A recent study suggested that a chemical responsible for getting the body ready for sleep was suppressed in children by too much evening light. A circadian rhythm expert explains the dangers.
Night owls, or people who have a hard time waking up in the morning, face health risks as a result.
aslysun/Shutterstock.com
Pity the poor night owls of the world, who already must adjust to a life that doesn’t align with their natural sleep patterns. Now it appears that being a night owl even raises the risk of death.
Children need different amounts of sleep but should aim to wake feeling rested, without an alarm.
Juninatt/shutterstock
The shift from daylight saving time will leave kids’ body clocks an hour “out of sync”, in a similar way to jet lag. Here are some evidence-based strategies to deal with this.
A New York engineer is wheeled away in December 2013, after a train he was driving crashed. Lack of sleep could have been a factor.
AP Photo/Robert Stolarik
Most Americans dread the time switch to daylight saving time, which results in a loss of an hour’s sleep. The downside is more serious than that – it can lead to workplace injuries and traffic fatalities.
A recent study shows plankton that have adapted to road salt have disrupted circadian rhythms. This finding suggests that environmental pollutants could also affect human circadian clocks.
Getting enough sleep can help our memory, waistline and our performance at work.
David Mao
Hua Lu, University of Maryland, Baltimore County e Linda Wiratan, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Precisely calibrated timekeepers are found in organisms from all domains of life. Biologists are studying how they influence plant/pathogen interactions – what they learn could lead to human medicines.
There may be a very good reason for not wanting to get up in the morning when it’s still dark.
Ruigsantos/Shutterstock.com
Evidence for a link between breast cancer and artificial light appears to be growing. Do studies showing higher risk of breast cancer the farther west a woman lives in a time zone add to the science?
Biological clocks set the pace for nearly all living things, and Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young – awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine – helped us understand how.
‘The key fourth awardee here is … the little fly,’ Hall said.
Lynn Ketchum
Americans Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young share the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work that explained how our cells keep track of time.
Michael Rosbash, Jeffrey C. Hall and Michael W. Young have been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
EPA/Chinese University of Hong Kong
Study uses satellite data to add to growing evidence that nighttime light exposure raises risk of breast cancer, with the strongest link among young women.
Color-changing cells in an Atlantic squid’s skin contain light-sensitive pigments.
Alexandra Kingston
Thomas Cronin, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
We’re used to thinking of our eyes detecting light as the foundation of our visual system. But what’s going on in other cells throughout the body that can detect light, too?
Professor of Regulatory Biology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Adjunct Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at UCSD, University of California, San Diego