What To Know about the 2024 Total Eclipse
Almost all creatures on Earth organize their routines around the sun, whether they’re diurnal animals that are up and moving during the day—like birds, honeybees, elephants, and humans—or nocturnal ones—like bats, owls, and roaches—that are more active after dark.
Even organisms that live in caves or deep in the ocean can sometimes detect enough differences in light and warmth to experience changes over a 24-hour cycle, explains Valentina Alaasam, an NYU biology postdoctoral researcher who studies circadian rhythms in birds.
“Circadian rhythms are one of the most well-conserved traits across the tree of life, and the genetic machinery that goes into these kinds of rhythms is actually very similar across different species,” she says.
That makes sense when you consider that while climate and habitats have changed dramatically over millions of years of evolution, the sun has been a constant.
Almost all creatures on Earth organize their routines around the sun, whether they’re diurnal animals that are up and moving during the day—like birds, honeybees, elephants, and humans—or nocturnal ones—like bats, owls, and roaches—that are more active after dark.
Even organisms that live in caves or deep in the ocean can sometimes detect enough differences in light and warmth to experience changes over a 24-hour cycle, explains Valentina Alaasam, an NYU biology postdoctoral researcher who studies circadian rhythms in birds.
“Circadian rhythms are one of the most well-conserved traits across the tree of life, and the genetic machinery that goes into these kinds of rhythms is actually very similar across different species,” she says. That makes sense when you consider that while climate and habitats have changed dramatically over millions of years of evolution, the sun has been a constant.
