From one-celled paramecium to giant blue whales, we all have internal clocks that regulate the rhythms we live by. In The Living Clock, John Palmer, one of the world''s leading authorities on these rhythms, takes us on a tour of this broad and multifaceted subject, examining everything from glowing fruit flies to the best cures for jet lag. Palmer has a wonderful sense of humor and an eye for the startling fact. We learn that fiddler crabs--in a lab where there are no time nor tide cues--remain active when low tide would occur and motionless during high tide, the same pattern they follow in their natural habitat. (In fact, you can remove a crab''s leg and the leg will keep a tidal rhythm as long as it''s kept alive.) Moreover, humans are subject to more than one hundred biological rhythms. Mental acuity peaks in the afternoon, for instance, and our blood pressure peaks at seven in the morning (when most heart attacks occur). The time of day you take medication can affect how well it works. And Palmer shows that when our clocks are thrown off kilter, trouble follows, especially for rotating shift workers--the Bhopal spill, the Chernobyl reactor explosion, and the Three Mile Island accident all happened when new crews began early-hour shifts. No one has discovered exactly how our internal clocks work--Palmer says a Nobel Prize awaits that lucky scientist--but they are no less fascinating for their inexplicable nature. Frequently amusing and always eye-opening, The Living Clock is a treat for everyone curious about the nature of life as well as anyone planning a long jet flight.

This book is an introduction to a basic property of life, one mostly unknown to science and the public until the latter half of the last century: Humans, plants, and animals have within their bodies a kind of clock that synchronizes much of what they do throughout their lives to the time of day and the seasons, and in the case of the sea-dwelling organisms, the tides. This timepiece performs its service autonomously - it rules silently within us without us giving a thought to it.Three chapters are devoted to the human clock: its disruptive action in transmeridional travel and shift work, its oversight in most every aspect of our physiology, and how doctors being aware of its action can save lives. Other major subjects describe the role in piloting birds in homing and migration, guiding the seasonal reproduction of plants and animals, and its influence on shore dwellers. The book closes with a description of the clockworks' escapement.

From one-celled paramecium to giant blue whales, we all have internal clocks that regulate the rhythms we live by. In The Living Clock, John Palmer, one of the world''s leading authorities on these rhythms, takes us on a tour of this broad and multifaceted subject, examining everything from glowing fruit flies to the best cures for jet lag. Palmer has a wonderful sense of humor and an eye for the startling fact. We learn that fiddler crabs--in a lab where there are no time nor tide cues--remain active when low tide would occur and motionless during high tide, the same pattern they follow in their natural habitat. (In fact, you can remove a crab''s leg and the leg will keep a tidal rhythm as long as it''s kept alive.) Moreover, humans are subject to more than one hundred biological rhythms. Mental acuity peaks in the afternoon, for instance, and our blood pressure peaks at seven in the morning (when most heart attacks occur). The time of day you take medication can affect how well it works. And Palmer shows that when our clocks are thrown off kilter, trouble follows, especially for rotating shift workers--the Bhopal spill, the Chernobyl reactor explosion, and the Three Mile Island accident all happened when new crews began early-hour shifts. No one has discovered exactly how our internal clocks work--Palmer says a Nobel Prize awaits that lucky scientist--but they are no less fascinating for their inexplicable nature. Frequently amusing and always eye-opening, The Living Clock is a treat for everyone curious about the nature of life as well as anyone planning a long jet flight.

From one-celled paramecium to giant blue whales, we all have internal clocks that regulate the rhythms we live by. In The Living Clock, John Palmer, one of the world''s leading authorities on these rhythms, takes us on a tour of this broad and multifaceted subject, examining everything from glowing fruit flies to the best cures for jet lag. Palmer has a wonderful sense of humor and an eye for the startling fact. We learn that fiddler crabs--in a lab where there are no time nor tide cues--remain active when low tide would occur and motionless during high tide, the same pattern they follow in their natural habitat. (In fact, you can remove a crab''s leg and the leg will keep a tidal rhythm as long as it''s kept alive.) Moreover, humans are subject to more than one hundred biological rhythms. Mental acuity peaks in the afternoon, for instance, and our blood pressure peaks at seven in the morning (when most heart attacks occur). The time of day you take medication can affect how well it works. And Palmer shows that when our clocks are thrown off kilter, trouble follows, especially for rotating shift workers--the Bhopal spill, the Chernobyl reactor explosion, and the Three Mile Island accident all happened when new crews began early-hour shifts. No one has discovered exactly how our internal clocks work--Palmer says a Nobel Prize awaits that lucky scientist--but they are no less fascinating for their inexplicable nature. Frequently amusing and always eye-opening, The Living Clock is a treat for everyone curious about the nature of life as well as anyone planning a long jet flight.

This book is an introduction to a basic property of life, one mostly unknown to science and the public until the latter half of the last century: Humans, plants, and animals have within their bodies a kind of clock that synchronizes much of what they do throughout their lives to the time of day and the seasons, and in the case of the sea-dwelling organisms, the tides. This timepiece performs its service autonomously - it rules silently within us without us giving a thought to it.Three chapters are devoted to the human clock: its disruptive action in transmeridional travel and shift work, its oversight in most every aspect of our physiology, and how doctors being aware of its action can save lives. Other major subjects describe the role in piloting birds in homing and migration, guiding the seasonal reproduction of plants and animals, and its influence on shore dwellers. The book closes with a description of the clockworks' escapement.

From one-celled paramecium to giant blue whales, we all have internal clocks that regulate the rhythms we live by. In The Living Clock, John Palmer, one of the world''s leading authorities on these rhythms, takes us on a tour of this broad and multifaceted subject, examining everything from glowing fruit flies to the best cures for jet lag. Palmer has a wonderful sense of humor and an eye for the startling fact. We learn that fiddler crabs--in a lab where there are no time nor tide cues--remain active when low tide would occur and motionless during high tide, the same pattern they follow in their natural habitat. (In fact, you can remove a crab''s leg and the leg will keep a tidal rhythm as long as it''s kept alive.) Moreover, humans are subject to more than one hundred biological rhythms. Mental acuity peaks in the afternoon, for instance, and our blood pressure peaks at seven in the morning (when most heart attacks occur). The time of day you take medication can affect how well it works. And Palmer shows that when our clocks are thrown off kilter, trouble follows, especially for rotating shift workers--the Bhopal spill, the Chernobyl reactor explosion, and the Three Mile Island accident all happened when new crews began early-hour shifts. No one has discovered exactly how our internal clocks work--Palmer says a Nobel Prize awaits that lucky scientist--but they are no less fascinating for their inexplicable nature. Frequently amusing and always eye-opening, The Living Clock is a treat for everyone curious about the nature of life as well as anyone planning a long jet flight.