37. Clarice Aiello on Quantum Biology, Electromagnetism, and the Future of Healing
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Mizter Rad [00:00:01]:
Hello, beautiful humans. Picture this. It's year 2073. You're cruising home on your bike when you suddenly crash. Now you have two painful gashes on your leg. But don't worry. Instead of heading to the hospital for stitches and pain meds, you simply pull out your phone, open a revolutionary app, and then you hold your device over the wounds for just 30 seconds, watching in amazement as invisible electromagnetic fields seamlessly close those cuts on your leg. Now, of course, this sounds like pure science fiction, right? Well, strap in, beautiful humans, because we're about to explore a future where medicine evolves from chemical solutions to groundbreaking electromagnetic therapies.
Mizter Rad [00:00:55]:
And to imagine that future. There's no better person than Clarice Aiello, one of the top voices of quantum biology in the world. And she has all the credentials to be so. She's a quantum engineer with a PhD in electrical engineering from MIT and a postdoc fellow in bioengineering at Stanford. She's also a professor at UCLA. But overall, she has a unique a contagious good energy, and so much passion for these topics that I really need to have her in the mister rat show. Clarisse, it is a pleasure to have you here. Tatu do vein, converse, tato do versus obrigado.
Clarice Aiello [00:01:39]:
Thank you very much, Mizter Rad.
Mizter Rad [00:01:43]:
You.
Clarice Aiello [00:01:44]:
And I, we share latin american origins. I am from Brazil, so much as. Gracias.
Mizter Rad [00:01:52]:
Absolutely gracias. Ati. Clarice Muyto Brigado. Clarice, I met you two weeks ago in an event called Vision weekend in a beautiful, beautiful castle in Germany.
Clarice Aiello [00:02:03]:
Awesome.
Mizter Rad [00:02:04]:
It was a beautiful experience. And there you shared this vision of the possibility of using the phone electromagnetic fields to heal wounds. Of course, this is not happening yet. It's not possible yet, but it is a possibility. Can you explain us how this could work?
Clarice Aiello [00:02:27]:
Yes. This is one of the best kept secrets in biology, which is the fact that biology seems to be tweakable by electromagnetic radiation. Right. So usually when we think about biology, we can think about forces. You know, things cells push and pull. But there is a lot of evidence over many, many decades that biology is also responding to electromagnetic fields. So there are many ways that cells can do so. I, in particular, studied the extent to which cells react to weak magnetic fields.
Clarice Aiello [00:03:18]:
So, electromagnetic radiation has two components. One is electric fields and one is magnetic fields. And moving electric fields produce magnetic fields, magnets produce magnetic fields. But you might also be interested to know that the earth itself has its own built in magnetic field. The speaker of your phone produces a magnetic field. And what I want to do is to understand rationally how biology responds to magnetic fields so that we can use engineered magnetic fields for function, to change things in the cell, to change the whole machinery of the cell with, as you mentioned, electromagnetic interventions that could be programmed in an app.
Mizter Rad [00:04:14]:
So, basically, what you're saying is that in the future, it is possible. It is likely, or hopefully likely, that instead of using normal chemical pharmaceuticals as we know them today to heal a wound or to get rid of a headache, you would just use, for example, a device that transmits some specific electromagnetic fields for healing that specific pain or injury.
Clarice Aiello [00:04:47]:
That is absolutely correct, provided that we start doing the research now. Right?
Mizter Rad [00:04:54]:
So why do we need to get there? Because you say, of course, this is not possible yet, but what exactly do we need to get there?
Clarice Aiello [00:05:02]:
So, research in this field has been completely haphazard. For decades, people have been finding magnetic fields that do stuff and do big stuff. For example, there are companies that found a magnetic field that can help with tumor reduction. People have found a magnetic field that can actually increase how fast the proliferation of lab grown meat cells is. And it's a huge phase space. Magnetic fields have several parameters, such as strength, frequency, direction, and it's a huge phase space. And people have been stumbling upon points in this phase space that do stuff completely by chance. I liken it to being in a haystack, grabbing a little bit of hay and finding a needle.
