An electromagnetic theory of life--II: Testing.

Serious problems and contradictions face the long-standing chemical reaction theory of life. Arguments favoring an alternative view featuring electromagnetic micromechanisms were presented in the December 1989 issue of this Journal (27, 31). However, the theory had an extremely general form which was forbidding to laboratory demonstration. It became clear that its essentially conceptual form needed to be transformed to a testable theory which ultimately could lead to laboratory verification. Now, with the recognition of the role of chaos theory in finding order within chaos in the kinetics of cell metabolism, the electromagnetic theory of life has become better grounded and more amenable to laboratory testing and evaluation. I thus focus on certain theoretical advances as well as the application of new technologies to test the hypothesis of 5 specific target areas. With the verification of electromagnetic processes in life, we anticipate that the biomedical sciences will be propelled to a wealth of solutions to many vexing problems.