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Scientists Say Nerves Use Sound, Not Electricity
gazzarda writes "The CBC is reporting that a team of Danish scientists are claiming that nerve impulses are transmitted by sound and not electricity. 'The common view that nerves transmit impulses through electricity is wrong and that they really transmit sound, according to a team of Danish scientists. The Copenhagen University researchers argue that biology and medical textbooks that say nerves relay electrical impulses from the brain to the rest of the body are incorrect.'"
...its really the sound of the tazer that is making your muscles contract in all kinds of ways and you losing motor control, not the hundreds of thousands of volts coursing through your body.
Wow... who would of guessed it!
einstein
http://anarchy-tv.com/
As a neuroscientist who has a healthy respect for a little anarchy from time to time, I have to call shenanigans on this one. I'd love to kick down the doors on some fundamentally held beliefs (my dissertation did something close to that), but this had me laughing out loud.
I've recorded from nerve cells in the classical manner and run the parametrics on different ionic concentrations and it would take quite a solid argument backed up by data for me to displace any of the credibility built on the classic Hodgkin and Huxley work.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
That may explain tinnitis, but it doesn't explain why nerves react to electricity.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I am currently in an Intro to Neuroscience class atm, but this sounds a bit...off. I am, obviously, not a scientist, but it seems to me that 1.)neurons and their associated structures do not have the physiological equipment necessary to produce sound, and 2.)Considering that the vast majority of passive and active scanning procedures specifically monitor or stimulate electrical activity in the brain, this seems a wee bit kooky. But, as stated, I ain't a scientist. Sage wisdom, folks?
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
Is it just me, or did the summary say the same thing in three slightly different ways?
Other scientists say, "These scientists are idiots."
I'm so tired of hearing the press use "scientists say" as a legitimizing opener. If you believe something because "scientists" say so, you are probably not a scientist. If you were, you would be forced to know many scientists who are idiots; scientists who no one should listen to.
Peer reviewed and agreed upon usually means good science. The CBC saying, "scientists say" means squatcum.
How do they explain all of the electrical measurements of nerve cells? We have measured voltages and currents. We know that these are dependent on certain protein channels, and salt concentrations. If impulses are actually the result of "solitons", how can they explain half a century worth of neurobiology? One wild guess, based on a minor inconsistency (if it even exists as they believe) needs a hell of a lot more evidence before they should be taken seriously.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Time to replace all your tinfoil helmets with a pair of ear plugs.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
"Hey - will you guys quiet down? I can barely hear myself think!"
Ryan Fenton
There goes down the Matrix now...
On further review, it seems that the CBC article is total crap, but that the original paper isn't that far off the deep end. I admit that I don't know enough to really follow or critique the research, but it doesn't seem to be the crackpot theory that TFA implies. Nowhere, for example, does that paper say that nerves don't use electricity. In fact, the paper refers to "solitons" as a piezo-electric effect. They are merely proposing a new mechanism on top of previous theories, not trying to completely throw out all neuroscience to date.
To recap: Completely bogus headline, based on a completely bogus bit of popular science reporting, which itself is based on a possibly intriguing (but tentative) bit of original research. Nothing to see here.
okay, I can understand what they are saying but then why is it when your body is electrified, your nerves loose the (signal) from your brain and you convulse? If your nerves rely on sound and not on electricity then wouldn't there be no (nervous) reaction if and or when electricity goes through your body?
g0t b33r?
Anyway, you can read that article in its entirety here: http://www.gamma.nbi.dk/Galleri/gamma143/nerves.pd f
IANANS (guess...) but I do find it very agreeable that it is odd that strength of an aneastaesia (yeah, it's misspelled) is proportional to its solubility in lipids if the inner workings of nerves are driven by electricity.
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
It's a series of tubes.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
that's not strange at all, especially if you don't know the pharmacological target of an anesthetic. Many lipids are used as chemical second messengers. There are many membrane bound proteins that might be a target.
NO CARRIER
Every cell in your body is encapsulated by a cell membrane that is essentially two layers of lipids. It's not a real revelation that many drugs' effectiveness is enhanced by lipid-solubility.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Professional (or potential) Physicists producing research about biology saying nerves work on sound.
