THE RHYTHM OF LIFE

For billions of years our Earth has been orbiting the Sun. Eternal cycle, eternal repetition, eternal rhythm. One orbit, one year. One year, four seasons. And for a billions of years as the Earth orbits the Sun, it spins on its own axis. Each full spin, one rotation, equals one day. Two half days. Every living thing on Earth adapts in its own way to this rhythm. Night after day, day after night. Day and night follow each other in unending order. The basic law of the living world is this rhythmic adaptation to the cosmic order. The Earth's 24-hour rhythm is older than life as we know it. The study of this rhythm and its effect on the life processes of both plant and animal life is a vital concern to modern man. How does the Earth's rhythm affect life? What would happen if we upset this rhythm? Can life exist and flourish with no or chaotic rhythms? Let's find out. The mouse is a nocturnal night animal, active only at night. All its movements are relayed to recording instruments through a pneumatic tube system. All periods of activity and rest are registered and studied. At dawn, a A line indicates that the mouse is resting. The Australian wild dog, the dingo, inherited the daytime way of life from its ancestors. When active, the dingo's movements creates a short circuit, thus registering its movements on our recorder. During sleep, the body rebuilds and restores energy levels. Sleep or rest is vital to all life. The rat forages at night. Its life processes or metabolism are adapted to nocturnal life. When active during the night, its metabolism increases. These beakers register activity. Each beaker corresponds to 1 hour. Fluid levels are lowered during daytime hours, indicating less activity. The rabbit's biological processes are also governed by nocturnal life. Day and night, its heartbeat is being recorded and measured by the instruments. Though the rabbit is rendered motionless, its pulse frequency is higher at night and lower during the day, just as under natural conditions. The rabbit's built-in rhythm is the result of adaptation over a period of thousands of years. In plant life, the beanstalk provides an interesting counterexample with its external or outside rhythm. The leaves are stimulated by light and vary their position from day to night. If the plant is deceived by artificial light, the leaves will assume the daytime position in the middle of the night. If the light is turned off, the leaves take the night position even during the day. Although the hen has an inner rhythm, she adapts quickly to the regulating effects of light. We can reverse her cycle causing the hen with some reluctance to accept evening for morning. We can also speed up her cycle creating two days within one normal 24-hour day. By thus fooling the hen, we double her egg production. But what about growth? By doubling her days, will we stimulate growth? The chicken on the left lives a regular 24-hour day. The one on the right is awakened by light twice during this period. It sleeps twice as often, eats twice as much, and grows twice as fast. Large-scale meat chicken farming is based on this system. Faster growing is also coupled to faster aging. The subject of our next experiment is a young chimpanzee, one and a half years old. After several months of familiarization, she is gay and playful and in very good health. Her movement and breathing are measured by telemetric instruments in order to avoid interfering with her natural behavior. There seems to be nothing extraordinary in the experimental conditions. However, the chimp's life has changed. She now lives in a reversed rhythm. In real life, there is night outside. This experiment proves that even among beings of higher life orders, we are able to successfully alter or reverse their natural cycle or rhythm. But the higher the order, the longer it takes for adjustment. Under natural conditions, the chimpanzee lives 12 hours in daylight and 12 hours in darkness. In the next experiment, the animal is being kept in alternating periods of light and darkness of varying duration. The figures indicate the length of the artificial days and respective nights. The combined time of these periods never corresponds with the 24-hour rhythm. Here we have 4 hours of darkness. 9 hours of daylight. 8 hours of darkness. 17 hours of daylight. 5 hours of darkness. 5 hours of daylight. The chipmunk loses its appetite, becomes listless, irritable, and reaches the point of complete physical and mental breakdown. The experiment proves that creatures of higher orders are unable to adapt to irregularity, to the lack of rhythm. But what about plants? Can they adapt to a complete lack of rhythm? Will they thrive under constant light? Our tomato plants are under constant light. The figures show the time elapsed after the lighting tubes were switched on. At first, the shower of constant light stimulates faster plant growth. Constant light, or for that matter, constant darkness has no rhythm. And where there is no rhythm, life comes to an end. This applies not only to plants, but to all living beings. It's very instructive to observe animals under constant light. Destruction is always preceded by irritability and nervousness, which might be intensified to a real craze. Mankind's problems concerning life rhythm were brought about by advanced technology. Artificial light made lengthening of daylight possible, made it possible to exchange day for night. Primitive men, cavemen, stayed in one place. Their days and nights changed with regularity. They adapted without any difficulty to this rhythm. During the early age of navigation, man moved from one place to another, crossing time zones, but at a very slow pace. There was ample time for adaptation. Distances are covered faster by trains than by ships, reducing the period of adjustment. The time of travel and of adaptation was further shortened by the advent of air travel. Today, supersonic transport planes fly between the continents, creating what we call jet lag. For example, let's take an imaginary trip on a jet, Rome to Los Angeles. We take off in Rome at 7:00 a.m. The flight takes 5 hours. That means that the passengers will arrive in Los Angeles ready for lunch, 12:00 a.m. Rome time. But, as they are flying at high speed against the rotation of the Earth, they actually are flying backwards in time. Instead of at noon, arrival will be the same day early in the morning. Not 5 hours after takeoff, but 5 hours before takeoff, or 3 in the morning Los Angeles time. This is a 9-hour shift in the time from being awake or asleep. It will take weeks for your body to make the necessary adjustments to this new rhythm. And how about rhythm for the space traveler? Our spaceship orbits the Earth in 90 minutes. One third of this is night, two thirds is day. A fully new rhythm, but still a rhythm that is regulated at a constant pace. Interplanetary rockets will tear man away from this earthly rhythm. During the many months of space travel, there is no day, no night. The rhythm of Earth has stopped. All rhythms as we know them have stopped. How will astronauts react? Our latest technology is asking these questions, and the answer is being looked for by the science of rhythm research.