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My guest today Russell Foster has the grand title of Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at Oxford University,

which is the Science Peak way of saying he's obsessed with clocks,

not the ticking type, but rather our biological clocks and the rhythms of life.

More specifically, he studies the way light controls our internal clocks and circadian rhythms

and works to understand how light and dark affect our well-being, everything from jet lag

to serious mental health problems. Russell had to fight against strong opposition

from eye experts when he discovered a new way in which animals can detect light.

He's written a number of books explaining how these biological clocks control our and other animals daily lives.

Russell, welcome to the life scientific.

Delightly to be here, Jim.

Now, does our biological make-up mean it's difficult for us to cope with our 24-7 society?

Well yes, we carry with a sort of 3.5 billion years of evolutionary baggage and embedded

within our genome are of the instructions of an internal clock, essentially providing

us with a representation of a day within.

And every aspect of our physiology is being fine-tuned to the varying demands of activity and

...