Geckos comprise both nocturnal and diurnal genera, and between these categories there are several transitions. As their retinae have definitely to be classified as pure cone retinae, they provide an especially attractive model for comparison of organization and regional specializations adapted to very different photic environments. While the visual cells themselves show clear adaptations to noc...

Changes in levels of the stress-sensitive hormone cortisol from morning to evening are referred to as diurnal cortisol slopes. Flatter diurnal cortisol slopes have been proposed as a mediator between chronic psychosocial stress and poor mental and physical health outcomes in past theory and research. Surprisingly, neither a systematic nor a meta-analytic review of associations between diurnal c...

The first three harmonics (diurnal/semi-diurnal/tri-diurnal) of high amplitude anisotropic wave trains of cosmic ray intensity over the period 1991-1994 have been investigated for Deep River neutron monitoring station. Our study reveals that the diurnal time of maximum i.e. phase remains in the corotational/18 Hr direction, whereas the time of maximum for semi-diurnal anisotropy has no definite...

We analyzed diurnal variations in precipitation, surface pressure, and atmospheric static energy over the United States from observations and NCAR regional climate model (RegCM) simulations. Consistent with previous studies, the mean (1963-1993) pattern of the diurnal cycle of summer U.S. precipitation is characterized by late afternoon maxima over the Southeast and the Rocky Mountains and midn...

Clear-sky brightness temperature measurements from the High-Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) are simulated with two climate models via a radiative transfer code. The models are sampled along the HIRS orbit paths to derive diurnal climatologies of simulated brightness temperature analogous to an existing climatology based on HIRS observations. Simulated and observed climatologies are...

Mechanisms differentiating diurnal from nocturnal species are thought to be innate components of the circadian timekeeping system and may be located downstream from the circadian pacemaker within the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus. In the present study, we found that the dominant phase of behavioral activity and body temperature (Tb) is susceptible to modification by a specif...

The climatological large-scale patterns of diurnal and semidiurnal near-surface wind variations over the tropical Pacific Ocean are documented using 3 yr of hourly measurements from the Tropical Atmosphere–Ocean moored buoy array. Semidiurnal variations account for 68% of the mean daily variance of the zonal wind component, while diurnal variations account for 82% of the mean daily variance of ...

The diurnal cycle strongly influences many plant metabolic and physiological processes. Arabidopsis thaliana rosettes were harvested six times during 12-h-light/12-h-dark treatments to investigate changes in gene expression using ATH1 arrays. Diagnostic gene sets were identified from published or in-house expression profiles of the response to light, sugar, nitrogen, and water deficit in seedli...

BACKGROUND Poorly coordinated diurnal cortisol and circadian rest-activity rhythms predict earlier mortality in metastatic breast and colorectal cancer, respectively. We examined the prognostic value of the diurnal cortisol rhythm in lung cancer. METHODS Lung cancer patients (n=62, 34 female) were within 5 years of diagnosis and had primarily non small-cell lung cancer, with disease stage ran...