Next thing you know some silly chemists from Utah will claim they discovered "cold" fusion by producing bubbles from metal rods.
Well, maybe when we live in Bizzaro world.
This could explain the intense physical reaction to fingernails on a chalkboard. Hits just the right frequency, perhaps...
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
then why don't my legs jerk when I fart?
Just a question.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
What happens when you play those nerves backwards?
You turn into Ozzy Osbourne?
... I dance like an idiot to loud German trance music.
It's not because I'm drunk, It's involuntary movements caused by the sound, Some "scientists" said so!
God Be Gone
From what I vaguely remember of my artskool audio class, Sound at wavelengths of 5hz and below are more than capable of disrupting human thought. 10hz being the South Park "brown sound," which will disrupt the bowels (see also Transmetropolitan, etc).
Imagine all the possibilities! You could make someone do something just by yelling at them loud enough!!
-jX
Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
Does this mean that the next time someone kicks me in the nads all I need are earplugs for the pain to go away?
I don't think I will test that theory, I'll let someone else do it.
"This is America... where the will of the few outweigh the outrage of the many..." - Unknown
After reading the article, I thought maybe I'd slipped up a bit and somehow missed a few weeks, but no, it's not April First...
:o)
*I* want some of what *THEY* are smoking...
--Tomas
Rephrasing the same statement three times is actually not the same thing as elaborating on it. Repeating something three times dos not provide more information. It's wrong to think that stating something three times over will make for a better summary.
sic transit gloria mundi
Shutup, you're getting on my nerves.
God spoke to me.
deaf people walk?
Organization: alphabetical, sometimes numerical or messy
To illustrate, his most compelling argument is this: "The physical laws of thermodynamics tell us that electrical impulses must produce heat as they travel along the nerve, but experiments find that no such heat is produced."
This was when I thought he was full of shit. Any type of 'communication' requires some energy. The transduction of sound (molecules hitting one another in a propagating a pressure wave) also could produce heat in the thermodynamic argument. TFA is lacking on sufficient detail to look into this further.
The conduction of nerve impulses is understood at a detailed molecular level. There are numerous experiments that have observed everything from individual charges and ions traveling through channels and careful electrical modeling, to rationally designed anaesthetics that interact with specific molecules and targeted modifications of channels.
Now, it's always a good idea to keep an open mind. But these people have presented no even remotely interesting evidence that we need a change in paradigms. They are simply nuts.
Why do I only seem to get mod points on Friday evenings when poop like this populates the home page? I give up.
...can we say officially that this part of slashdot has become a FANSCOS now (First Annual NeuroScientist Convention On Slashdot) ?
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
One day after sleeping badly, an anatomist went to his frog laboratory and removed from a cage one frog with white spots on its back. He placed it on a table and drew a line just in front of the frog. "Jump frog, jump!" he shouted. The little critter jumped two feet forward. In his lab book, the anatomist scribbled, "Frog with four legs jumps two feet."
Then, he surgically removed one leg of the frog and repeated the experiment. "Jump, jump!" To which, the frog leaped forward 1.5 feet. He wrote down, "Frog with three legs jumps 1.5 feet."
Next, he removed a second leg. "Jump frog, jump!" The frog managed to jump a foot. He scribbled in his lab book, "Frog with two legs jumps one foot."
Not stopping there, the anatomist removed yet another leg. "Jump, jump!" The poor frog somehow managed to move 0.5 feet forward. The scientist wrote, "Frog with one leg jumps 0.5 feet."
Finally, he eliminated the last leg. "Jump, jump!" he shouted, encouraging forward progress for the frog. But despite all its efforts, the frog could not budge. "Jump frog, jump!" he cried again. It was no use; the frog would not response. The anatomist thought for a while and then wrote in his lab book, "Frog with no legs goes deaf."
(joke shamelessy copied from this site)
Yes, I am the one with the legendary sig.
Its very possible that neurons communicate using both electrical signals and sound solitons (and who knows what else?). If you play around with genetic algorithms or supercompilers you see that optimal solutions to problems often use unexpected mechanisms that defy logical analysys. We should expect to see this sort of efficiency in real evolved systems too.
