6 ms·

There's plenty of ways that non-ionizing radiation can result in increased cancer rates. For example, they can induce currents in the DNA (DNA is s molecular w

There's plenty of ways that non-ionizing radiation can result in increased cancer rates. For example, they can induce currents in the DNA (DNA is s molecular wire) which might jam the base excision repair system and prevent it from detecting DNA damage (which is a redox-driven process). What's even scarier is that this sort of an effect will not be found in a standard Ames test and also is unlikely to be found in highly controlled lab settings, since it requires a second factor - a contaminating primary mutagen - to manifest its effect.

scotty79 7y ago
Maybe, possibly, but does this potential mechanism have any impact on our huge, complex, self-righting bodies, that every hour successfully defend from onslaught of scores of adversarial microorganisms and their chemical warfare targeted at us and each other and environmental factors like background ionizing radiation and completely natural toxins that we breath in and choose to ingest and our bodies own complexity that leads to many. many errors in functioning that are roughly corrected and worked around on the fly to keep us alive not for hours, which would be a feat in itself, but for decades.
- posterboy 7y ago
  Aren't some forms of cancer also overreactions by the imune system? Some kind of Leukemia comes from phagocytes, I just read in another thread this morning
stinos 7y ago
they can induce currents in the DNA By what mechanism (and it's likely not limited to DNA then)?
- blix 7y ago
  EMF radiation can induce a current in any condutor. Try putting a piece of tin foil in a microwave. It's far from limited to DNA, but it's not hard to imagine why people care more about DNA than other conductive molecules.
- dnautics 7y ago
  Any photon is basically "something which induces motion in a charged particle". That's what it means to be electromagnetic radiation. The intensity to which that occurs has to do with the electrical potential landscape around that charged particle and the wavelength of that photon. If these two values are close to each other (coupled) then the motion of the charged particle is more likely. Microwave radiation (especially in the GHz range) illuminating DNA has been long known as a phenomenon, of course it does depend on which frequency band in the GHz range you're in, too.
dnautics 7y ago
alright, I'm getting downvoted, so I'll put some important references here: Generally, the research of Jackie Barton showing that DNA is a conductor and speculating about the role fo 4Fe4S cluster in the BER mechanism was emergent in the late 2000s back when I was a biochemist and not a programmer, but they're now (last 2 years) publishing papers that are fleshing out that hypothesis: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jkbgrp/Research.htm http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jkbgrp/Research.htm Specific papers: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-biochem-013118-110644?journalCode=biochem https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-bioche... https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acscentsci.8b00566 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acscentsci.8b00566 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acschembio.8b00347 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acschembio.8b00347 etc.
- shpongled 7y ago
  This is quite interesting (I'm a biochemist and programmer as well), but I don't see any evidence that non-ionizing radiation could affect DNA repair pathways - that seems like a killer experiment that could (and should) be run to support or disprove this hypothesis. Induce some double strand breaks or DNA nicks, and look at how non-ionizing radiation affects repair rates
  - dnautics 7y ago
    I agree that it's a killer experiment and someone should do it. But BER doesn't sense double strand breaks. It senses changes in the curvature of the dna induced by point mutations that are solvable by extracting the base and replacing it templates by the other strand. So you'll want to induce damage with something that causes thymidine dimerization or DNA alkylation.
Symmetry 7y ago
Wait, so a -30 dBm signal (pretty strong) will induce something like 7mV across a 5 cm antenna. Your cell nuclear is up to 10 microns wide. That's 1.4 microvolts. I'm having a really hard time believing that a 1.4 uV potential across any molecule at STP can have a measurable effect without a lot of energy going into amplifying the signal.
- dnautics 7y ago
  Energy doesn't scale with distance in that way, with quantum mechanics. A "mismatch in size" (roughly speaking) will result in a different quantum efficiency, not a lowered energy, and also keep in mind that DNA is a highly coiled molecule so the resonance frequency could be deceptive. The straightened length of DNA in a cell is on the length order of meters. (Though that doesn't mean that it will resonate with meter long waves, it will have a higher efficiency with wavelengths much longer than a micron)

scotty79 7y ago

Maybe, possibly, but does this potential mechanism have any impact on our huge, complex, self-righting bodies, that every hour successfully defend from onslaught of scores of adversarial microorganisms and their chemical warfare targeted at us and each other and environmental factors like background ionizing radiation and completely natural toxins that we breath in and choose to ingest and our bodies own complexity that leads to many. many errors in functioning that are roughly corrected and worked around on the fly to keep us alive not for hours, which would be a feat in itself, but for decades.

posterboy 7y ago
Aren't some forms of cancer also overreactions by the imune system? Some kind of Leukemia comes from phagocytes, I just read in another thread this morning

stinos 7y ago

they can induce currents in the DNA By what mechanism (and it's likely not limited to DNA then)?

blix 7y ago
EMF radiation can induce a current in any condutor. Try putting a piece of tin foil in a microwave. It's far from limited to DNA, but it's not hard to imagine why people care more about DNA than other conductive molecules.
dnautics 7y ago
Any photon is basically "something which induces motion in a charged particle". That's what it means to be electromagnetic radiation. The intensity to which that occurs has to do with the electrical potential landscape around that charged particle and the wavelength of that photon. If these two values are close to each other (coupled) then the motion of the charged particle is more likely. Microwave radiation (especially in the GHz range) illuminating DNA has been long known as a phenomenon, of course it does depend on which frequency band in the GHz range you're in, too.

dnautics 7y ago

alright, I'm getting downvoted, so I'll put some important references here: Generally, the research of Jackie Barton showing that DNA is a conductor and speculating about the role fo 4Fe4S cluster in the BER mechanism was emergent in the late 2000s back when I was a biochemist and not a programmer, but they're now (last 2 years) publishing papers that are fleshing out that hypothesis: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jkbgrp/Research.htm http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jkbgrp/Research.htm Specific papers: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-biochem-013118-110644?journalCode=biochem https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-bioche... https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acscentsci.8b00566 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acscentsci.8b00566 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acschembio.8b00347 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acschembio.8b00347 etc.

shpongled 7y ago
This is quite interesting (I'm a biochemist and programmer as well), but I don't see any evidence that non-ionizing radiation could affect DNA repair pathways - that seems like a killer experiment that could (and should) be run to support or disprove this hypothesis. Induce some double strand breaks or DNA nicks, and look at how non-ionizing radiation affects repair rates
- dnautics 7y ago
  I agree that it's a killer experiment and someone should do it. But BER doesn't sense double strand breaks. It senses changes in the curvature of the dna induced by point mutations that are solvable by extracting the base and replacing it templates by the other strand. So you'll want to induce damage with something that causes thymidine dimerization or DNA alkylation.

Symmetry 7y ago

Wait, so a -30 dBm signal (pretty strong) will induce something like 7mV across a 5 cm antenna. Your cell nuclear is up to 10 microns wide. That's 1.4 microvolts. I'm having a really hard time believing that a 1.4 uV potential across any molecule at STP can have a measurable effect without a lot of energy going into amplifying the signal.

dnautics 7y ago
Energy doesn't scale with distance in that way, with quantum mechanics. A "mismatch in size" (roughly speaking) will result in a different quantum efficiency, not a lowered energy, and also keep in mind that DNA is a highly coiled molecule so the resonance frequency could be deceptive. The straightened length of DNA in a cell is on the length order of meters. (Though that doesn't mean that it will resonate with meter long waves, it will have a higher efficiency with wavelengths much longer than a micron)