Dartmouth Medical School geneticists have clarified the picture of the way living things maintain robust and stable internal clocks to safeguard the timing of daily activities.
Internal clocks are ubiquitous.
In humans they cue circadian rhythms, the 24-hour cycle that paces life's ebb and flow, from when we wake up to when we go to sleep. They are linked to jet lag, seasonal affective disorder and sleep disturbances. Research published in the July 7 issue of Science delineates the dual roles and interlocking connections of the molecular gears that drive biological clocks and prevent them from winding down. Studying the development of spores in the bread mold Neurospora, Dunlap and Loros have teased apart the genetic cogs that form the basis of most living clocks. Light and dark cycles reset the clocks, they found, the way turning the hands of a clock does, but are not required to run them.