The puzzling role of biophotons

[Magical Realist]

"In recent years, a growing body of evidence shows that photons play an important role in the basic functioning of cells. Most of this evidence comes from turning the lights off and counting the number of photons that cells produce. It turns out, much to many people’s surprise, that many cells, perhaps even most, emit light as they work.

In fact, it looks very much as if many cells use light to communicate. There’s certainly evidence that bacteria, plants and even kidney cells communicate in this way. Various groups have even shown that rats brains are literally alight thanks to the photons produced by neurons as they work.

And that raises an interesting question: what role does light play in the work of neurons? The fact that neurons emit light does not mean that they can receive it or process it.

But interesting evidence is beginning to emerge that light may well play an important role in neuronal function. For example, earlier this year, one group showed that spinal neurons in rats can actually conduct light."====http://www.technologyreview.com/view/422...the-brain/

[Image: biophotonic-intercommunication-604x375.jpg]

[C C]

[...] But photons would also be absorbed by other stuff in the cell, liquids, membranes etc, and this ought to make cells opaque. So Rhanama and co hypothesise that microtubules can act as wave guides, channeling light from one part of a cell to another.

Microtubules are the internal scaffolding inside cells, providing structural support but also creating highways along which molecular machines transport freight around the cell. They’re extraordinary things. Could it be that they also work like optical fibres?

Maybe. They go on to suggest that the light channelled by microtubules can help to co-ordinate activities in different parts of the brain. It’s certainly true that electrical activity in the brain is synchronised over distances that cannot be easily explained. Electrical signals travel too slowly to do this job, so something else must be at work.

And of course Rhanama and co are not the first to suggest that microtubules play a central role in the functioning of the brain. 15 years ago, Roger Penrose suggested that consciousness is essentially a phenomenon of quantum mechanics and that microtubules were the medium in which quantum mechanics takes place....

Yet perhaps strangely less wild than suggesting over seven years ago that nerves relied on sound / mechanical pulses being transmitted.
http://www.livescience.com/1357-controve...icity.html

[Magical Realist]

[...] But photons would also be absorbed by other stuff in the cell, liquids, membranes etc, and this ought to make cells opaque. So Rhanama and co hypothesise that microtubules can act as wave guides, channeling light from one part of a cell to another.

Microtubules are the internal scaffolding inside cells, providing structural support but also creating highways along which molecular machines transport freight around the cell. They’re extraordinary things. Could it be that they also work like optical fibres?

Maybe. They go on to suggest that the light channelled by microtubules can help to co-ordinate activities in different parts of the brain. It’s certainly true that electrical activity in the brain is synchronised over distances that cannot be easily explained. Electrical signals travel too slowly to do this job, so something else must be at work.

And of course Rhanama and co are not the first to suggest that microtubules play a central role in the functioning of the brain. 15 years ago, Roger Penrose suggested that consciousness is essentially a phenomenon of quantum mechanics and that microtubules were the medium in which quantum mechanics takes place....

Yet perhaps strangely less wild than suggesting over seven years ago that nerves relied on sound / mechanical pulses being transmitted.
http://www.livescience.com/1357-controve...icity.html

It would not surprise me if the body and the brain utilize all sorts of wave transmissions and "noise" to achieve simultaneous holistic effects. The rhythm of the heart. The high frequency ringing of the nervous system. Noise has been proven to provide a system with the ability to self-tune and become more sensitive. There's even research suggesting magnetic waves are propagated from one cell to the next:

Abstract Title:
DNA and cell resonance: magnetic waves enable cell communication.
Abstract Source:
DNA Cell Biol. 2012 Apr ;31(4):422-6. Epub 2011 Oct 19. PMID: 22011216
Abstract Author(s):
Konstantin Meyl
Article Affiliation:
First Transfer Centre of Scalar Wave Technology (1st TZS), Technology Park, Villingen-Schwenningen, Germany. prof@meyl.eu
Abstract:
DNA generates a longitudinal wave that propagates in the direction of the magnetic field vector. Computed frequencies from the structure of DNA agree with those of the predicted biophoton radiation. The optimization of efficiency by minimizing the conduction losses leads to the double-helix structure of DNA. The vortex model of the magnetic scalar wave not only covers many observed structures within the nucleus perfectly, but also explains the hyperboloid channels in the matrix when two cells communicate with each other. Potential vortexes are an essential component of a scalar waves, as discovered in 1990. The basic approach for an extended field theory was confirmed in 2009 with the discovery of magnetic monopoles. For the first time, this provides the opportunity to explain the physical basis of life not only from the biological discipline. Nature covers the whole spectrum of known scientific fields of research, and interdisciplinary understanding is required to explain its complex relationships. The characteristics of the potential vortex are significant. With its concentration effect, it provides for miniaturization down to a few nanometers, which allows enormously high information density in the nucleus. With this first introduction of the magnetic scalar wave, it becomes clear that such a wave is suitable to use genetic code chemically stored in the base pairs of the genes and electrically modulate them, so as to"piggyback"information from the cell nucleus to another cell. At the receiving end, the reverse process takes place and the transported information is converted back into a chemical structure. The necessary energy required to power the chemical process is provided by the magnetic scalar wave itself.===http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/dna-...munication