New blood test could help your boss know if you're too tired to work

Scientists have developed a blood test that can help employers determine if employees are fit for work, the Daily Mail reported.

It could also help police identify drivers who are too tired to drive.

Scientists from the Sleep Research Centre at the University of Surrey developed the test. The team used 36 healthy adults to demonstrate how sleep deprivation can be detected in blood.

Some of the participant has to stay up for almost 40 hours. Researchers measured the changes in thousands of genes after taking blood samples.

A computer program was able to identify 68 genes that could spot if it came from a person sleep deprived or well-rested with 92 per cent accuracy.

Now, scientists hope to design a test that can reveal how much sleep an individual has had.

The study's findings were originally published in the journal Sleep.