Mitogenetic radiation

Volodyaev and Beloussov (2015) trace the idea to Gurwitsch, who reported it in 1923. They call it the first case of non-chemical distant interactions.¹ The phenomenon was soon described as ultraweak ultraviolet light. A number of biological systems were said to emit it. It was said to stimulate mitosis in cells that were "competent" in this sense.² Two claims are therefore bundled together in the original idea: that living tissue emits light, and that the light acts on other cells.

According to Volodyaev and Beloussov, the next twenty years brought enormous interest from the scientific community and more than 700 publications around the world.³ Then the work stopped. Several studies in the late 1930s were taken as disproofs, and research was not resumed afterwards. The reviewers write that there were quite serious grounds for resuming it.⁴ They also cite a hypothesis built on theoretical considerations and on "mitogenetic spectra", given by Gurwitsch and Gurwitsch in 1934 and 1959.⁶ The held passage does not say what that hypothesis claimed.

Volodyaev and Beloussov (2015) treat the problem in two parts. The first is whether living organisms emit ultraweak radiation in the UV range, whatever its biological role. The second is whether this ultraweak photon emission (UPE) has real effects on cell division or other biological functions.⁵ On the first part they conclude that the UV fraction of UPE should be regarded as real.⁵ The passage held here breaks off before it states their verdict on the second part, the biological effects. The authors present the 90-year record as controversial, not settled.¹

Levin (2025) mentions biophoton signalling only in passing. He writes that biochemical, biomechanical and perhaps biophoton modalities very likely underlie similar dynamics in vivo. He then argues that bioelectricity is a uniquely tractable interface, because neuroscience has shown how electrophysiology can implement mind.⁷ The remark is a statement of likelihood, not a report of measurement. It places photon emission among possible channels of communication between cells, alongside the better-studied bioelectric networks.