Cymatics Could Help Surgeons Identify Cancer Cells for Tumor Removal
The study of cymatics has fascinated researchers for years. Now, one scientist has found a practical way to use the phenomenon to enhance targeted cancer treatments.
The study of cymatics, or the spontaneous, geometric patterns produced by sound when it encounters water or particulate matter on a surface, was coined by Swiss researcher Hans Jenny in 1967. Jenny documented the patterns that appeared when putting sand or fluid on a metal plate that was connected to a sonic frequency oscillator.
Today, acoustic-physics scientist John Stuart Reid has partnered with Dr. Sungchul Ji at Rutgers University, to apply cymatic imaging to identify cancer cells compared to healthy cells. The two hope to develop this technology to allow surgeons the ability to more precisely target cancerous cells when removing tumors.
“So, what we do with the Cymascope instrument is to literally imprint sound onto the surface and indeed the sub-surface of pure, medical-grade water and thereby make it visible with specific lighting techniques. It’s actually quite difficult for a surgeon to remove a tumor in its entirety,” Reid said.
While this type of technology would aid any procedure requiring the surgical removal of a tumor, it would be particularly groundbreaking for brain surgery and other highly sensitive areas in which healthy cells must be carefully navigated.
So, what do cancer cells look like compared to healthy cells?
“What we found was that the sounds of cancer cells are generally fairly skewed and, well, I would call them subjectively ugly,” Reid said. “Whereas the sounds from healthy cells, generally the sounds are harmonic and therefore the patterns that are created, these cymatic patterns, are very symmetrical by comparison. As the cell has a kind of respiration, it’s literally making sound all of the time, so all of our cells are singing all of the time. Actually, it’s really interesting to know that they’re singing in the audible spectrum.”
“So, in other words, if we could hear those sounds, well it would actually drive us nuts, wouldn’t it? So, it’s probably just as well that we can’t hear them, however, they are literally in the audible spectrum. It’s just a question of having specific tools that allow us to listen in to those sounds and then amplify those sounds so that we can then hear them.”
As Reid and his colleagues continue to develop the Cymascope for targeted cancer surgery, they are also looking into a number of other applications for the technology across multiple scientific disciplines.
“We are at the very beginning, you could say, of this new revolution in science in terms of making sound visible,” Reid said. “It’s extremely important because sound actually underpins virtually every science. If you think of biology even, all the biochemical reactions that are occurring in our body all of the time, they’re all based on sound if you think of it from the atomic viewpoint. So, being able to make sound visible is a really wonderful way of gaining new insights into almost every science.”
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Scientists Have Reversed the Arrow of Time in Quantum Experiment
Scientists have reversed the arrow of time using a quantum computer, by reassembling electrons into an original state. And though they’re hesitant to describe their findings as having any implications for time travel, researchers said they believe their simulation has defied the second law of thermodynamics.
The second law of thermodynamics essentially defines time for us, in the sense that as the arrow of time moves forward, the entropy of an isolated system only increases and can never decrease – it’s why we get older and have finite life spans, or why your coffee eventually gets cold.
But physicists at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology say they believe they’ve been able to violate this principle, in theory.
“We have artificially created a state that evolves in a direction opposite to that of the thermodynamic arrow of time,” head of the study, Dr. Gordey Lesovik, said.
By simulating the wave function of a particle spreading out over time, the scientists created an algorithm to reverse that wave, much like reversing the ripples in a pond after dropping a pebble into it.
But as more particles were added to the system, the physicists said the likelihood of restoring order from chaos occurred less frequently, meaning any system that utilizes their method would require a high level of control, like a quantum computer. When two qubits (quantum particles) were used, scientists were able to reverse entropy 85 percent of the time, but with a third qubit only 50 percent of the time.
Researchers involved in the study compared their test to the possibility of striking a rack of pool balls and having it return to its precisely arranged triangular formation, something seemingly impossible in our everyday reality, but now entirely possible in quantum physics.
So, does this mean we might be able to someday go back in time by traveling through the quantum realm?
Unfortunately, that answer seem to be no. When it comes to future practicality the team says this finding would likely be applied to quantum computers to eliminate noise and error. So, not quite time travel, but faster computers – guess it could be worse.
But if they were able to simulate this with quantum physics, doesn’t that mean time reversal is somehow possible, whether it agrees with traditional physics or not? Yes, in fact much of quantum physics is wildly contradictory to physics, and though we’re able to observe these paradoxical behaviors in the universe, not even the most brilliant physicists are able to fully comprehend this disparity or find a unifying theory.
For this we recommend turning to Gaia’s own quantum expert Theresa Bullard and her series Mystery Teachings — check out Theresa’s explanation of this bizarre realm in Accessing the Quantum Gap:
