Collective behavior is one of nature's phenomena that scientists are often left wondering. Birds flying together or fish swimming in the same direction at the same time. The same phenomena can be observed with humans as well. The individual cells seem to synchronize in a circadian rhythm, making it part of the biological clock that seems to tell the body when to do what needs to be done. So people know when they need to wake up, eat, sleep, or even reproduce.
How this happens remains to be a mystery that needs to be unraveled. However, new research from the University of Georgia speaks of how this happens. Jonathan Arnold along with the rest of the team has shed some light on this phenomena and claims that individual cells come with their own clocks.
Collective behavior is relatively a new area in terms of research. This is partly because it requires several areas of research disciplines to work together; however, its implications to many of the new areas remain to be so limited, most of which fall under the category of medicine and public health. The stress that your body undergoes while traveling causes an interruption to the usual circadian rhythm. In the long run, it might come with consequences. People who are constantly traveling for work like flight attendants, pilots and even those with shifting shift schedules face the familiar issue.
The team led by Arnold worked on the isolation of the individual cells of a Neurospora Crassa, a type of mold in pink. They have found three properties that show that its cell comes with its individual clock -- the ability to reset itself back as long as there is light; ability to keep up with time despite the very busy schedule over the weekend; the presence of the circadian rhythm, regulating its internal cycle over the daily cycle.
"These are the fundamental properties of what we can refer to as the biological clock, but up until today, none of the organisms has shown that these properties. Not one of which holds true for a single cell," Arnold said.
The report of his team was seen and can be read through the journal of the IEEE access. This is a peer-reviewed journal with open access and an interdisciplinary journal produced by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Knowledge of the biological clock can help in the treatment of diseases. Depending on the organisms that are used in the research, it is important that you understand their behavior based on their biological clock to get a lot of material that one is trying to get made. Much still needs to be learned about the clock in every cell and the search for the many ways it can be helpful to mankind is always welcome.
