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The biology of time across different scales

Nature Chemical Biology volume 3, pages 594–597 (2007)Cite this article

Animals time events on scales that span from microseconds to days. In contrast to the technologies devised by humans to keep track of time, biology has developed vastly different mechanisms for timing across these different scales.

For both individuals and society as a whole, the ability to precisely track and tell time is critical across scales spanning over 15 orders of magnitude: from the nanosecond accuracy of atomic clocks used for global positioning systems to the tracking of our yearly trip around the sun. In-between these extremes we track the minutes and hours that govern our daily activities. It is noteworthy that the same technology can be used to measure time across these different scales; atomic clocks are used to time nanosecond delays in the arrival of signals from different satellites and to make adjustments to the calendar year. Similarly, digital wristwatches are used to time hundredths of a second and the days of the month.

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Figure 1: Scales of biological timing.

Katie Ris-Vicari

Figure 2: Temporal processing on the millisecond timescale.
Figure 3: Controlling the period in a biochemical clock.

Katie Ris-Vicari

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a US National Institutes of Health grant (MH060163). I would like to thank T. Carvalho for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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  1. Dean V. Buonomano is in the Departments of Neurobiology and Psychology, Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Box 951761, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA. dbuono@ucla.edu,

    Dean V Buonomano

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Buonomano, D. The biology of time across different scales. Nat Chem Biol 3, 594–597 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio1007-594

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