[Business Week, December 14, 1992]
For year, scientists at the Laboratory for Circadian & Sleep Disorders
Medicine of Harvard University Medical School have been studying the
effects of light on the human biological clock. the research shows that
when normal sleep routines are disrupted, the body's clock can go
haywire, leaving factory workers and other swing-shift workers prone to
poor performance and accidents. Both the Three Mile Island and
Chernobyl accidents, for example, occurred on the graveyard shift. Lab
director Charles Czeisler and the university have patented a way to
reset the body's clock forward or backward quickly, using precisely
controlled exposure to bright lights. To help power plant workers
adjust to night duty, for instance, Light Sciences Inc., in Braintree
Mass., which is commercializing the technology, installs a computer
controlled lighting system in the plant's control room. the technique
is also helping prepare NASA's shuttle astronauts.
--
Jim Reisert Internet: reisert@mast.enet.dec.com
Digital Equipment Corp. UUCP: ...decwrl!mast.enet.dec.com!reisert
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