Making light work of body clock process

A NEW study into how plants adjust to having less sunlight in winter could lead to a better understanding of the impact of shift work and jet lag on people, according to city scientists.

Researchers looking at the daily rhythms in plants have discovered a complex process that allows the plants' genes to respond to the times of dawn and dusk each day, and the length of daylight in between.

This system enables the plant to reset its internal clock every day in response to seasonal changes in daylight, helping it to control the timing of crucial activities, such as flowering.

The findings could shed light on how other living things, including humans, respond when our daily rhythms are interrupted, perhaps by travel or unsociable working hours.

Daily activity cycles are found in most living things and they influence the many biological functions that happen throughout the day. In people, these include sleepiness, body temperature and blood pressure.

Researchers at Edinburgh University used experimental data and mathematical models to show how much the plants' rhythms accounted for sunrise and sunset, as well as day length.