zeitgeber
zeitgeber (DZEYET-gey-ber) - n., an environmental cue, as the start or end of daylight, that provides the stimulus for setting or resetting a biological clock of an organism.
More usually it's a natural event, but it can be social, such as children coming home from school, as long at its a daily thing. Coined in 1954 in German by Jürgen Aschoff, a founder of the field of chronobiology, and ported over to English when he used it in a 1964 paper -- literally, "time-giver."
---L.
More usually it's a natural event, but it can be social, such as children coming home from school, as long at its a daily thing. Coined in 1954 in German by Jürgen Aschoff, a founder of the field of chronobiology, and ported over to English when he used it in a 1964 paper -- literally, "time-giver."
---L.