A team of scientists from Holland, Germany and the United Kingdom (UK’s) University of Manchester have revealed the importance of a circadian body clock that matches the rotational speed of the earth in a new study, reports NaijaAgroNet.
According to the Media Relations Officer, Faculty of Life
Sciences, University of Manchester, Mr. Mike Addelman, these group of
scientists studied animals in which variation in a single gene dramatically
speeds up the natural circadian cycle from 24 to 20 hours.
“It is the first study to demonstrate of the value of having
an internal body clock which beats in tune with the speed of the earth’s
rotation,” he said.
The researchers, Addelman said, released animals with 24
hour or 20 hour clocks into outdoor pens, with free access to food, and studied
how the proportion of animals with fast clocks changed in the population over a
period of 14 months.
This, he said, allowed the team to study the impact of
clock-speed in context of the “real-world” rather than indoors.
Mice with fast-running clock, experts said, gradually become
less common with successive generations, so that by the end of the study, the
population was dominated by animals with “normal” 24h clocks.
The research has potentially important implications for
human health: clock-disruption
associated with abnormal work and lighting conditions, such as night shift work
leads to health problems, such as increased risk of Type 2 diabetes.
The scientists pointed out that these studies now extended
to the potential implications of space travel in the future, citing for
instance, that the Martian day is 37 minutes longer than that on earth.
Professor Andrew Loudon, from The University of Manchester
said the rotation speed of Mars may be within the limits of some people’s
internal clock, but people with short running clocks, such as extreme morning
types, are likely to face serious intractable long-term problems, and would
perhaps be excluded from any plans National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) has to send humans to Mars.
“The prospect of settling on Mars is a somewhat distant
prospect. But if we ever do get to the Red Planet, I suspect we will be faced
with body clock problems; those people with abnormally slow body clocks would be
best suited to living there,” Prof. Loudon said.
Correctly, he pointed out that ticking body clock is
essential for normal survival in the wild, and this has to be in phase with the
rotation speed of the earth.
“Animals with clocks that do not run in synchrony with earth
are selected against. Thus, the body clock has evolved as an essential survival
component for life on earth,” he explained.
... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology