At any second, half of our planet is bathed in sunlight and the other half is soaked in darkness. And as Earth rotates, days and nights alternate, and this light-dark cycle has shaped Earth’s life for at least 3.7 billion years. Various organisms have evolved a system, a ‘biological clock,’ to predict the time of day and optimize their behaviors accordingly. In …
Chronotypes—Night Owls, Early Larks, Finches—and Why They All Matter
For creatures on the Earth, anticipation is the name of the game in survival. When is the best time for foraging, resting, or hiding from predators? Abilities to sense the answers to these questions make the difference between life and death. During billions of years of evolution, various organisms have equipped themselves with internal, self-sustained, and resettable rhythms called circadian rhythms. Circadian …