X-Message-Number: 15888
From: 
Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2001 01:48:09 EST

Subject: The Book: "The Touchstone of Life, Molecular Information, Cell 
Communication..."

Cryonet:

I just finished this 366-page softcover (been at it off and on since 
Christmas) by biophysicist Werner R. Loewenstein, 1999, Oxford University 
Press (+/- $20, CI site link to Amazon.com).  A little heavy duty for those 
not much into Biology I suppose, but several Cryonet participants might 
appreciate it.  Chapter 13, "Neuronal Communication, Neuronal Computation, 
and Conscious Thought," might be a worthy "summary interface" between 
Artificial Intelligence and Biological Intelligence for some. 

The subsection titled "Quantum Coherence" (same chapter) might offer some 
off-label potential significance to cryopreservation researchers--you never 
know.  From Loewenstein's text:

QUOTE 
"Quantum-coherent oscillations are difficult to demonstrate on living 
systems--heat effects, due to resonance in thermal frequency modes, all too 
readily intrude, jumbling the experimental picture.  I can speak with feeling 
here--I tried my hand at this in the 1960s, without success.  Meanwhile, 
however, some positive findings have been reported in probings of various 
types of cell with low-intensity millimeter waves.  Grundler and Keilmann, 
for example, found a resonance response in cellular growth of yeast--a sharp 
nonthermal resonance at 5 x 10 [to the 10th power] Hz (1 Hz = 1 oscillation 
per second).  The result is within expectation of the Frohlich 
hypothesis--the coupled-dipole idea implied that, at a critical threshold of 
energy input, the system would oscillate coherently in a single vibrational 
mode in the range of 10 [to the 9th power] to 10 [to the 11th power] Hz (all 
other modes being in thermal equilibrium)." UNQUOTE

From the book cover:

QUOTE
"Among the tens of thousands of articles that I've read during my career as a 
research scientist, the one that most astonished me was published over 30 
years ago by Werner Loewenstein and his colleagues...In this new book, 
Loewenstein, the man who thereby opened the field of cell-to-cell 
communication, now summarizes the whole field and its implications."  --Jared 
Diamond, Pulitzer Prize winner

"Werner R. Loewenstein won world renown for his discoveries in cell 
communication and biological information transfer.  He was Professor of 
Physiology and Director of the Cell Physics Laboratory at Columbia University 
and is presently Director of the Laboratory of Cell Communication at the 
Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts." UNQUOTE

Regards,

David C. Johnson

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