Story highlights Three US scientists won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2017

They researched circadian rhythms in plants, humans and animals

(CNN) Three US scientists have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm," otherwise known as our biological clock, the Nobel committee said.

Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young were awarded the prize for their research on how plants, humans and animals adapt their biological rhythm to synchronize with our planet's day and night cycle, as the earth rotates, in order to control their daily life.

Hall spent most of his career at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, where Rosbash still works as a faculty member. Young works out of Rockefeller University in New York. The winners will share a prize of 9 million Swedish kronor, which is around $1.1 million.

All living organisms on Earth have an internal clock, known as the circadian rhythm, which in humans underlies why we are awake during the day and sleep at night.

But our biological clock also helps regulate eating habits, hormone release, blood pressure and body temperature.

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