News tagged with circadian clock

Disruption of biological clocks causes neurodegeneration, early death

New research at Oregon State University provides evidence for the first time that disruption of circadian rhythms – the biological "clocks" found in many animals – can clearly cause accelerated neurodegeneration, ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Jan 10, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

How exposure to irregular light affects plant circadian rhythms

Scientists know that plants can actually "sense" day length, and "schedule" their growth to coincide with specific environmental conditions. These natural events are based on the circadian clock, a 24-hour ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Dec 14, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1

Researchers identify structure of circadian clock protein

(PhysOrg.com) -- Feeling jet-lagged? You may need your internal clock reset. New Cornell research has taken a major step toward treating jet lag and other more serious syndromes by advancing our understanding ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 15, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Research team shows skin stem cells run by circadian clock

(PhysOrg.com) -- Most everyone has heard of the circadian rhythm or the internal clock that people have that tells them when to do things, such as go to sleep. In fact, researchers have actually located where this “clock” ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 10, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

Differences in jet lag severity could be rooted in how circadian clock sets itself

It's no secret that long-distance, west-to-east air travel – Seattle to Paris, for example – can raise havoc with a person's sleep and waking patterns, and that the effects are substantially less pronounced when ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Oct 13, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Circadian clock may impact organ transplant success

Health care providers assess blood and tissue type as well as organ size and health to enhance transplant success. New research indicates that checklist might also need to include the circadian clock.

Medicine & Health / Research

created Oct 04, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Failure of brain's clock could play role in causing neuropsychiatric disorders

(Medical Xpress) -- Neuropsychiatric disorders are the second largest cause of morbidity and premature mortality worldwide. The scientific community has widely accepted that people who battle neuropsychiatric disorders such ...

Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry

created Sep 21, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Body clock found to regulate platelet function

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have demonstrated that the circadian system, the body's internal clock, regulates human platelet function and causes a peak in platelet activation corresponding to the known ...

Medicine & Health / Cardiology

created Sep 09, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Circadian clocks in a blind fish

Do animals that have evolved for millions of years underground, completely isolated from the day-night cycle, still "know" what time it is? Does a normal circadian clock persist during evolution under constant darkness? A ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Sep 06, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1

Glowing, blinking bacteria reveal how cells synchronize biological clocks

Biologists have long known that organisms from bacteria to humans use the 24 hour cycle of light and darkness to set their biological clocks. But exactly how these clocks are synchronized at the molecular level to perform ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Sep 01, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Manipulating plants' circadian clock may make all-season crops possible

Yale University researchers have identified a key genetic gear that keeps the circadian clock of plants ticking, a finding that could have broad implications for global agriculture.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Sep 01, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Finding mechanism behind bacteria's biological clock

(PhysOrg.com) -- A discovery by a professor at the University of California, Merced, is providing a deeper understanding of the factors that control biological clocks.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Aug 31, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study shows new evidence of age-related decline in the brain's master circadian clock

(Medical Xpress) -- A new study of the brain's master circadian clock — known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN — reveals that a key pattern of rhythmic neural activity begins to decline by middle age. The ...

Medicine & Health / Research

created Jul 19, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Biologists discover an 'evening' protein complex that regulates plant growth

Farmers and other astute observers of nature have long known that crops like corn and sorghum grow taller at night. But the biochemical mechanisms that control this nightly stem elongation, common to most plants, have been ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Jul 13, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Newly discovered molecule essential to resetting 'body clocks'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Research has shown that light is the key to getting our 'body clocks' back in sync and now a new study exploring the resynchronisation mechanism in insects has discovered a molecule essential ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Jul 13, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Circadian rhythm

A circadian rhythm is a roughly-24-hour cycle in the biochemical, physiological or behavioral processes of living entities, including plants, animals, fungi and cyanobacteria (see bacterial circadian rhythms). The term "circadian", coined by Franz Halberg, comes from the Latin circa, "around," and diem or dies, "day", meaning literally "approximately one day." The formal study of biological temporal rhythms such as daily, tidal, weekly, seasonal, and annual rhythms, is called chronobiology.

Circadian rhythms are endogenously generated, and can be entrained by external cues, called Zeitgebers, the primary one of which is daylight. These rhythms allow organisms to anticipate and prepare for precise and regular environmental changes.

For more information about Circadian rhythm, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Related topics: circadian rhythms