Cells May Communicate Through Light

SilverLobe writes "The hypothesis that living cells may use photons for communications has been on the fringes of cell biology for a while. No proof positive exists, but there is some strong circumstantial evidence. Byte Size Biology reports on a simple experiment that shows how the unicellular protozoan Paramecium may use so called 'biophotons' to signal for growth and feeding. The original academic paper in PLoS ONE concludes: '... not all cellular processes are necessarily based on a molecule-receptor recognition. The non-molecular signals are most probably photons. If so, cells use more than one frequency for information transfer and mutual influence.'"

Comments

International Institute of Biophysics

[Eukariote]

Biophotons have been a long-term research focus at the International Institute of Biophysics. Quoting from their webpage:

Worldwide there are about 40 scientific groups working on biophotons. The biggest association is the International Institute of Biophysics (IIB) e.V., founded in 1996 in Neuss (Germany) for an interdisciplinary approach of the understanding and the investigation of living systems.