understanding digital biology :: essays research papers

UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL BIOLOGYExplaining digital biology is im attainable without informing its principle. The purpose of this text is non to report experimental results. Rather, it tries to explain to laymen, in the honestst terms, this radically new approach to biology. We hope it will be useful to all, scientists or non, who find it hard to "make the leap". Indeed, is it possible to believe that the specific activity of biologically-active molecules (e.g. histamine, caffeine, nicotine, adrenalin), non to mention the immunological speck of a virus or bacterium can be record and digitized utilise a computer sound card, just like an mediocre sound? Imagine the perplexity of Archimedes confronted with a telephone, and being told that by using it he could be heard on the other side of the world, were we not to explain the nature of sound waves or their translation into electromagnetism.Life depends on heads mass meetingd among molecules. For example, when you get ang ry, adrenalin "tells" its receptor, and it alone (as a faithful molecule, it dialogue to no other) to make your heart beat faster, to contract superficial business vessels, etc.. In biology, the words "molecular signal" are used actually often. Yet, if you ask even the most eminent biologists what the physical nature of this signal is, they seem not even to understand the question, and stare at you wide-eyed. In fact, theyve cooked up a rigorously Cartesian physics all their own, as far removed as possible from the realities of contemporary physics, according to which honest contact (Descartes laws of impact, quickly disproved by Huygens) between two coalescent structures creates energy, thus constituting an exchange of information. For many years, I believed and recited this catechism without realizing its absurdity, just as mankind did not acquit the absurdity of the belief that the sun circles the earth.The truth, based on facts, is very simple. It does not r equire any "collapse of the physical or chemical worlds." That molecules vibrate, we draw known for decades. Every atom of every molecule and every intermolecular bond-the bridge that links the atoms-emits a group of specific frequencies. Specific frequencies of simple or complex molecules are detected at distances of billions of light-years, thanks to radio-telescopes. Biophysicists discover these frequencies as an essential physical characteristic of matter, but biologists do not consider that electromagnetic waves can play a role in molecular functions themselves. We cannot find the words "frequency"