A single nerve cell transmits information by having a depolarized zone travel down the axon, which is an electrochemical process.
Information travels between nerve cells through synapses, which can either be chemical (using a neurotransmitter) or "electric" (electrochemical).
So if these guys claim that biology and medical textbooks talk about electrical impulses, maybe they need to get some real textbooks first and non some pop-sci ones.
I believe brain has multiple systems to ensure the signals gets through or get reliably.
Sound maybe one of them.Electricity another.The third one might be chemical pathway or radio frequency.
Dismissing the idea,brain would have one point of failure,one big magnet and the nerve system is useless(not to mention the interference from the electric devices and wires).
It's so loud in here "I can't hear myself think."
And for all this time I thought that was just a figure of speech.
First, the Biophysical Journal is fairly respectable, and a much more appropriate place to publish work in this area. Second, the actual journal article in the Biophysical Journal does NOT say what the Slashdot and CBC titles say, so judging them on this basis is inappropriate. The article is an extension of a previously published model which shows that nerve signal propagation can be described as 100m/s piezo-electric soliton pulses, and it shows that these are dependent upon the phase transition temperatures for membranes.
I always wanted to work as an electrician but I've been deathly afraid of, you know, accidentally touching a line and the electricity causing my muscles to contract and involuntarily clamping onto a naked wire. Glad to know that's a myth now! Wait, I still hate heights. Perhaps it's time for me to pursue a brave new career as a lightning rod!
What the...? Nerve impulses are transmitted by sound?! I can't believe my ears!
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
It is entirely possible for ionic transfer to induce mechanical transformation within nerve cells, and in turn, for such movement to trigger ionic transfer. Remember these?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
I'm sure I have at least 2 kA current from ankle to brains that can produce heat.So P=I^2*R=m*c*delta(T) right..So you suggest that heat from current in my nerves should be visible on thermal camera ??? Damn that stupid. Stick a needle in your nerve put a nice high gain amplifier ....no that sounds like torture...perhaps voltage coming out of the nerves is so high that you can measure it on the skin on some places. The answer for this people will come when they'll understand why we use transformers in power systems :))
If it is sound, why did Galvani's experiments with electricity and frogs' legs work?
Surely you're joking [title] chaboud.
Science is guided by the scientific method. Observe, hypothesize, test, explain.
Also:
Merely because electrial triggers work, doesn't mean that's how our nerves were meant to operate. If I were a brain surgeon I could make your muscles "work" by pushing on your brain.
My brain actually listens to what I see? How confusing...
Well, if nerves really do communicate by sound that would explain why my head feels like someone is playing a thrash metal tune in it when I have a migraine.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Insightful gives karma, funny doesn't.
When I first read the I article snippet I thought, as much of the /.ers, that this was bogus. Then I did a search and found a better article - and in comments to that article I found the actual text from the researchers.
http://www.citebase.org/fulltext?format=applicatio n%2Fpdf&identifier=oai%3AarXiv.org%3Aphysics%2F061 0117
I think you'll find that most of the concerns that the /. audience brings up are addressed.
Thinking outside the box is hard - even for those of us who feel we are scientifically minded.
-CF
Having a bullshit filter is a good thing, and mine was in the red when I read this.
So somebody said nerve signals are sent by sound and not electrical impulses? Tell that to the people who regain hearing thanks to cochlear implants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant), or to the people who have prosthetics that move based on electrical impulses (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1035304.stm). In fact, why not tell this to everyone who could be wasting their time doing research in the field of neuroprosthetics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroprosthetics)?
In space, no one can... move their leg?
Google: "All your data are belong to us."
interesting theory. maybe it got something to with the supposedly smallest entities of our universe.
somehow all the old wisdom is getting some sort of evidently proof, like:
to be on the same wavelength with each other or that you can "smell" someone (like him). in the end we will learn, that it's all connected. after all, everything is just energy right? so it's just a matter of transformation or on a superstring level a matter of representation.
