Construct five rhythm related sentences using a different jargon in each. (circa

Question

Construct five rhythm related sentences using a different jargon in each. (circadian, free running rhythm, masking). Please help me fix those. Apparently mine are either confusing or not good enough (below)

Circadian: Though it is believed that the circadian rhythm is of exactly 24 hours, many ignore that it may instead range among a period of 23 to 25 hours long.

Free-running rhythms: Whether placed in a DD, LD, or LL cycle all organisms will still have a nocturnal animal, such a bat placed in a DD schedule will show a free running rhythm upon collection of data.

Masking: An experiment conducted on a young lady can show that hair loss might be attributed to the lack of care to the hair and poor nutrition of the subject masking the fact that the person has developing cancer.

Also, how can potential masking be avoided?

Explanation / Answer

Life of almost all organisms is governed by various biological rhythms that are defined as physiological and behavioral oscillations. These rhythms are distinguished by their period length with circadian rhythms displaying of approximately 24 hours that evolved in adaptation to the daily rotation of the earth around its axis.

Even though the endogenous circadian clock functions in the absence of external time cues, it periodically measures some of these environmental parameters to synchronize internal and external time under natural conditions to so-called diurnal rhythms. This mechanism of synchronization is called entrainment and the environmental signal that can phase-set circadian clocks is called Zeitgeber . All of the mentioned Zeitgebers may act as entraining agents although the daily 24 hour light-dark (LD) cycle is the most prominent one divided into a dark period or so-called scotophase and a light period or so-called photophase. Furthermore, organisms can only entrain to synchronizers cycling with a period close to 24 hours . If the entraining period is too short or too long thereby exceeding the range of entrainment the circadian system cannot follow the Zeitgeber anymore and starts to free-run rhythm.

A certain rhythm may often only apparently be entrained to a Zeitgeber while the internal clock at the same time is not affected. This phenomenon is called masking. One example is the suppressing influence of bright light on the activity of nocturnal rodents.

Organisms kept under constant conditions by shielding them from external time cues display so-called free-running or circadian rhythms that may persist indefinitely. The period length of these free-running rhythms is often no longer equal to 24 and differs from species to species.

One circadian cycle is divided into 24 equally sized circadian units with one unit being defined as the division of the internal period length by 24 hours. In nocturnal organisms and constant darkness conditions (DD), one circadian unit usually is less than 1 hour because the internal rhythm of these animals is typically shorter than 24 hours.

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