Cells use 'bioelectricity' to coordinate and make group decisions
46 points
7 hours ago
| 6 comments
| quantamagazine.org
| HN
marojejian
7 hours ago
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Even since reading about Michael Levin's work, I've been sold that there is a lot going on in terms of bioelectricity outside of neurons. But I haven't seen that much progress. This is one interesting, albeit simple example.

>In this way, bioelectrical flow across cell membranes lets tissues test which cells are the least healthy and mark them for extrusion. “They’re always pushing against each other and bullying each other. And what they’re doing is probing each other for which one’s the weakest link,” Rosenblatt said. “It’s a community effect.”

This fits with my model of how high levels of cooperation succeed in biology. Even in a community as homogeneous as cells you have the risk of defectors (cancer), or just poor members. As such you need a process to continually test your community members.

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Torkel
1 hour ago
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Here's a study from 2023 where they apply external electricity to improve healing rate of wounds:

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/LC/D2LC0...

It enabled healing of diabetic wounds that are otherwise hard to heal.

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jeffybefffy519
1 hour ago
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Could this lead into how there are people who thing non ionising radiation sources affect them?
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inshard
19 minutes ago
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Michael Levine really opened my mind to phase space in biology.
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FranklinJabar
1 hour ago
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Why not simply say electricity?
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skyberrys
1 hour ago
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The article notes that bioelectricity is just referring to electricity not occuring in the heart or brain which has a different specialized name. Simply saying electricity is captures more than the cell types reported on.
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FranklinJabar
49 minutes ago
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So this is sort of.. environmentally available electrical potential in the cell? Or is it more constrained than the venues from the heart and the cell to other specific venues?
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ggm
1 hour ago
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You're rght. Light? thats just EMF. Infra Red? Emf. Xrays? It's all EMF man.

At least thats ITU regulated frequency bands. I wonder if the ITU regulates biogenic DC signalling frequencies?

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bitwize
1 hour ago
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Yes, but how do they handle Byzantine fault tolerance?
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