Man Oh Man do I find this so exciting, and such a life saver too. I am slowly going deaf;(not so slowly if you ask my wife) it is to the point now that I have had to learn how to read lips. Unfortunately I cannot afford the cost of a hearing aide, as they are selling for 6k or more. So if this is true I should be able to hear through my fingers or any other body part I care to, or am allowed to press up against whoever is speaking. Sure wouldn't mind testing said theory with Jennifer Love Hewitt .
IF you can't be famous be infamous. But for GODS sake be something
If sound propagated down a nerve by sound, it'd end there. There's no mechanism to produce sound when a neurotransmitter from the first nerve mated with a receptor on the next.
Also, we listen to brain waves with an EEG or MEG, which measure minute electrical or magnetic impulses. We do not use a microphone and amplifier. Plus, we induce currents with electricity and magnetism, not loudspeakers, and produce predictable results.
Sound waves of sufficient intensity to propagate the full length of a nerve would be so strong in the main trunk that they'd disrupt the transport mechanism carrying neurotransmitters down from the cell body. They'd isloate the nerve from participating in the local neural network.
A new theory should explain everything just as well as the old plus more. This one falls apart at the basics and can't handle some of the nuances.
If sound propagation were the key, all that sodium and potassium gating to change the local membrane charge would be useless, and nature hates that kind of waste.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I mean C'mon: Three sentences that essentially say the same thing.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
a million of ravers/clubbers can't be wrong...
I'd have to say all old news. To many scientists say they discovered something new, its not common that they want to change something. So I tend to stay out of arguments about stuff like this until is in a science book. Only then can anyone say its true, because then they proved otherwise it wouldn't be there.
It may sound correct however, if this were true, devices that use electrical nerve stimulation would not function properly. This is not because that sound-based neurons would not be stimulated, they likely would, but due to the fact that many designed in such a way that they block signals traveling in the opposite direction than intended. I seem to recall it was by inducing a sufficiently high level of magnetic flux in the nerve to prevent threshold voltage from being reached and causing the nerve to fire.
Wikipedia has a very good article on action potentials and the current science we know about nerve function. It is fairly complete. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Potential.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
in a forest, and I _do_ hear it, will that cause my nerve cells to react and make me like pee my pants or something? :-)
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
Then how else do YOU explain the brown note? A sound that makes you go poopie in your pants!
today is spelling optional day.
One needs to look at two different s of how cells communicate with each other: electrochemically and physically.
If an impulse in a nerve cell causes a change in ionic concentration, which causes a conformational change in a surface protein, which causes a conformational change in the surface protein of an adjacent cell, then the signal was transmitted (arguably) through a physical phenomenon: sound.
If an impulse in a nerve cell causes a change in ionic concentration, which causes a conformational change in a surface protein, which causes that protein to release a charged ion across a synapse, which ion is then gathered at a protein on an adjacent cell where the charge is passed on, then the signal was transmitted (arguably) through an energetic phenomenon: electrical.
At the level of molecular orbitals, though, it's all about the same. A molecule or ion of a higher energy state influenced a species of a lower energy state. Energy was passed from one to the other. Since cells don't have ears I doubt that they make any distinction of how the energy is transferred.
Think of rubbing your hands together while looking at them with infrared glasses. While you wouldn't think you're generating any light it will be clear, from the infrared glasses, that your hands, due to the increase in heat, are generating additional radiation in the form of photons in the IR range of the spectrum.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Now is a good time to point out that their of DNA was based upon work which their in lab research assistant, Rosalind Franklin, conducted. While Watson and Crick won the Nobel Prize nobody ever remembers Franklin.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Just looking at the transmission speeds makes it clear what is going here:
Data:
Summary: neural transmission is orders of magnitude too slow to qualify as either an electrical or sonic phenomenon.
Conclusion: TFA suggests replacing one gross oversimplification of neural transmission with another. Neural transmission might have some qualities of both but is clearly neither. TFA is garbage.
Note Bene:There is no way of knowing what the original work was talking about. I cannot imagine anyone who has studied neural transmissions saying anything like TFA's contents. I suspect that the author of TFA was presented with an anology and took it for fact.
Doesn't have the same pizzazz as electric...
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
So that's why it hurts so much to watch American Idol.
