![]() ![]() ![]() In the live recording of the adult brine shrimp, gently held in a cavity slide under a cover slip just heavy enough to prevent it darting about, you can see giant solitary waves or solitons, both stationary and mobile, passing down the gut. This technique involves a small modification of that used for examining rock crystals which happens to greatly improve colour contrasts for the range of small birefringences found in biological liquid crystals, and can give high resolution images. Imagine all the biological water dancing together with the molecules in the entire body, creating a quantum jazz of life that’s improvised from moment to moment. One more thing about the rainbow worm the colours are not just a function of the coherent motions of all the molecules in the tissues, they are the result of the accompanying coherent motions of the 70% by weight of biological water that enables the molecules to be mobile and flexible, which is why the worm, and we too, are flexible and mobile. The most active parts of the organism have the brightest colours the brighter the colours, the more coherent the molecular motions (see later). The fruit fly larva has neatly demonstrated the colour changes for us by making a circle with its flexi-liquid crystalline body. But when that axis is rotated 90 o, blue changes to red, green to orange and vice versa, as characteristic of interference colours. The antero-posterior axis is the optic axis, so when that axis is laid out straight at the correct angle (45 o) to the optics, each tissue takes on a more or less uniform colour: blue, orange, red, or green. Not only are the molecular dipoles in the tissues aligned, they are aligned in all the tissues, and aligned globally from head to tail. Visible light vibrates at 10 14 cycles per second, much faster than the coherent molecular motions in the organism, which is why the molecules look statically aligned and ordered to the light passing through. It is because all the molecular dipoles in the tissues are not only aligned, but also moving coherently together. But how can a living, breathing, squirming worm appear crystalline? The colours depend on the coherent alignment of molecular dipoles in liquid crystal mesophases. ![]() They give brilliant dynamic liquid crystal displays in colours of the rainbow (see Fig. More than ten years ago, we discovered what living organisms look like under the polarized light microscope that geologists use for examining rock crystals (Ho and Lawrence, 1993 Ho and Saunders, 1994). Liquid crystalline continuum, coherence, birefringence, nonlinear optics, delayed luminescence, bound water, free water, collagen, proton-conduction, intercommunication, body consciousness 1. Evidence is presented that biological (interfacial) water, aligned and moving coherently with the macromolecular matrix, is integral to the liquid crystallinity of the organism and that the liquid crystalline continuum facilitates rapid intercommunication throughout the body, enabling it to function as a perfectly coherent whole. The organism is a dynamic liquid crystalline continuum with coherent motions on every scale. 2006 The Liquid Crystalline Organism and Biological Water.įrom: Water in Cell Biology (G. Ho, M-W., Yu-Ming, Z., Haffegee, J., Watton, A., Musumeci, F., Privitera, G., Scordino, A., Triglia, A. Despite my interest being limited to collagen, the concept is new to me, and I present the entire article. I now present the most remarkable work by Ho (2006) in its entirety which not only introduced me to liquid crystals and their relevance in biology but alerted me to another world of perspectives in meat processing. The nature of this shell “layer” has been the focus of numerous studies both theoretically and experimentally, yet there is no generalized picture of the dynamics at the local molecular level.” (Pal, 2002) The water molecules that make up the hydration shell in the immediate vicinity of the surface are particularly relevant to the function and, in that sense, are termed biological water this distinction has been discussed clearly by Nandi and Bagchi in relation to dielectric relaxations. For example, water molecules around hydrophobic and hydrophilic sites are important to the understanding of the activity of enzyme proteins and are part of the recognition process by other molecules or proteins. Hydration plays a major role in the assembly of a protein’s structure and dynamics. “Water is essential for the stability and function of biological macromolecules, proteins and DNA. Let’s first look at what is meant by the term Biological Water. I give the article that introduced me to the amazing world of liquid crystals and their relevance in biological systems and meat processing. ![]()
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