There’s a second reason. We are increasingly becoming aware that there are implications for human disease. With the modern technological age we get more and more divorced from the circadian rhythm, as we are able to travel across time zones and disturb our circadian rhythm. We can now live in light-dark regimes that are nothing to do with the circadian rhythm. This is leading to conditions like jet lag which are disturbing and may in turn also lead to other consequences that we don’t fully understand about the human condition.

There is some evidence that treatment of disease can be influenced by circadian rhythms too. People have reported that when you have surgery or when you have a drug can actually influence things. It’s still not clear, but there will almost certainly be some implications for the treatment of disease too.