understanding digital biology :: essays research papers

UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL BIOLOGYExplaining digital biology is im realistic without excuseing its principle. The purpose of this text is non to report experimental results. Rather, it tries to explain to laymen, in the unbiasedst terms, this radically new approach to biology. We hope it will be useful to all, scientists or not, 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), not to mention the immunological mite of a virus or bacterium can be record and digitized use a computer sound card, just like an unremarkable 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were we not to explain the nature of sound waves or their translation into electromagnetism.Life depends on ratifys superseded among molecules. For example, when you get angry, adrenalin "tells" its receptor, and it alone (as a faithful molecule, it talks to no other) to make your heart beat faster, to contract superficial wrinkle vessels, etc.. In biology, the words "molecular signal" are used in truth 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 simple(a) 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 introduce the absurdity of the belief that the sun circles the earth.The truth, based on facts, is very simple. It does not requ ire any "collapse of the physical or chemical worlds." That molecules vibrate, we attain 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 eviscerate 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"