Anyone who has ever worked a rotating shift, which finds one doing the same things every day but at different times every day, will understand how odd it is to try to buck the circadian rhythm, which is described as the 24-hour cycle of physiological processes in the body. It's now accepted as scientific fact that this phenomenon applies not only to humans and all animals, and plant life, including fungi and the bacteria affected by photosynthesis. This explains why people who are used to working the day shift suddenly wilt when they find themselves on the midnight shift. And plants wilt, too! Just like people, except their bosses don't come over and holler at them for being out like a light at their work station at 3 in the yawning.
Drs. Hall, Rosbash and Young did their work by studying fruit flies, and figured out that we all (except for Steve Bannon) have a gene that "encodes a protein that accumulates in cells at night, and then degrades during the day."
I had to copy and paste that because I haven't the slightest idea how encoded proteins accumulate, or become encoded.
These dedicated men of science spent decades doing the work on this study, researching the clockwork that regulates the cell that makes us all want salad for dinner but never for breakfast. Their big discovery was a protein called PER, which breaks down during the day and then regains its strength at night, ready to get up and do it all over again in the morning, as soon as we have our grits and gravy.
The Nobel Committee also recognized the three scientists for solving a problem that many others have had when using fruit flies as test subjects: How to get the fruit flies? Finally, they decided to take turns stopping at the Buy 'N' Go to buy the bananas to which the fruit flies flock.
Next year's prize will be awarded to scientists who discover just where those teeny bugs come from in the first place.
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