Can a Molecule Be “Intelligent”? Unexpected Connections between Physics and Biology

Abstract

It is important to look at the behaviour of a living system from the point of view of the biophysical paradigm. In fact, the chemical reactions, which allow us to understand how metabolic processes take place, are short-range and they are activated at a distance of one atomic or molecular diameter. 100,000 reactions/sec. take place in a cell, perfectly balanced in space and time, i.e. these happen at the right time and in the right place. So, it is chemically inex-plicable how this can be possible, because it is absolutely necessary that molecules recognize each other at distances greater than a molecular diameter. The biophysical paradigm, through coherent resonance mechanisms, tries to explain how molecules can recognize each other “from afar”. It is a matter of beginning to understand that, probably, the same atoms and molecules are endowed with a kind of “intrinsic intelligence” that guides them in their interactions, and the key to understanding can only be of physical type. We can also hypothesize that a cellular information mechanism based on endogenous electromagnetic fields exists. In this way, DNA could play a role of in-out antenna, due to its double helix shape (resonant LC circuit). This paper speaks about these unexpected, but not too many, connections between Physics and Biology.