Imagine this: our bodies might be emitting a faint, visible light all the time—an almost ghostly glow that disappears the moment we die. This startling idea comes from a fascinating study conducted by scientists at the University of Calgary and the National Research Council of Canada, revealing that life itself could quite literally shine. But here’s where it gets controversial: this subtle light, known as biophoton emission, has long been dismissed or linked to pseudoscience, yet this new research provides compelling physical evidence that it truly exists and vanishes upon death.
The study involved an intriguing experiment using mice and leaves from two different plant species, uncovering direct proof that this ultraweak photon emission (UPE) stops when life ends. This suggests that all living organisms, humans included, might emit a faint glow as a sign of vitality—until that glow fades away with death.
At first glance, these findings might sound fringe or even reminiscent of paranormal claims about auras or mysterious energy fields surrounding living beings. Indeed, investigations into biological electromagnetic emissions often get tangled up with debunked ideas like Kirlian photography, which purported to capture such auras but lacked scientific rigor. However, the researchers here approached the phenomenon with cutting-edge technology and rigorous methods.
One major challenge is that the visible light emitted by biological processes is incredibly weak—so faint that it’s easily drowned out by the overwhelming electromagnetic noise in our environment and the heat our bodies naturally produce. This makes detecting and measuring such emissions across an entire living body extremely difficult.
Despite these hurdles, physicist Vahid Salari and his team at the University of Calgary successfully detected this ultraweak photon emission from living mice, noting a clear contrast between the light emitted by their living cells and the near absence of it after death. They also observed similar emissions in leaves from the thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) and the dwarf umbrella tree (Heptapleurum arboricola), especially when the plants were stressed or injured.
So, what causes this faint glow? The science behind biophotons is still debated, but a leading explanation involves reactive oxygen species (ROS)—molecules produced by cells under stress from heat, toxins, infections, or nutrient shortages. When these reactive molecules interact with fats and proteins, they can trigger chemical reactions that excite electrons, which then release tiny bursts of light as they return to their normal state.
This process is somewhat similar to chemiluminescence, the natural light production seen in fireflies or certain marine creatures. However, biophoton emission is far subtler and harder to detect. Over the years, scientists have recorded spontaneous light emissions ranging from ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths in various living tissues, from cow heart cells to bacterial colonies.
The potential applications of this discovery are exciting. If we can non-invasively monitor these faint light emissions, it might offer a new way to assess the health and stress levels of tissues in humans, animals, crops, or microbial cultures. Imagine doctors or agricultural specialists using this technique to detect illness or stress before symptoms become visible.
To test whether this phenomenon could be observed in whole living organisms rather than just isolated tissues, the researchers used highly sensitive electron-multiplying charge-coupled device (EMCCD) and charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras. They placed four anesthetized mice inside a completely dark chamber and recorded their photon emissions for an hour while alive, then euthanized them and continued imaging for another hour. To ensure temperature didn’t affect the results, the mice were kept at normal body temperature even after death.
The results were striking: the cameras captured individual photons in the visible light spectrum emanating from the mice’s cells before death, with a significant drop in photon counts after euthanasia. This clear difference supports the idea that living cells emit this faint glow, which diminishes rapidly once life ceases.
Similarly, when the team stressed the plant leaves by inflicting physical damage or applying chemical agents, the injured areas glowed noticeably brighter than the undamaged parts throughout 16 hours of observation. This strongly supports the role of reactive oxygen species in generating biophoton emissions.
“Our results show that the injury parts in all leaves were significantly brighter than the uninjured parts of the leaves during all 16 hours of imaging,” the researchers noted in their published paper.
This research opens up fascinating possibilities: could the faint, ethereal glow of biophotons one day serve as a real-time indicator of health and stress in living organisms? Could it revolutionize how we monitor well-being, diagnose diseases, or even understand the subtle processes of life and death?
The study was published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters and marks a significant step forward in a field often overshadowed by skepticism. But it also raises provocative questions: if our bodies truly emit light, why haven’t we noticed it before? And what does this mean for our understanding of life itself?
What do you think? Is this biophoton glow a groundbreaking discovery that could change medicine and biology, or is it just a curious scientific footnote? Share your thoughts and join the conversation—because this is the kind of science that challenges what we think we know about life’s hidden mysteries.
