In the 1920s, a Russian biologist studying onion roots made a surprising discovery: underground, down in the darkness, it seemed like the cells inside the onion roots were making their own … light. The “onion root experiment” went on to become something of a cult classic in science, and eventually the biologically-made light was dubbed “biophotons.” In the ensuing century, biophoton discoveries moved from onion roots to bacteria, frog embryos, and humans. Today, scientist Nirosha Murugan is on a career-defining journey to learn more about the light. As she and her colleagues study this mysterious phenomenon, they find themselves racing from question to question, wondering what gives off light, where it might be coming from, and what, if anything, it could tell us about life, disease, and even death. EPISODE CREDITS: Hosted by - Molly WebsterReported by - Molly WebsterProduced by - Sarah Qariwith help from - Molly WebsterFact-checking by - Natalie MiddletonEPISODE CITATIONS:Videos -The “Life Flash” video! Note that fluorescent dye was added to the experiment, by the researchers, to enhance the zinc sparks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9tmOyrIlYM) Articles -The Onion Root Experiment (https://www.brmi.online/gurwitsch)Enjoy this Wikipedia rabbit-hole about Fritz Albert Popp (https://zpr.io/nxJFcAMvZkBz)Original Paper on zinc sparks (https://zpr.io/GfbazBqU3e3y) at the time of fertilization, a moment referred to as the “life flash”Read more about the “death flash,” (https://zpr.io/TqG3mcCGYEgQ) and other end-of-life phenomenon, as reported by medical caregiversResearch from Nirosha’s lab on photon emissions (https://zpr.io/mtpbwSeY4iEp) and brain activityResearch from Nirosha’s lab on biophoton emission (https://zpr.io/3in9LSmzW6m5) and cancer diagnosisSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected] support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Full Episode
Wait, you're listening? Okay. Alright. Okay. Alright. You're listening to Radiolab. Radiolab. From WNYC. See? Yep.
Wait, wait, am I glowing right now?
You certainly are. Yeah. Yeah.
Hey, this is Radiolab. I'm Molly Webster. So I was a bio major and we had to take maybe one physics class and then we never thought about it again. And this is often how it goes in the sciences. You've got biology. The environment, animals, our bodies, the kind of organic, messy physical stuff, that's on one side.
And then you have physics, all the abstract stuff, waves, energy, invisible particles, that's all on the other side.
I know how to use these.
They very much feel like two different worlds. Can I ask you a couple questions before we get started? You can ask me so many questions. But for Narosha Murugan, they go hand in hand.
I'm Narosha Murugan, an applied biophysicist from Waterloo, Canada. And most biophysicists look at mostly bio. I'm on the other end, who likes to be 50-50.
What I learned from talking to Narosha and what you're going to hear in our conversation today, it is definitely a leap into the unknown. But it starts with a very simple idea about how living things—bacteria, cactuses, humans, whatever— how they do what they do. And it's an idea that made me think about the kind of mark we leave on the world.
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