Medical research

How transcription factors influence insulin-producing beta cells

A recent study from the laboratory of Joseph Bass, MD, Ph.D., the Charles F. Kettering Professor of Medicine and chief of Endocrinology in the Department of Medicine, has revealed how transcription factors within individual ...

Health

Expert explains how shift work affects your sleep

All life on Earth is affected by the day-night cycle resulting from the planet's rotation. In line with this, humans are naturally awake during daylight hours, and sleep at night when it is dark. Being awake during the day ...

Neuroscience

Timing is everything: How circadian rhythms influence our brains

Why are we mentally sharper at certain times of day? A study led by Jonathan Lipton MD, Ph.D., at Boston Children's Hospital spells out the relationship between circadian rhythms—the body's natural day/night cycles—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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