Cryptochromes (from the Greek κρυπτό χρώμα, hidden colour) are a class of flavoproteins that are sensitive to blue light. They are found in plants and animals. Cryptochromes are involved in the circadian rhythms of plants and animals, and in the sensing of magnetic fields in a number of species. The name Cryptochrome was proposed as a pun combining the cryptic nature of the photoreceptor, and the cryptogamic organisms on which many blue light studies were carried out.
The two genes Cry1 and Cry2 code for the two cryptochrome proteins CRY1 and CRY2. In insects and plants, CRY1 regulates the circadian clock in a light-dependent fashion, whereas, in mammals, CRY1 and CRY2 act as light-independent inhibitors of CLOCK-BMAL1 components of the circadian clock. In plants, blue light photoreception can be used to cue developmental signals.
Although Charles Darwin first documented plant responses to blue light in the 1800s, it was not until the 1980s that research began to identify the pigment responsible. In 1980, researchers discovered that the HY4 gene of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana was necessary for the plant's blue light sensitivity, and, when the gene was sequenced in 1993, it showed high sequence homology with photolyase, a DNA repair protein activated by blue light. By 1995, it became clear that the products of the HY4 gene and its two human homologs did not exhibit photolyase activity and were instead a new class of blue light photoreceptor hypothesized to be circadian photopigments. In 1996 and 1998, Cry homologs were identified in Drosophila and mice, respectively.
Vile forms of Necros lie rotting my mind
Feasting like maggots - maggots in flesh
So left your ruined cortex behind
Now the maggot knows glee as it nibbles on your spine!
[Chorus:]
Maggots! Maggots!
Maggots are falling like rain!
Putrid pus-pools vomit blubonic plague
The bowels of the beast reek of puke
How to describe such vileness on the page
World maggot waits for the end of the age!
[Chorus]
Beneath a sky of maggots I walked
Until those maggots began to fall
I gaped at God to receive my gift
Bathed in maggots till the planet shit
[Repeat chorus a lot]