Next thing you know, these physicists will be fighting over whether light is a particle or a wave.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Guided by, yes. Science is, however, a method of experimentation and revission. That said, intuition tells us that object that are pushed come to a stop, and return to their "natural state" of rest... For centeries we KNEW this to be fact.
:) ).
We knew that heavier objects fall faster than light objects, it's just intuitive that they do, so it must be the case. We never tried, and we KNEW this as fact.
We thought it obvious that if the earth was moving, there would be wind and that the pigeons would fall off their perches. The earth must be static, fixed in place at the center of the universe, with the stars painted on glass spheres arround us because it's just obviously true. We KNEW this as fact.
Science taught us, don't assume because of obviousness and intution; instead make a guess and test it out. Galiello dropped many an item off the roof of buildings and found that weight of an object isn't important to how fast it falls. In fact, he realized that objects fell with a constantly increasing speed toward the earth. He discovered what everyone attributes to Newton, Gravity.
Newton, later found that objects don't "tend to the natural state" but rather remain in a state indefinatly untill acted on by an object or force. He quantified that constant rate of change and developed calculus comming from one direction (while some German guy was doing the same thing in Germany or somewhere like that
Coprenicus, Kepler, Galilleo came to realize that the Earth is not flat. That it isn't the center of the unverse, and that all the planets in the solar system orbit the sun sweeping out equal distance in equal time.
I don't see metric boatloads, VW bugs, bread boxes or anyother evidence that "proves" anything in this matter untill more experiments are carried out.
This part, I can. "Cogito, ergo sum. QED." I can't prove, however, that you exist.
Everything in the world we know as fact can be placed into this sentence and it makes logical sense:
"It is not the case that X; however, I am having all of the thoughts, feelings and experinces as if X"
Except for ones of a certian nature, that being "I think", "I feel" or "I am" statments.
Let's try it.
"It is not the case that I exist; however, I am having all of the thoughts, feelings and experinces as if I exist."
The problem: If I don't exist, then I can't be having all of the thoughts, feelings or experiences as if I did, because I would exsist to think, or feel, or experience.
Which, in true Descarte fashion I have proved, "I think, therefore I am."
Now, are you?
I can't be a tinkering with your brain, because I exist, I just proved it. Now, my proof isn't valid in your mind, if you do indeed exsist which I can't prove directly; but, if you do exist, you can work through the logic above and logically prove you exist. There are even formal symbolic proofs if you like symbolic logic.
Now, to prove your existance to me (or mine to you), Descarte would use God; which is a leap of faith that was exceptable and expected in the time he was writing. Realistically, I can't prove it to you or anyone other than me that I exsist; all I can do is offer you a choice to except that this world is real or let you search for some intrinsic truth of your own. Pragmatically, I chose to believe the world exsists, because if it didn't knowledge of anything outside myself would be impossible to obtain. In this regard, Locke's writings make sense. There is an external world, and there is our preception
Would you be offended if I suggest you to follow a Communications 101 course ?
Science is the scientific method, but the practice of science is absolutely guided by intuition and obviousness.
You can't test it all (at least, I don't have time to), and the "hypothesize" part you're talking about is formed from our intuition and the obviousness of some theories based on available information and evidence.
(Side note: You'd actually have a pretty hard time making my muscles "work" by pushing on my brain. Not working is a lot easier (and fun!).)
(Side note 2: Our brains aren't "meant to operate" in any particular way, unless we were designed. Our brains do operate, and it's that operation that we use science to describe.)
You're falling into the mistake of taking a single simple behavior and saying that, because two things could cause it, those two things are equally likely to be the root-cause/underlying-mechanism of the greater field of behaviors of the system in question. It's not one test that makes this theory highly unlikely. It's the entire field of evidence.
It's a testament to the wikiality of Slashdot that someone using that broken style of argument could skate by as "5, Insightful" while someone calling them on it gets called a troll, only to have someone else use the same style of argument and hang onto a karmic 2.
I'll take my licks in moderation, but you're both still horrendously wrong.
