Science Decodes Circadian Clock:
-Not the man of mystery part. The jet-lag.
So for awhile, we’ve relied on all manner of things to fix sleep-cycle problems, like Ambien, Melatonin, Turkey, and the old standby: High-proof Carolina Moonshine!
Well soon those days will be over if researchers from UCSD have anything to say about it. (sorry, Messrs. Motlow & Beam)
Because they’ve developed a tricky little compound that can actually shift your body’s sleep clock!
High-Speed High-Tech Finds 3 Keys Out of 120,000:
They came up with the time-tonic in some pretty futuristic research that used robots, fireflies, and zebrafish to pick from about 120,000 possibilities in high-speed micro-trials.
For the moment though, it’s just the first step. Because, the new formula (called, “LongDaySin”) will only shift the clocks of test-animals a maximum of 10 hours.
Biggest Circadian Clock-Shift Ever, 10 Hours!:
Now that in-itself is the biggest shift ever demonstrated. But it’s still a little short of something proven in animals similar to people, and ultimately: in us.
And while 10 hours is a big shift, some human patients with varying types of sleep disorders may need even more than that.
There’s also the question of how much you can shift per-day. Too much might be unhealthy.
Fresh As A Daisy On The Other Side of The World. Thanks, Ambien 3.0!
But at least some time in the near future, “Ambien 3.0” will probably be taking the edge off all those early business meetings in Shanghai; -and also keep you from creating an international-incident and ending up in dissidents’ prison. Nobody wants that.
Check out the rest of the geeky details at the Links:
Photo Credits: “Sinsheim – Technikmuseum Sinsheim – Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde 101-102 Air France F-BVFB 02”, by Flickr User Daniel Mennerich
Links:
• Source: UCSD
• via: PopSci
• Source Study: PLOSBio-High-Throughput Chemical Screen Identifies a Novel Potent Modulator of Cellular Circadian Rhythms and Reveals CKIα as a Clock Regulatory Kinase
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