Gaby
Life is truly beautiful, wrote the authors of a new study from the University of Calgary and the National Research Council of Canada.
The team reached that conclusion after an unusual experiment with mice and two kinds of plants. They say they found direct physical evidence of biophotons — faint light emitted by living organisms — and that all living things, including humans, stop glowing after death.
At first glance, these results might sound strange. It’s hard not to think of pseudoscientific ideas about auras or mysterious discharges around living organisms.
Also, the visible wavelengths produced by biological processes are expected to be so weak that they can be overwhelmed by environmental electromagnetic noise and the radiant heat from metabolism.
However, a team led by physicist Wahid Salari at the University of Calgary says it observed ultra-weak photon emission (UPE) from the animals and plants in their tests.
Biophoton science is controversial. Some biological processes produce bright chemiluminescence. For decades, spontaneous light emissions from roughly 200 to 1,000 nanometers have been recorded in less obvious reactions across many cell types — from cow heart tissue to bacterial colonies.
A leading candidate for the source of this emission is reactive oxygen species produced by cells in response to stresses such as heat, toxins, pathogens, or nutrient deficiencies.
For example, when enough hydrogen peroxide is present, fats and proteins can undergo reactions that excite electrons. As those electrons return to their original state, they can emit one or two fairly energetic photons, Science Alert reported.
What Did the Scientists Discover?
The team used specialized instruments to compare the faintest emissions from living and dead mice. At points during the experiment, they warmed dead rodents’ bodies to normal living temperature so heat wouldn’t be a confounding factor.
They detected individual visible photons from the mice’s cells both before and after death. The number of photons dropped sharply after death.
They saw similar results in experiments with Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress) and the houseplant schefflera (Heptapleurum arboricola). Damaging the leaves and applying chemicals increased the plants’ emissions, supporting the idea that reactive oxygen species drive the faint glow.
“Our results showed that throughout the 16 hours of filming, the damaged parts of all the leaves were significantly brighter than the undamaged ones,” the scientists wrote in their report.
The researchers suggested that even the faintest glow from stressed cells could one day help assess an organism’s health.
The findings were published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
