Circadian Organization and Microbiology: Variance Spectra and a Periodogram on Behavior of Escherichia coli Growing in Fluid Culture

Over three decades ago Rogers and Greenbank (1) published observations on intermittent growth in a bacterial culture. These interesting data are analyzed further in this report by computational procedures ( 2-8) designed for detecting and evaluating the significance of nearly periodic phenomena. By such methods, circadian (about 24-hour) periodicity in a culture of E. coli is unmasked as a significant component of the recorded changes. These results extend the already broad scope of circadian temporal organization in microbiology

Murine Circadian Susceptibility-Resistance Cycle to Acetylcholine

The detection of a circadian ( about 24- hour) susceptibility-resistance cycle to acetylcholine by spot checks on mortality from this agent will be here presented. The study was done under conditions standardized to some extent for 24-hour routine-synchronized circadian system analysis ( 1). Sampling was limited to only two time points along the 24-hour scale. Hence, results represent a spot check rather than a circadian map. The conclusions to be drawn from these data have been confirmed, in the interim, with more frequent sampling. The data to be reported constitute further evidence that circadian system structure (2) involves significant and predictable changes in the reactivity of organisms to various agents

Chronomics, human time estimation, and aging

Franz Halberg, Robert B Sothern, Germaine Cornélissen, Jerzy Czaplicki1Halberg Chronobiology Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA; 1Institut de Pharmacologie et de Biologie Structurale CNRS, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, FranceBackground: Circadian rhythm stage affects many outcomes, including those of mental aging.Methods: Estimations of 1 minute ∼5 times/day for a year, 25 years apart, by a healthy male biomedical scientist (RBS), are analyzed by the extended cosinor.Results: Cycles of a half-week, a week, ∼30 days, a half-year and a year, in self-assessed 1-minute estimation by RBS between 25 and 60 years of age in health, are mapped for the first time, compared and opposite effects are found. For RBS at 60 vs at 25 years of age, it takes less time in the morning around 10:30 (P < 0.001), but not in the evening around 19:30 (P = 0.956), to estimate 1 minute.Discussion: During the intervening decades, the time of estimating 1 minute differed greatly, dependent on circadian stage, being a linear decrease in the morning and increase in the evening, the latter modulated by a ∼33.6-year cycle.Conclusion: Circadian and infradian rhythm mapping is essential for a scrutiny of effects of aging. A ∼30-day and a circannual component apparent at 25 years of age are not found later; cycles longer than a year are detected. Rhythm stages await tests as markers for timing therapy in disease.Keywords: circadian rhythm, mental function, time estimatio

Transyears Competing with the Seasons in Tropical Malaria Incidence

Communicable and non‐communicable diseases show coperiodisms (shared cycles) with the sun\u27s and earth\u27s magnetism. About 11‐year cycles and components with periods a few weeks or a few months longer than one year (near‐ and far‐transyears, respectively) are the cases in point. Published data on the incidence of malaria in Burundi, Papua New Guinea, and Thailand are analysed by the linear‐nonlinear cosinor to assess the relative prominence of transyears versus the calendar year. An about 2.3‐year component characterizes malaria incidence in Burundi and Papua New Guinea (Thailand data were only sampled yearly). Long‐term trends cannot be distinguished from the presence of an about 11‐year cycle found in a 100‐year long record from Chizhevsky on mortality from cholera in Russia, albeit its second harmonic is statistically significant in Burundi’s data. Whereas far‐ and near‐transyears characterize malaria incidence in Burundi more prominently than the calendar year, only a candidate near‐transyear of small amplitude is barely detected in Papua New Guinea, where the calendar year is most prominently expressed. Both regions are located near the equator. Selectively‐assorted geographic differences such as these, observed herein for a communicable disease, have been previously observed for non‐communicable conditions, such as sudden cardiac death

Theodor Hellbrügge: 85 years of age – Ad multos transannos, sanos, fortunatos et beatos

We honor Theo Hellbrügge's acclaimed endeavors in the rehabilitation, or rather the prehabilitation of handicapped children. So far, he has focused on obvious handicaps, and we trust that he will include concern for everybody's silent handicaps in the future by screening for abnormal variability inside the physiological range. Therein, we introduce cis- and trans-years, components of transdisciplinary spectra that are novel for biology and also in part for physics. These components have periods, respectively, shorter and longer than the calendar year, with a counterpart in magnetoperiodism. Transyears characterize indices of geomagnetic activity and the solar wind's speed and proton density. They are detected, alone or together with circannuals, in physiology as well as in pathology, as illustrated for sudden cardiac death and myocardial infarction, a finding calling for similar studies in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). As transyears can beat with circannuals, and depend on local factors, their systematic mapping in space and time by transdisciplinary chronomics may serve a better understanding of their putative influence upon the circadian system. Longitudinal monitoring of blood pressure and heart rate detects chronome alterations underlying cardiovascular disease risk, such as that of myocardial infarction and sudden cardiac death. The challenge is to intervene in a timely fashion, preferably at birth, an opportunity for pediatricians in Theo Hellbrügge's footsteps