The Internal Clock
We constantly use a multitude of clocks to know exactly what time of the day it is. The face of a clock is the most common design to visualize time. We are used to measure time with the help of these clocks. But each of us has in their own body a biological clockwork that helps our physiology with the fluctuations of the day.
In 2017, three researchers, Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young, got awarded the Nobel prize for Medicine for their research on the inner workings of these clocks. Their discoveries explain how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronized with the Earth’s revolutions. The clock regulates critical functions such as behavior, hormone levels, sleep, body temperature and metabolism. Everyone who has experienced jet lag or worked night shifts knows about the discomfort that we experience when the external clock is not aligned with the circadian rhythm dictated by this inner clock.
An excerpt* from the announcement of the Nobel prize committee explains:
“Using fruit flies as a model organism, this year’s Nobel laureates isolated a gene that controls the normal daily biological rhythm. They showed that this gene encodes a protein that accumulates in the cell during the night, and is then degraded during the day. Subsequently, they identified additional protein components of this machinery, exposing the mechanism governing the self-sustaining clockwork inside the cell. We now recognize that biological clocks function by the same principles in cells of other multicellular organisms, including humans.”
This means that all living organisms, be it plants or animals, share in their genes the same structure that helps them adapt to the time of day. We all have “time” embedded on a molecular level of every cell. We carry our own time in us. I’m fascinated by this research, and want to visualize it in my next piece. Now, there is only the slight problem how to design an art quilt around this!
*Source: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2017/press-release/
