When Thomas Edison tested the first light bulb in 1879, he never could have imagined that this invention one day could contribute to a global obesity epidemic. Electric light allows us to work, rest, and play at all hours of the day, and a paper published in Bioessays suggests that this might have serious consequences for our health and for our waistlines. Daily or circadian rhythms include the sleep-wake cycle, and rhythms in hormone release are controlled by a molecular clock that is present in every cell of the human body. This human clock has its own in-built, default rhythm of almost exactly 24 hours that allows it to stay finely tuned to the daily cycle generated by the rotation of the Earth.
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