Thread by @SarahDRasmussen

@SmutClyde @michaelroston @ThePlanetaryGuy Unfortunately, neither my World Scientific institutional access through U Cambridge nor that through IAS Princeton includes IJGMMP—I guess limited demand.

But there’s a retracted Mac J Med Sci pub by the same authors (et al) w/ “topoisomerase-like waves.”
researchgate.net/profile/Uwe_Wo…

@SmutClyde @michaelroston @ThePlanetaryGuy The retracted article’s argument seems to go:

1) topoisomerase unwinds DNA,
2) um, waves can be kind of wound up looking (?),
3) ergo, waves could unwind DNA like topoisomerase.

Thing is, that doesn’t make sense topologically.
(And I’m a topologist for my day job.)

@SmutClyde @michaelroston @ThePlanetaryGuy Topoisomerase doesn’t unwind DNA like a ball of yarn; it untangles by *crossing*changes*—temporarily snipping DNA for it to pass through itself, thereby changing the embedded topology of the DNA as a tangle/knot.

Simply “pushing DNA around” with a wave would NOT change topology.

@SmutClyde @michaelroston @ThePlanetaryGuy So whatever they’re saying about topoisomerase-like waves just doesn’t make sense.

Their claim of “copying genetic information” is also wrong for topoisomerase, which doesn’t record, or copy, or impact basepair sequences. That requires things like polymerase and transcriptase.

@SmutClyde @michaelroston @ThePlanetaryGuy Maybe their “electromagnetic waves (EMS)” are meant to record the actions of polymerase and transcriptase?

Their retracted article’s speaks of “hexagonal + pentagonal molecules” acting like a “capacitor,” and DNA coils acting like a “solenoid,” to form a “radio-like” device.

@SmutClyde @michaelroston @ThePlanetaryGuy But for a solenoid you need a coherent current. Transcription is kind of coherent, but it unzips the coil.

Any amount of breaking and forming bonds will involve electron motion and energy exchange, but their chosen analogy with electric circuits seems kind of broken.

@SmutClyde @michaelroston @ThePlanetaryGuy For BIons, I’ve now found a few screen-shots of the article from something by @MicrobiomDigest

Apparently they’re like wormholes connecting molecules?
“[T]opoisomerase-like waves change flat space-time to curved ones and mix water states with DNA ones.”
scienceintegritydigest.com/2019/06/01/sur…

@SmutClyde @michaelroston @ThePlanetaryGuy @MicrobiomDigest Just.. no. Any EM radiation from the transcription process would be very weak. No measurable quantum gravitational effects should be observable at that energy scale and size scale.

And they speak of curvature change, but they’d actually need topology change—much more dramatic.

@SmutClyde @michaelroston @ThePlanetaryGuy @MicrobiomDigest If low-energy molecules could pass through themselves simply due to extra-dimensional effects or quantum gravity effects, then molecule topology wouldn’t be a thing.

And molecule topology IS a thing. Otherwise, I, a topologist, wouldn’t have already heard of topoisomerase.

ENDS