Clarice Aiello [00:06:02]:
Can we do better? And I think we can. Right. We need to start trying to find what I'm tentatively calling the code book with predictive power on which parameters of magnetic fields do what, so that we can start rationally using those endogenous knobs in biology. Again, there's no need for genetic engineering yourself. Know how to do this. And in fact, there is a lot of evidence that life on Earth is optimized to function under the magnetic field of the earth. The magnetic field of the earth is super, super tiny. And you might think it's not important at all.
Clarice Aiello [00:06:48]:
So it's orders of magnitude smaller than the magnetic field of your cell phone. And you might think that, well, maybe that's just noise. It's not doing anything. And in fact, it is. Because if you cue to our pop up open science experiments, people have found in the past that if you grow frog embryos, tadpoles in a box that blocks the magnetic field of the earth, bad things happen. Tadpoles, which are otherwise okay. If you grow them inside a box that blocks this tiny field, there's a much, much higher chance of malformations they're completely deformed at a much, much larger rate. And many times, people don't believe this data.
Clarice Aiello [00:07:40]:
So if you're, dear listener, if you're curious about that, my lab is performing right now a pop up open science experiment. You can find us @ thetadpoleexperiment.org where we're raising tadpoles inside such a chamber to unambiguously prove or refute in the eyes of the public, that that is true. We're sharing all our protocols, all our data. Go follow us.
Mizter Rad [00:08:06]:
And why is that important? Why is that experiment important?
Clarice Aiello [00:08:09]:
So I think there's several reasons, right? So, first of all, I think the public has had a harder time understanding the effects of electromagnetic fields in biology because we cannot see fields, right? We cannot see the electromagnetic field produced by your cell phone or anything. It's very different from forces, from concrete forces, right? That you can sort of pictures that biology is responding to. So we need to engage with both the broad public and the scientific community to raise awareness that, well, this might be an important phenomenon, right? And for reasons that I won't have time to explain, probably, but it's well understood in the science that I do. The magnetic fields that seem to be doing stuff in biology are relatively weak. So you can have, for example, magnetic resonance imagers in hospitals. Those produce huge, huge, huge magnetic fields. They're huge machines that need cooling for the magnets. So those things do other things.
Clarice Aiello [00:09:26]:
The effects that our study actually are messed up or are tuned for good or for bad with weak magnetic fields. So in my field of study, big is not always better, right? So the effect peaked at low magnetic fields. And the other thing, why this experiment that we're doing is important is to sort of start, to start imagining, to seed in people's mind how important this is. So again, it's super important for the future of humanity if we want to colonize other planets. Let me make the jump. It's not a crazy jump at all.
Mizter Rad [00:10:08]:
Please.
Clarice Aiello [00:10:10]:
When people think about going to space and colonizing other planets, people are aware that they should care about things such as a different gravity or protection against cosmic rays. It turns out that I posit that we need to care about magnetic fields as well. So, for example, if it's true that if you remove the magnetic field of the earth, bad things happen. In biology, for example, embryos do not grow as they should. Well, it turns out that in Mars, the magnetic field is just a fraction of the magnetic field of the earth. So we need to ask ourselves, can we reproduce in Mars? Can we space farm in Mars? Right. We need to at least consider that as a possibility so that if we end up colonizing Mars, that, well, we find out that we need an engineering solution to provide those magnetic fields. Isn't that crazy? Pandora box?
Mizter Rad [00:11:14]:
Yeah, definitely. Synthetic magnetic fields in the, in the space kind of.
Clarice Aiello [00:11:19]:
That's correct. That's correct.
Mizter Rad [00:11:23]:
Interesting. You were talking about, which I find super interesting. You always mentioned this deterministic code book that is needed.
Clarice Aiello [00:11:31]:
Yes.
