A community college sophmore physics student working at home in his basement lab this week discovered a new, elementary particle which is already being mislabeled as the “spirit” particle, after the “god” particle or Higgs boson. He called it a low-energy particle of complex behavior not requiring CERN’s hadron collider to find or study. He described it as a bi-oton or a unit of two parts, each unit capable of joining similar units to function in catalytic ways like a web or network providing nuance to the organic functions it assists, rather than necessity.
The young man, who prefers to remain anonymous for now, explained to our science reporter that unlike things as complex as atoms of heavy, radioactive elements, biotons are super-stable, like electrons themselves, lasting perhaps as long as the universe. Speaking of nuance rather than necessity, he pointed out that the nucleus of a zygote has no absolute need for a bioton in order to develop into a viable organism. The difference is a relative status between viable organicity and optimal organicity. Zygotes that receive no biotons into their genomes often fail to implant. If they implant, they often abort spontaneously. If (as non-mammals) they hatch or (as mammals) get born, they turn out to be very ordinary or low-grade specimens of their kind. Optimal growth and maturation depend on the insinuation of at least one bioton into the nucleus before it starts dividing.
Biotons are not parts of a genome. Their discoverer claims they are like “riders” in the web of chromosomes, invisible except in the effects of their operation. They are present in great numbers of organisms, including the simplest bacteria. Zygotes need not obtain biotons from either parent but can get them from bacterial inclusions in cytoplasm. He adamantly insists that the bioton is not Bergson’s “elan vital” which was generally misunderstood to be an “immaterial spirit” rather than the dynamic activity of the organism’s life process itself. He likened that misconceived “elan” to a candleflame separated from its oxidizing, wax-saturated wick, i.e., a purely groundless nonsense. As a biologist, Bergson himself, he says, never entertained such a travesty of thought.
The young discover says the actual working of a bioton upon genetic material is too subtle for him to discern, analytically, save in its effects on visible development. He worked with small numbers of baby Leghorn chicks and white, laboratory mice. The university gave him some off-hours access to an electron microscope which he said had been useful, but he felt unready to enlarge on his methods or additional equipment. In due time, he says he will publish a paper spelling out how he came to conceive his study and to conclude his hypothesis was verifiable and that he had determined the fact of it. He recapped for the reporter that the particle-like bioton was not a part required by the genome in order to function, but a gratuitous “extra” that, by its complexity, had an effect of network-like multi-tasking in genetic facilitation or catalytic activity. It did not work like a part in a machine, as for instance, a piston or crankshaft in a car’s combustion engine. It was more like one, smart, good natured person, or pair of such persons, added to a big committee of dullards who, without them, eventually get some sort of job done in spite of themselves.
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