Biological clocks PDF
Preview Biological clocks
Biological Clocks: Your Owner's Manual Biological Clocks: Your Owner's Manual Sue Binkley he harwood academic publishers Australia· C anada· C hina· F rance· G ermany· I ndia· ap Japan· L uxembourg· M alaysia· T he Netherlands· R ussia· Singapore· S witzerland • T hailand • U nited Kingdom Copyright © 1997 OPA ( Overseas Publishers A ssociation) Amsterdam B.Y. Published under license under the Harwood Academic Publishers imprint, part of T he Gordon and Breach Publishing Group. All rights reserved. No part of t his book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying a nd recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in India. Amsteldijk 166 1s t Floor 1079 LH Amsterdam The Netherlands British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Binkley, Sue Biological clocks: your owner's manual 1. Biological rhythms I. Title 612'.022 ISBN 90-5702-534-5 To H. Randolph Tatem III, MD, my husband Shelley Binkley, MD and Kyra Tatem O'Brien my children Connor Baker, my grandchild and Rich Zeiter, the brave hero who fished my hypothermic carcass out of t he 44°P . Roaring Fork River CONTENTS Preface IX Acknowledgments XI I BIOLOGICAL RHyTHMS............................................... I 1 Fooling Around With Time........................................ 3 2 More Seriously................ ............................................. 11 3 Methods of Rhythm Measurement............................. 21 4 Entrainment............................ .. ....... ... ......................... 31 5 Freeruns....................................................................... 41 6 More Related to Freeruns.............. ............ ................. 45 7 Resetting...................................................................... 51 8 Can the Clock Be Stopped?........ ................................. 57 9 Temperature and Chemicals........ .............. .................. 63 10 Seasons and Photoperiodism.......... ............ .............. ... 69 11 Circarhythms........................................................ ...... . 77 12 Biological Clockworks.................... ...... .. ...... ...... ......... 85 13 Human Rhythms........ ................................................. 93 14 The End of the Whole Mess.......... .................... .......... 109 FIGURES .... ...... ...... .............................................. .. ........... 123 II APPENDICES ...................................................... .............. 149 Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations.. .............................. 151 Societies.......... ................................................. .................... 158 10urnals ............................................................................ ... 158 Software....................................................................... ...... . 158 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. ................................... 161 viii Contents III MEASURE YOUR OWN CIRCADIAN RHyTHM ....... 175 About the Author ................................................................ 195 Notes and References .......................................................... 199 Index 213 PREFACE This book, like Gaul, is divided into three parts. I don't really expect people to read it beginning on page I and continuing to The End of the Whole Mess (chapter 14). Human Rhythms (chapter 13) probably has the information that w ill interest you most. Perhaps y ou only want t o measure your o wn rhythm using section III. Freeruns ( chapter 5) and Entrainment ( chapter 4 ) contain the "guts" of h ow the rhythms work. Section I explains biological rhythms as I have loved them for a quarter of a century. Egad! That's a long time ... p robably longer than many of y ou have been alive! For m e, biological clocks are my old friends. The sun and moon dance with the earth. The seasons perform a stately minuet. The night dances with the day. We creatures of t he earth are exquisitely adapted to waltz with the sun. Imagine ice dancing, where you are the follower and your celestial partner l eads, and, yet, if y our hand is released, you can skate on your own. You may prefer to think of these celestial events as things that happen outside of you. After all, you probably sleep, as I do, inside in a cocoon lit by artificial lights with its silence broken by an alarm clock. Perhaps y ou, as I do, make an occasional night-time e xcursion to squint at the sky. Last week, from my doorstep, I saw a comet, fragile bride Hyakutake in a misty veil, dragging her train as she searched the Zodiac for her groom. I watched the earth cast a dirty shadow on the moon, a lunar eclipse that made "the man in the moon" look like a silver clown wearing a beanie. Figures have been collected in one section for easy comparison. I suggest a quick look at them first off. Section II contains the pedantic appendices- a glossary and an annotated b ibliography. This is supposed to be a serious book, right?
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