The Rhythms Of Life

The Rhythms Of Life PDF

Author: Leon Kreitzman

Publisher: Profile Books

Published: 2011-09-30

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1847653723

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Popular science at its most exciting: the breaking new world of chronobiology - understanding the rhythm of life in humans and all plants and animals. The entire natural world is full of rhythms. The early bird catches the worm -and migrates to an internal calendar. Dormice hibernate away the winter. Plants open and close their flowers at the same hour each day. Bees search out nectar-rich flowers day after day. There are cicadas that can breed for only two weeks every 17 years. And in humans: why are people who work anti-social shifts more illness prone and die younger? What is jet-lag and can anything help? Why do teenagers refuse to get up in the morning, and are the rest of us really 'larks' or 'owls'? Why are most people born (and die) between 3am-5am? And should patients be given medicines (and operations) at set times of day, because the body reacts so differently in the morning, evening and at night? The answers lie in our biological clocks the mechanisms which give order to all living things. They impose a structure that enables us to change our behaviour in relation to the time of day, month or year. They are reset at sunrise and sunset each day to link astronomical time with an organism's internal time.

The Living Clock

The Living Clock PDF

Author: John D. Palmer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2002-03-14

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 0190286644

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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.

The Restless Clock

The Restless Clock PDF

Author: Jessica Riskin

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-03-10

Total Pages: 571

ISBN-13: 022630292X

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A core principle of modern science holds that a scientific explanation must not attribute will or agency to natural phenomena.The Restless Clock examines the origins and history of this, in particular as it applies to the science of living things. This is also the story of a tradition of radicals—dissenters who embraced the opposite view, that agency is an essential and ineradicable part of nature. Beginning with the church and courtly automata of early modern Europe, Jessica Riskin guides us through our thinking about the extent to which animals might be understood as mere machines. We encounter fantastic robots and cyborgs as well as a cast of scientific and philosophical luminaries, including Descartes and Leibnitz, Lamarck and Darwin, whose ideas gain new relevance in Riskin's hands. The book ends with a riveting discussion of how the dialectic continues in genetics, epigenetics, and evolutionary biology, where work continues to naturalize different forms of agency.The Restless Clock reveals the deeply buried roots of current debates in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology.

The Clock of Life

The Clock of Life PDF

Author: Nancy Klann-Moren

Publisher: Anthonyann Books

Published: 2012-11-01

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9780988494411

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Southern culture in the small town of Hadlee, Mississippi is brought to life through the friendship between a white boy, Jason Lee Rainey and a black boy, Samson Johnson. The aftermath of the war in Vietnam, where Jason's father died and the fight for civil rights, are very much alive in current events, even though it's now the mid 1970s. Life is tough without a father when Jason's mother's depression take a turns for the worst and he and his mentally-disabled Vietnam vet uncle are left to fend for themselves. Will Jason be able to grow up fast enough to handle himself like a man?

Living in the 3 O'Clock Position

Living in the 3 O'Clock Position PDF

Author: Rits Tadema

Publisher: Xulon Press

Published: 2007-06

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 160266577X

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Beginning when World War II draws to a close in the Netherlands, this work tells the story of Chaplain Rits Tademas 50-year journey of ministry and Christian service.

On Time

On Time PDF

Author: Carlene E. Stephens

Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 9780821227794

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Drawn from the popular exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, this lavishly illustrated study chronicles the history of humankind's efforts to measure time, showcasing dozens of unusual timepieces from the museum's collection, from Helen Keller's pocket watch to the earliest bedside alarm clock. 15,000 first printing.

The Baghdad Clock

The Baghdad Clock PDF

Author: Shahad Al Rawi

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-05-03

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1786073234

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A HEART-RENDING TALE OF TWO GIRLS GROWING UP IN WAR-TORN BAGHDAD Baghdad, 1991. The Gulf War is raging. Two girls, hiding in an air raid shelter, tell stories to keep the fear and the darkness at bay, and a deep friendship is born. But as the bombs continue to fall and friends begin to flee the country, the girls must face the fact that their lives will never be the same again. This poignant debut novel reveals just what it's like to grow up in a city that is slowly disappearing in front of your eyes, and how in the toughest times, children can build up the greatest resilience.

The Clock Of The Long Now

The Clock Of The Long Now PDF

Author: Stewart Brand

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2008-08-01

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0786722924

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Using the designing and building of the Clock of the Long Now as a framework, this is a book about the practical use of long time perspective: how to get it, how to use it, how to keep it in and out of sight. Here are the central questions it inspires: How do we make long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare? Discipline in thought allows freedom. One needs the space and reliability to predict continuity to have the confidence not to be afraid of revolutions Taking the time to think of the future is more essential now than ever, as culture accelerates beyond its ability to be measured Probable things are vastly outnumbered by countless near-impossible eventualities. Reality is statistically forced to be extraordinary; fiction is not allowed this freedom This is a potent book that combines the chronicling of fantastic technology with equally visionary philosophical inquiry.

On the Clock

On the Clock PDF

Author: Emily Guendelsberger

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2019-07-16

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0316508993

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"Nickel and Dimed for the Amazon age," (Salon) the bitingly funny, eye-opening story of finding work in the automated and time-starved world of hourly low-wage labor After the local newspaper where she worked as a reporter closed, Emily Guendelsberger took a pre-Christmas job at an Amazon fulfillment center outside Louisville, Kentucky. There, the vending machines were stocked with painkillers, and the staff turnover was dizzying. In the new year, she travelled to North Carolina to work at a call center, a place where even bathroom breaks were timed to the second. And finally, Guendelsberger was hired at a San Francisco McDonald's, narrowly escaping revenge-seeking customers who pelted her with condiments. Across three jobs, and in three different parts of the country, Guendelsberger directly took part in the revolution changing the U.S. workplace. Offering an up-close portrait of America's actual "essential workers," On the Clock examines the broken social safety net as well as an economy that has purposely had all the slack drained out and converted to profit. Until robots pack boxes, resolve billing issues, and make fast food, human beings supervised by AI will continue to get the job done. Guendelsberger shows us how workers went from being the most expensive element of production to the cheapest - and how low wage jobs have been remade to serve the ideals of efficiency, at the cost of humanity. On the Clock explores the lengths that half of Americans will go to in order to make a living, offering not only a better understanding of the modern workplace, but also surprising solutions to make work more humane for millions of Americans.

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