While they do cite the huge amount of research demonstrating the role of ion channels and electrical currents, they then proceed to ignore it. With respect to anesthetics, they go back to what used to be a favored theory of general anesthetic action, that they work by perturbing the structure of the membrane, which was based on the Meyer-Overton rule that potency of general anesthetics is correlated with their lipid solubility. This MO rule lost much of its persuasive power when it was discovered that effects of general anesthetics on luciferase--a soluble enzyme in the absence of membranes--also follow the MO rule. The explanation is that the interior of most proteins is also a hydrophobic "lipid like" environment even though it contains no actual lipid.
The authors are a bit more sophisticated, citing other "lipid-like" phenomenae such as pressure reversal of general anesthesia. They are correct that this is not explained by the current model, but are probably barking up the wrong tree in retreating to the lipid model of general anesthesia. In fact, membrane proteins show a variety of interesting and poorly understood effects of pressure, so the explanation probably does not reside in a lipid-only model, but rather in a better understanding of how pressure and temperature affect membrane ion channels. It is possible that some sort of hybrid approach, taking into account interactions between proteins and membrane lipids will be necessary to achieve a full understanding. So while I think that they are on the wrong track, they are making a contribution in pointing out that there is a need for a more thermodynamic understanding of nerve conduction. I suspect that this is what led the Biophysical Journal to accept the paper, even though the authors' favored model lacks physiologically plausibility.
That would explain why my ears ring. It might even explain why we all like music so much, but not electricity.
I haven't done any actual research on electricity in nerves, but I have suffered from L'Hermittes Syndrome. After radiation therapy degrades the myelin sheath of your spinal cord, for several months you can shock yourself by turning your neck the right way (usually putting your chin down to your chest). It doesn't hurt, but it does feel VERY similar to the buzz you get when you touch something plugged into a wall outlet. Similar enough that I would be outright shocked if it turned out to be caused my anything other than electricity.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
a quaintly victorian sounding theory, it is, if you ask me.
I personally hypothesize that the aqueous flow of the nerve-system be engaged by the power of steam, the liver being the primary motivator in the cog-mechanism that enables motive energy in the body; and the primary aerators being foremost upon one's topside in the cranio-facial region, while the extricator of gaseous substances, much like an inverse smoke-stack, being found in the lower dorsal region in the form of a blow-hole.
but maybe that's just me.
So now they'll need to rewrite Frankenstein. Instead of coming to life on a slab during a huge lightning storm, he'll need to be placed in front of the speakers at a Van Halen concert.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
*Now* I can finally understand all those bodies gyrating on the dance floor and at rock concerts ... they're puppets on strings!
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
You don't need to be round. It should work anyway. Now go and get yourself tasered.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
this is the missing link? That sound and electricity are related and it took a biological experiment to make this link? Going very basic here, electricity is the flow of electrons, while sound is mechanical waves propagating from a source. What if electricity is not the flow of electrons but rather the mechanical flow of energy between electrons? That what we have thought is electrons moving is actually the energy from one electron moving to another and so on and so forth? Then, in the end, electricity is nothing but mechanical energy, aka sound, moving at the speed of light.
Disclaimer: I am not a published scientist, merely an imaginer of science fiction, also not published.
Theoretical physicists who think they know more than any other type of scientist simply because they are .... (gasp and awe) ..... physicists! This is just another instance of people trying to generate some media buzz over nothing."
Heimburg and Jackson theorize that sound propagation is a much more likely explanation.
"It's not a "much more likely" explanation at all. Not even slightly.
Propagation of membrane potentials by salutatory conduction along axons (ie. electrical nerve impulses) is confirmed countless times every day all over the world via the endless scientific experiments and medical procedures that are based on that theory. Every level of biology (from the genetic level to the biochemical level to the cellular level to the whole organism level) confirms the electrical impulse theory.
And here's the clincher...
"Although sound waves usually weaken as they spread out, a medium with the right physical properties could create a special kind of sound pulse or "soliton" that can propagate without spreading or losing strength. "
Oh I see. So in order to substantiate their unproven idea that nerve impulses are actually sound and not electrical in nature, they are invoking an unknown and theoretical set of physiological conditions that must be present in order for their theory to be correct! What absurd circular logic.
Slashdot needs a way to "thumbs down" stupid articles so they disappear.