This appendix represents a more detailed discussion of nanometer wavelengths detected as emissions from the human body as described in Chapter 7.
To recap, what are the physiological functions that correlate to the two wavelengths of light found in that 2007 Van Wijk study – namely the 520 nm and 480 nm photon emissions? We found two: Light at 480 nm may help regulate the circadian rhythm; light at 520 nm may help regulate the largest organ of our bodies, our skin. To learn more, readers were directed to consult this appendix. For citation, see first reference below.
In a 2003 study, Harvard sleep researcher Steven Lockley1 and colleagues found that exposing the photoreceptive ganglion cells of the retina to 460 nm blue light for 6.5 hours caused a two-fold delay in the human circadian rhythm clock. It did this by doubling the pineal gland’s suppression of melatonin, at least as compared to 555 nm monochromatic light, a dominant wavelength seen in daylight conditions.2 Another study published in 2005, also looking at the effects of 460 nm light demonstrated that exposure to the former for two hours would significantly increase core body temperature, heart rate and the alerting response in humans.3
[Could this help explain our deep-seated fear of the dark, as well as our switch from what some have called daytime thinking to night-time thinking? They’re certainly interesting possibilities.]
Although the two aforementioned studies didn’t specifically look at the question of 480 nm blue light – i.e. the form discharged from the hands in the 2007 study – what’s important to bear in mind here is that tissue can attenuate (i.e. slow) the frequency of light in the same way a breakwater can calm rough water. Might that be what we’re seeing here? Possibly… 480 nm light is definitely a lower frequency than 460 nm light, and to attenuate light by a mere 20 nanometers is very slight indeed. Moreover, it would certainly make sense that when your brain needs to sleep – and it does, or within a matter of days you can become paranoid and even begin to hallucinate – it would be in the brain’s interest to shed photons that might interfere with its operations.
Now for 520 nanometer green light. In a study from 1997, researchers were interested in generating images for some cellular and sub-cellular structures found in living human skin.4 To do so, they employed a specialized form of microscope capable of emitting photons in super-short pulses at a variety of specific wavelengths (a field known as multi-photon excitation microscopy). The researchers used deep red 730 nm light and invisible to the human eye near-infrared light at 960 nm on skin to a depth of 200 microns. Doing so allowed them to see cell borders and even cell nuclei. This becomes possible when these structures begin to autofluoresce, a phenomenon that occurs when the electrons of some materials have absorbed enough energy to begin resonating with the photons they are receiving. [Autofluorescence is akin to what occurs when a violin string begins to vibrate or resonate and then re-emit sound due to the presence of a sound frequency that matches some harmonic of its string length. It is also akin to what happens when an electric current is sent through a resistor, like the filament in a light bulb or the element on an electric stove that begins to glow.] Two structures found in the skin began to autofluoresce: at 730 nm it was Pyridine nucleotides, and at 960 nm it was a flavoprotein, though it re-emitted at 520 nm green.
What’s important to bear in mind here is the color an object emits is the wavelength or frequency of energy with which it cannot structurally “synchronize” and therefore reflects or “rejects” it. It is not the frequency it can accept or absorb. So what are the implications when it comes to pyridine nucleotides? Given the wide variety of cellular functions they perform, including energy production, metabolism, reduction-oxidation (redox) reactions, cell survival and death, transcriptional regulation, and protein modification, it implies these processes not only resonate at 730 nm, but could potentially be disrupted by this wavelength of light. As it turns out, these macromolecules are now the subject of intense investigation in heart disease research.5
Similarly, when a shift in color takes place, as occurred when the flavoprotein was hit by 960 nm infrared light and then emitted a 520 nm green light can denote something else – a modification to the object’s shape through a mechanism called conformational change. This occurs when the shape (i.e. geometry) of a biological macromolecule alters. Thus when the flavoprotein in question was exposed to a longer infrared wavelength, it likely resonated with some smaller part of the molecule, but which then resulted in the emission of a shorter wavelength and higher light frequency. This property is known as wavelength shifting and is believed to result from an interaction of light with longer polypeptide chains, a topic we discuss at greater length in the Supplement at the end of this book. As you might imagine, such change in a molecule’s properties can have a huge impact on the behavior of surrounding materials and the processes these touch. And since flavoproteins are involved in the removal of free radicals, DNA repair and cell death, the emission of 520 nm green light suggests that these functions too are somehow synchronized to operate within this frequency range.6 However, over-exposure to this frequency could also disrupt these functions by over-loading the system with too much energy.
It’s also worth noting that pyridine nucleotides and flavoproteins are not the only biomolecular structures to display such autofluorescence characteristics. There are at least seventeen others,7 implying that photons and the resonances they cause are related to how both biological functions and structures manage information.
We also mentioned earlier that Van Wijk, Van Wijk and Cifra also found something else in their 2007 study relating to photon emission from the hands. Emission rates increased during both evening and night, but dropped during the day, suggesting some form of synchronization with the circadian rhythm. So why might this be? It’s hard to ignore that fact that the rise in this photon shedding phenomenon occurs at a time when our other senses (e.g. seeing, hearing, tasting and touching) are in a much lower activity state. Might we also be looking at an alternative sensing system, one possibly used at night to detect danger, an early precursor of the echo-location mechanism found in both bats and dolphins that allows them to sonically zero-in on prey in the dark? While it’s probably too early to say, it’s an interesting possibility to ponder, particularly in light of glial analog function.8
0 – Van Wijk, R., Godaert, G. and Van Wijk, E.P.A. (2006). “Human Ultra Weak Light Emission in Consciousness Research”, in New Research on Consciousness, Locks, J.T. (Editor), Nova Science Publishers, ISBN 1-600021-246-8. pp 231-267.
1 – https://sleep.med.harvard.edu/people/faculty/163/Steven+W+Lockley+PhD
2 – Lockley, S.W. et al (2003.09). “High sensitivity of the human circadian melatonin rhythm to resetting by short wavelength light”, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, The Endocrine Society, Chevy Chase, Maryland.
3 – Cajochen, C. et al (2005.03). “High sensitivity of human melatonin, alertness, thermoregulation, and heart rate to short wavelength light”, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, The Endocrine Society, Chevy Chase, Maryland. In contrast, another study by Helen R. Wright and colleagues from March 2004 and published in the Journal of Pineal Research found that 470, 495 and 595 nanometer light showed the greatest melatonin onset advances (40 to 65 minutes) while 660 nm red and 595 nm amber had no significant effect. (Vol. 36, Issue 2, page 140.)
4 – Masters, Barry R. et al (1997.06). “Multiphoton Excitation Fluorescence Microscopy and Spectroscopy of In Vivo Human Skin”, Biophysical Journal, Volume 72, pp 2405-2412.
5 – Nakamura, M., Bhatnagar, A., Sadoshima, J. (2012.11.09), “Overview of Pyridine Nucleotides”, Circulation. See: http://circres.ahajournals.org/content/111/5/604.abstract]
6 – Flavoprotein definition courtesy of Wikipedia; for more, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavoprotein
7 – For a listing see Autofluorescence in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofluorescence
8 – For more about echo-location see: Quirk and Quarks (2010.01.30), “Homing in on Echolocation”, CBC Radio One. www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Quirks+and+Quarks/Full+Episodes/ID/1579139674/?page=18&sort=MostPopular
9 – article in press as: Cifra, M., et al., “Electromagnetic cellular interactions”, Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology (2010),
doi:10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2010.07.003