had to rest the way its predecessor had. 

While worms also don't sleep the way we do, they certainly go through periods of rest, as do any other animal species that evolved from them, including arthropods.  The fact that virtually the entire animal kingdom performs some form of sleep means that it must have been inherited from a common ancestor.  That ancestor could only have been our friends from the deep, who rested on the ocean floor long before the first flatworms reared their tiny heads.  If it weren't for the sponge, our bodies might not have this otherwise magical ability to recharge itself during a nice, deep sleep.