Related topics: circadian rhythms

Siberian hamsters show what helps make seasonal clocks tick

Many animals, including humans, have internal clocks and calendars to help them regulate behavior, physiological functions and biological processes. Although scientists have extensively studied the timekeeping mechanisms ...

Plants do sums to get through the night, researchers show

(Phys.org) —New research shows that to prevent starvation at night, plants perform accurate arithmetic division. The calculation allows them to use up their starch reserves at a constant rate so that they run out almost ...

Researchers devise a new way to plot circadian clock

(Phys.org)—Everyone has an internal clock, that mysterious process which controls sleeping and hunger patterns, but now researchers are finding out that because the internal clock also controls metabolism, it would be helpful ...

To Arctic animals, time of day really doesn't matter

In the far northern reaches of the Arctic, day versus night often doesn't mean a whole lot. During parts of the year, the sun does not set; at other times, it's just the opposite. A new study reported online on March 11th ...

New research shows the complexity of bacterial circadian clocks

Bacteria make up more than 10% of all living things but until recently we had little realization that, as in humans, soil bacteria have internal clocks that synchronize their activities with the 24-hour cycles of day and ...

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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.

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