[ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False?

[The Avantguardian]

>From: Natasha Vita-More <natasha at natasha.cc>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>; Humanity+ Discussion List <wta-talk at transhumanism.org>; extrobritannia at yahoogroups.com
>Sent: Sat, March 13, 2010 8:57:37 AM
>Subject: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False?
>
>
>Can any scientist on the list offer a scientific explanation for the relationship between cells and what is perceived as their talking with light?
>http://www.viewzone.com/dna.html
>WARNING:  Does contain words such as "homoeopathy".
> Natasha Vita-More
>

I generally concur with Emlyn with regard to this specific website. There are a handful of valid and puzzling scientific facts mixed in with a lot of sensationalistic and speculative philosophy some might call "woo". But the title about DNA being the next Internet is kind of a non-sequitor with regard to biophotons. Yes, biophotons are real. Yes, there is a Russian biophysicist named Popp that studies them. A search on his name brings back 49 citations in PubMed and some 400 pages in Google Scholar. Some of his older work is free access. His scientific work does contain hard data and is written a lot more conservatively than the website would lead you to believe. But he is a homeopath or a holist. This contributes to him being far more respected in Germany, China, and India than in the US and UK:
http://www.lifescientists.de/ib0204e_1.htm
http://www.scichina.com:8082/sciCe/fileup/PDF/00yc0507.pdf
http://www.springerlink.com/content/252153715338p0mk/fulltext.pdf
http://www.anatomyfacts.com/research/PropertiesBioph.pdf

Also he believes, like I do, that consciousness is a quantum phenomenon.
http://neuroquantology.com/journal/index.php/nq/article/viewFile/318/294

With regard to your question regarding the role of biophotons in intercellular signalling, I can't tell you for certain what they do in the human body. I can tell you that many bacteria and other single celled organisms use them for "quorum sensing". In other words each cell gives off a small amount of light and each cell has photoreceptors that can measure the total amount of light. When the light reaches a certain overall level, the cells know that they are at maximal population density for their environment and therefore stop dividing to keep from becoming overpopulated.

Here is a paper describing experiments to that effect using the protist Paramecium caudatum.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005086#pone-0005086-t001

Curiously a lot of researchers are finding that injured cells and cancer cells glow more brightly than healthy ones. Since the Opsins (photoreceptor proteins) are G protein coupled receptors which generally cause cell growth, biophotons could be some kind of growth signal.

Here is a New Scientist article about biophotons being hosted at the Koboyashi lab website which also does biphoton research:
http://www.tohtech.ac.jp/~elecs/ca/kobayashilab_hp/NewScientistE.html
Here are Kobayashi's papers of which a few are free.
http://www.tohtech.ac.jp/~elecs/ca/kobayashilab_hp/PapersE.html

Here is a paper by a Korean group regarding biophotons after liver injury.
http://jhs.pharm.or.jp/51(2)/51_155.pdf

Incidently Japan after inventing the ultrasensitive CCD cameras required to see biophotons has become a hotbed for biophoton research and I suspect many of the biggest discoveries in the field, like light-based tumor biopsies, will come from the far east since the far west seems to be in denial about biophotons.

I hope that helps anybody seriously interested in the subject to have a woo-free peer-reviewed starting point for further investigation. Also I do heartily endorse "The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms" by Mae-Wan Ho (Biochemist and Geneticist) for anybody interested in quantum biology. Her book pretty much picks up where Erwin Schroedinger's "What is life?" leaves off and contains may insights, compelling evidence, and beautiful micrographs.

Stuart LaForge 

"What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight." - Joseph Joubert