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“C’est de la bonne viande”, Emmanuel Mignot, a Paris native, whispered to his dog, Beau, as he presented him with an aromatic can of dog food – much more appealing than his usual diet of dry pellets. Beau happily trotted over to the food, rolled his eyes in pleasurable anticipation, and dropped to the floor – completely still and asleep. (Discover 78) Beau is a dog suffering from narcolepsy. Because Beau became excited by the food, he collapsed to the floor in sleep. As unusual as this may sound, Beau is not alone in this world. Narcolepsy doesn’t affect just animals but humans as well. Between one in 1,000 and one in 2,000 people in the United States have been diagnosed with this potentially dangerous disease. Narcolepsy, a condition in which a person is overcome by periodic bouts of overwhelming sleep, is a biological disorder stemming from a single genetic defect, prompted by environmental factors. Scientists believe that a mutation in a gene encoding a cell-sur