Jeffrey C. Hall Quotes

Life evolved under conditions of light and darkness, light and then darkness. And so plants and animals developed their own internal clocks so that they would be ready for these changes in light. These are chemical clocks, and they're found in every known being that has two or more cells and in some that only have one cell.

The same biological clock ticks away in humans and fruit flies, which underscores the importance of circadian timing to life on this planet.

The biological clock and the career clock are in total conflict with each other.

It is easier to wiggle the toes than reset the biological clock, but that is just a belief that is rooted in superstition. If we could understand that the human body is a network of information and energy, then we would see that the same principles apply everywhere in the body.

If you can wiggle your toes with the mere flicker of an intention, why can't you reset your biological clock?

Most important for the circadian field was the pioneering work of Ron Konopka in Seymour's lab.

It was always intriguing that flies had two peaks of activity, in the morning and evening, with a siesta during the day and not very much activity at night. There are several ways to explain that, but one possibility was that there were two clocks running - one governing the morning peak and one governing the evening peak.

Light helps the body predict the future: it's a sign of how our environment will change in the coming hours and days, and our bodies prepare themselves accordingly.

Biological clock? I don't even own a watch.

Harmonising your biological rhythms with the rhythms of nature minimises entropy and reverses aging.

Our body is a well-set clock, which keeps good time, but if it be too much or indiscreetly tampered with, the alarm runs out before the hour.

What would aliens say when told earthlings shift clocks twice a year to fool themselves into thinking there's more sunlight?

The way we metabolize our experience of time influences our biological clock.

Testosterone levels are highest in the morning.

Our biological rhythms are the symphony of the cosmos.

I noticed, as I had done before, that there was a lull among the mosquitoes about midnight, and that they began again in the morning. Nature is thus merciful. But apparently they need rest as well as we.

I don't feel old. I don't feel anything till noon. That's when it's time for my nap.

We have 100 genes or so, which we know we can't knock out without killing the cell, that are of unknown structure.

When you're in nature, when you're going to bed when the sun goes down and getting up when the sun rises, and you get into that rhythm, your body just really responds positively to it.

We can't any longer have the conventional understanding of genetics which everybody peddles because it is increasingly obvious that epigenetics - actually things which influence the genome's function - are much more important than we realised.

In any complex organism, brain formation and function must be controlled in part by genes.

People used to think that biological clocks were not only mysterious, they were seen almost as miracles. This is no longer the case.

Our circadian biology, and the insatiable early-morning demands of a post-industrial way of life, denies us the sleep we vitally need.

The physical malaise we feel when we travel reflects a desynchronizing of all the clocks that reside in our tissues.

I am strongly of the opinion that, after the age of twenty-one, a man ought not to be out of bed and awake at four in the morning. The hour breeds thought. At twenty-one, life being all future, it may be examined with impunity. But, at thirty, having become an uncomfortable mixture of future and past, it is a thing to be looked at only when the sun is high and the world full of warmth and optimism.