Cell Language Theory, The: Connecting Mind And Matter

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“6x9” b2861 The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter

Figure 4.14 Music visualized using a CymaScope. (a) Female vocal sounds. (b) 12 piano

notes. (c) Water wave images (or aquawaves) of the sounds generated by alive yeast cell,

the period of oscillations of the sound being about 2 s. Each image is taken about 1–2 s

apart. Screen shots made from the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3cTxdGj2zI.

(d) Human brainwave frequencies visualized. a rhythm = 8–13 Hz (relaxed waking state);

b rhythm = 18–22 Hz (rational waking state); θ rhythm = 4–7 Hz (meditative state); d

rhythm = 1–3 Hz (deep sleep state). All these images were retrieved from https://www.

cymascope.com/shop/cymaart-prints/ or http://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/

musicology.html on 10/11/2016.

4.14 Sonocytology or “Cytocymatics”

James Gimzewski of UCLA coined the term “sonocytology” [523] when he

discovered that a single yeast cell could generate sound (i.e., periodic

motions or waves) as detected by the atomic force microscopy (AFM). The

sound records thus obtained were visualized by J. S. Reid using his

CymaScope, as shown in row C in Figure 4.14. Cell sounds are the second-

ary, transformed signals of the primary signal which is cell vibrations that

are measured by AFM. So one alternative name of the field that studies cell

vibrations may be “cytocymatics” (cyto- = cell; -cymatics = the study of

waves). Thus defined we can include in cytocymatics not only the study of

cell sounds (as sonocytology implies), but also the study of chemical con-

centration waves, such as intracellular Ca2+ waves (see [25, Figure 3.2]),

RNA concentration waves (see [25, Figure 15.1]), etc. Cell vibrations are

most likely the result of periodic influxes and outflows of water molecules

through the cell membrane (either aquaporin-mediated or aquaporin-

independent depending on cell types) leading to cell volume changes. The

sounds of a beating yeast cell are very similar to the sounds of the beating

human heart, as evident in the video available at https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=P3cTxdGj2zI. It may be that, just as the human heart undergoes

the contraction–relaxation cycle exhibiting regular heart beats with 1–3 Hz,

so individual heart cells may also undergo the contraction–relaxation cycle

mediated by the cytoskeleton producing cell sounds with about 0.5 Hz,

pumping water in and out of heart cells. Consistent with this postulate, vari-

ous isoforms of aquaporins have been found in the heart tissues [526, 527].

The only additional postulate that is needed to account for the approximate

equality of the periodicities between the motions of the myocytes and the

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