Dr Rosato explained the importance of this research: “There are obvious advantages in having a clock. For instance we can start mobilising resources before they are actually needed, or we can temporally separate processes, which would be otherwise incompatible. As the clock evolved long before transcontinental travel and shift work were invented, jet lag and physiological dysfunctions are the price we pay for the unnatural 24-hour society.

“The implications of our frenetic life-style are much more profound than we generally think, as recent studies have indicated that the circadian clock (and clock genes) may be involved in diverse conditions such as tumour suppression, survival of animals with cardiomyopathy heart disease, left ventricular hypertrophy, diabetes, and cocaine sensitisation. It is therefore a very important factor in human and animal health and well-being.”

In fruitflies and mammals the same genes appear to play similar roles in determining how the 24-hour clock works. However, the ease of genetic analysis and the molecular tools available in the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, means that progress is particularly rapid with this organism.

The feature in Nature Neuroscience opens new insights on circadian light signalling and the biology of cryptochromes. The University of Leicester research team showed that by removing the terminal end of CRY (thus creating CRYD), they could generate flies that never ’experience’ night-time, as if they were living in a perpetual Arctic summer. They demonstrated this with a range of behavioural, molecular and cytological experiments.