Definitions

Chronobiology

Science objectively quantifying and investigating mechanisms of biologic time structure, including rhythmic manifestations of life.

Rhythms with different frequencies are found at all levels of biologic integration: ecosystem, population, group, individual, organ-system, organ, tissue, cell and subcellular structure. Their ubiquity and their critical importance to the survival of both the individual and the species have prompted the development of a special methodology to study these temporal characteristics in the context of development, growth and aging, yet in a novel branch of biology separate from embryology, pediatrics and geriatrics. In physiologic terms, chronobiology provides generally applicable concepts and techniques for resolving predictable cycles in organisms and for isolating environmental effects from the underlying endogenous mechanisms. The basic properties of rhythms are important to education, ecology and medicine.

Chronomics (from Greek chronos, time, and Greek nomos, rule)

Science objectively quantifying and investigating influences from the broad environment on biological processes, notably in relation to human physiology and pathology.

While periodicities in the biosphere are the realm of chronobiology, their alignment with weather on earth and in space forms the basis of chronomics. Evidence suggests that each biological cycle has a physical environmental counterpart with a similar frequency and vice versa.