Mizter Rad [00:11:32]:
What exactly do you mean with that? Because when I asked you how do we get to the. When we were talking about the example of the phone that you wrap and you tap on your skin to heal a wound that you just had on an accident. That is very futuristic and kind of Sci-Fi you said, in order to get there, one of the things we need is a code book, sort of like a recipe book, if I understand correctly. So can you elaborate on that, please?
Clarice Aiello [00:11:58]:
I can. I'm going to throw some big words there, but don't be afraid, dear listener.
Mizter Rad [00:12:04]:
So.
Clarice Aiello [00:12:07]:
My work is in an emerging field called quantum biology. This field studies the extent to which nature might be using the crazy laws of quantum mechanics to work and to work optimally. Now, quantum mechanics has traditionally been the realm of very low temperatures, vacuum conditions, and there is a reason for that. Everything that starts quantum dies. Classical quantumness is a very brief. Objects that have quantumness, after some time, they will decay back to classicality. This is why we live essentially in a classical world at very tiny landscapes for very well protected systems. Another set of laws called quantum mechanics kick in.
Clarice Aiello [00:13:01]:
And those laws are very different from what we usually experience in our macroscopic world. So there's the evidence that I pointed out that weak magnetic fields are altered in biology. The only standing possible explanation to that is that this magnetic field sensitivity is mediated by quantum laws that are brief, but that survive inside cells for long enough for them to have an effect. Now, for long enough here, I mean, from nanoseconds to microseconds, but that's still very, very long. That's an unusual regime, if that ends up being true. It's an unusual regime for quantumness because there is a reason why, when you think about. And that's another futuristic concept. When you think about quantum computers, people say, well, we need vacuum conditions.
Clarice Aiello [00:14:03]:
We need to cool down the experiment very, very, very much. So. It's sort of counterintuitive that quantum laws might survive in the hot war, in the hot, messy, wet environment of the cell. But in fact, it seems that it's plausible that nature has used. Well, so here's the point, right? So, like, people don't believe that nature could have taken advantage of quantum processes very much because they think that there's no mechanism that would allow this. But in fact, if you look close enough, there is at least one and possibly many mechanisms that allows for that, which means that if those mechanisms are. Are active, it's likely that those effects appear everywhere in biology. And we think that the sensitivity of organisms to magnetic fields under the hood is driven by such a quantum process.
Clarice Aiello [00:15:15]:
Now, in order for us to really find out this code book on how to rationally mess up with biology for good or for bad, using weak magnetic fields, we need a complicated type of experiment to probe those endogenous quantum degrees of freedom in biology. And this is what I do. I build, if you will, glorified microscopes that look at biology with a quantum lens.
Mizter Rad [00:15:45]:
When you look at nature, you were giving some hints that these quantum processes happen in nature, in biological bodies. What examples can you give for people to understand with a specific example what you are talking about?
Clarice Aiello [00:16:09]:
There are many flavors of quantum biology. So, for example, photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is very, very efficient in some points. For example, a very important part of photosynthesis is when the plant absorbs light from the sun and dumps the energy of the light that it captures somewhere else in the machinery of the plant cell.
Mizter Rad [00:16:40]:
Like, yeah, sort of like a battery form it?
Clarice Aiello [00:16:44]:
No, it's more like to start transforming it. Okay, so you capture energy from the sun, and then you need to transfer this light energy somewhere else where it can be treated, when it can be used to drive other process. It's really a transformation of energy. And this energy transport process is extremely efficient. In fact, it's much, much more efficient than any humankind made solar cell. Solar cells work with exactly the same principle. They absorb light, and then they transport this light energy somewhere else where it can be transformed. It's a solar battery.
Clarice Aiello [00:17:27]:
So energy does so in a way that humans couldn't crack yet. And there is evidence that photosynthesis plants are doing so, helped by the laws of quantum mechanics. That's one example. The second example, which is the poster children of the fields that I work in, are birds, turtles, and other organisms that sense the tiny magnetic field of the earth to navigate. It's really, really crazy if you think about it, because the magnetic field of the earth, again, as I mentioned, is extremely tiny. It's orders of magnitude smaller than the magnetic field of your cell phone. And organisms are using that field to help them tell what's north from south and to help them into like, a thousand miles long journey twice a year. That's crazy if you think about it.
Mizter Rad [00:18:32]:
That's crazy.
Clarice Aiello [00:18:33]:
It's less crazy if you realize that they're doing so, helped by those very good quantum sensors. It's proteins inside them that help them sense, in a quantum way the magnetic field of the earth.
Mizter Rad [00:18:50]:
Now, so this is proven, sorry to interrupt, but this is something that is proven. I mean, it's a beautiful, natural thing that happens, that we happen to understand that.
Clarice Aiello [00:19:02]:
Let me tell you what's the evidence chemically in the bird's protein or in many, many bio compounds in solution, there is no doubt that there are quantum things happening at room temperature and in solution for, like, testing. You know, chemists do experiments in test.
Mizter Rad [00:19:25]:
Tubes in the laboratory.
Clarice Aiello [00:19:27]:
Now, in the laboratory right now, the next level of evidence is for organisms such as birds, flies, turtles, plants, that respond to stimuli in a way that is consistent with if the quantumness that is seen in test tubes survived for long enough for it to matter. Now, it's sort of a problem, right? Because. And that's sort of what is holding back the field of quantum biology, because the evidence goes from bio compounds to big organisms. There's nothing in between. There is no unambiguous proof or refutation that in a single cell, quantumness can survive for long enough. And unsurprisingly, I'm going to tell you that this is exactly what I'm going after. I want to build microscopes that can look at quantumness inside a single cell to finally be able to unambiguously prove this link from quantum to bio.
Mizter Rad [00:20:37]:
So, but what you're saying is that on the one hand, you can prove that it happens in the lab. On the other hand, there is evidence that it happens in the natural world with birds and turtles and so on. But the in between is what's missing.
Clarice Aiello [00:20:53]:
That's correct. It's what will allow us to go from correlative evidence to causal evidence.
Mizter Rad [00:21:02]:
Okay. And that would help also build what you call the deterministic code book.
Clarice Aiello [00:21:10]:
That's correct. Because if we start being able to look at those phenomena with a quantum lens, we can start modeling them with quantum tools. And the interplay between quantum simulation and quantum observation can help us start making predictions.
Mizter Rad [00:21:31]:
So when you talk about these predictions, let me jump right in there, because I think this is super interesting. When you talk about predictions, do you mean that this code book will basically look okay, I'm going to use a very simplistic example, but let's say it's like a cookbook. Say cookbook.
Clarice Aiello [00:21:51]:
That's exactly what.
Mizter Rad [00:21:53]:
Three spoons of this, four spoons of that, a little bit of that, a little bit of that. And that's the recipe for, you know, whatever. Solving headaches.
Clarice Aiello [00:22:04]:
That is exactly what it is. It's like, if you want to do wound healing, apply three times the magnetic field of your speaker. If you want to increase the proliferation rate of insulin producing bacteria. Applications for biomanufacturing. Apply the magnetic field of your cell phone with a certain frequency. If you want to decrease the tumor size, decrease proliferation rates, apply this magnetic field for this long.
Mizter Rad [00:22:35]:
Interesting.
Clarice Aiello [00:22:37]:
Yeah. Isn't it cool?
Mizter Rad [00:22:40]:
Super cool. Amazing. I mean, this really sounds like science fiction, but I wonder why we're not there. I mean, I understand that there's a lot of confusion maybe in the field, but is it a problem of money? Is it a problem of people getting together and I agreeing on something, scientists not believing in this, or it's.
Clarice Aiello [00:23:04]:
It's. It's a conjunction of bad factors. So which one of the reasons that I'm here is, I am chief evangelist. One of the hats that I wear is chief evangelist. We need to tell people what is real, what is not, where we want to go. And again, evidence for quantum biology has existed for, like, decades, and the needle never seems to move, because all the evidence that we get is correlative, right? This is why I embedding all my chips into experiments that can prove a causal link. Because, again, it's really that crazy right now. What you do is like, if you want to show.
Clarice Aiello [00:23:52]:
And again, magnetic field sensitivity, for example, is present across the tree of life and in many types of cells. And usually, if you want to probe the sensitivity, what you do is, like, you take cells, you can take human cells, you can take mammal cells. You can take whatever worm cells, and you apply a magnetic field onto them in the lab. It's a complete random gas, okay? It's a complete random gas. That depends on what magnets you have available in your lab. And then you report, oh, a magnetic field of, like, more or less of the strength of ten times your cell phones. It gives these results in the cell whatever, in the cell fibers. Now, you apply a completely different magnetic field.
Clarice Aiello [00:24:40]:
And you see, well, you modulate the cell fibers in another way, and you report those findings. There is really no predictive power. For example, if you tested magnetic field of x and ten x right now, you cannot predict what happens if you apply a magnetic field. Of seven x. Okay. There is no predictive power on what's going to happen. We do not have a way of linking those results. If we could have those complicated experiments, but beautiful experiments, we could start making the first strides towards, really a theory on how to link points.
Clarice Aiello [00:25:23]:
So that you have this cookbook, right? You open it and you say, do you want to decrease tumor cell proliferation rate? You apply this field. Do you want to increase the rate at which you have let grow meat? You apply this field. Right. Because magnetic fields that can. That's the beauty of that. You can tune it up and down.
Mizter Rad [00:25:47]:
Interesting. I have a little anecdote. When I lived in China, 2006, I had some knee pain, and I went to the doctor in my neighborhood, and he, you know, I was too young. I never, I was not curious enough. I don't know. I never asked what he used, but he had some sort of machine, and he used that machine to put on my knee. It was not invasive. It was external.
Mizter Rad [00:26:14]:
And he treated me with that. I don't know what it was. But as I prepared for this interview and I read more and more, I realized that some countries in the east apparently paid more attention to all this topic of electromagnetism, as opposed to the west treating it as sometimes pseudoscience.
Clarice Aiello [00:26:36]:
Chemicals.
Mizter Rad [00:26:38]:
Exactly. And relying more on chemicals. Why do you think that is?
Clarice Aiello [00:26:42]:
Oh, so it's really on point. Your observation. Bioelectromagnetics in the west is taboo. Right. Research in the effect of electromagnetics in biology, to the best of my knowledge, has never stopped. In China, in Japan, and in Russia, I've heard a lot of possible hypotheses. One hypothesis is that apparently, up to the beginning of the 20th century in the west, people were exploring cures with light, maybe some electromagnetics. And then after the second world war, I think the pharmaceutical industry grew a lot, and I think that's one of the hypotheses.
Clarice Aiello [00:27:30]:
Then it started dominating the conversation and to the detriment of everything else. Right. The second hypothesis has to do with hubris from, like, hippie, hippie stuff, right? So, for example, unfortunately, in my browser, if I put, like, quantum healing or something, or quantum biology number 13 is some weird stuff, all healing with crystals, like, oh, let us solve. Let us help cure your aura and stuff. There is a lot of hubris for that. So that might have been making the field hard to break through. Right. And again, there is still a lot of resistance from both the public and the scientific community to accept that.
Mizter Rad [00:28:36]:
Interesting.
Clarice Aiello [00:28:37]:
Which I think is a missed opportunity.
Mizter Rad [00:28:40]:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it sounds like a great opportunity and topic to explore. What? Talking about exploration and research. What do you think the quantum biological research will contribute in terms of extending human lifespan or improving the quality of life? We already touched on some medical applications, but.
Clarice Aiello [00:29:11]:
Yeah.
Mizter Rad [00:29:11]:
What other medical applications do you see happening, possibly based on what you've already with your team? Find out, or you believe you will find out?
Clarice Aiello [00:29:24]:
So I'll get to health in a second. But after thinking about ways of communicating quantum bio truthfully, right now, I see quantum bio as really the first piece of a domino that can allow a lot of things, a lot of scientific pursuits. Right. I've told you about a link between quantum bio or the importance of quantum bio to space exploration. I think there's, like, applications and I'll get to health in a second of quantum bio in even AI, truthfully. Because, for example, if we can ambiguously prove that neurons, as any other cell, might be using quantum stuff to work at a basal level, we might end up needing to have to rethink our neural network models. We will need training data that account for the possibility of quantum effects in biology. We will need to start thinking about ways of, like modifying the laws of how neurons work in significant ways.
Clarice Aiello [00:30:35]:
So quantum bio, I think, has many, many prongs that will help a lot of different industries now for health, right? So, weak magnetic fields in particular have been shown in this correlative way to really change the whole machinery of the cell, from how much cells proliferate, to how much cells make respiration, to cellular metabolism, to how much oxidative stress your cell produce, to how much DNA gets repaired, to how ion channels work. All your cells are controlled, especially neurons, by the fluxes of ions inside and out. Those are ion channels. The functioning of those have been shown to. To be tweakable by weak magnetic fields. So I've come to think about quantum bio as really another. It's stepping into this knob, this endogenous knob in biology to fine tune cellular performance, which, of course, applications to longevity and health in general. I maintain that in the future, we might have non invasive, portable, cheap electromagnetic interventions at the hand of anyone with a cell phone.
Clarice Aiello [00:31:59]:
Again, if you want to think about the global health angle, someone in rural Africa might be able to actuate on biology with just a cell phone if we start making progress right now. So there might have applications for drug discoveries. There are other modalities of quantum biology that I didn't discuss that, if researched, might help with drug discovery. So I do believe, as I mentioned, that quantum biology we need to advance the science, to advance a lot of other things in a fundamental way. It's a fundamental part of biology that is not being given importance at all.
Mizter Rad [00:32:49]:
I understand, and I think giving it importance is definitely necessary to advance in the process of trying to figure out more about quantum biology and quantum bio. And as we understand more and more about, let's say, all these quantum processes that happen in nature, for example, how might this new knowledge, you think, will influence our relationship with what we call the natural world and our approach to environmental conservation?
Clarice Aiello [00:33:27]:
That's a great question. Right. So it's less about quantum biology and more about general electromagnetic field effects in biology. So there is already evidence that, for example, that electronic pollution might be messing up with brains migration patterns. Right. So that's one thing to consider.
Mizter Rad [00:33:52]:
With what? Sorry? With brains migration patterns.
Clarice Aiello [00:33:56]:
Birds. Did I say brains?
Mizter Rad [00:33:57]:
Yeah, the brains of the birds. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah, sorry. I thought the brain migration pattern. So which brains are migrating? Okay, so.
Clarice Aiello [00:34:11]:
That'S one. Right. We need to take care about electromagnetic pollution. Not related to that. But since you mentioned brains. Right. Maybe let me use a hook, because that's. That's number one question that everyone has.
Clarice Aiello [00:34:29]:
Everyone at the end asks me, like, so should we. Should we. We be afraid of our cell phones?
Mizter Rad [00:34:36]:
Right?
Clarice Aiello [00:34:37]:
Here's what I tell them. I tell them that it would have been extremely lucky or unlucky of your cell phone provider if the electromagnetic fields that they chose to use was doing something specific for biology. I think that the likelihood that your cell phone is doing you harm is exactly the same as the likelihood that your cell phone is doing your good. And I think that both of them are unlikely. Right. The highest likelihood is that the electromagnetic field produced by your cell phone is not doing anything specific this said. Right. I think that just with a cell phone, we can unleash the power of good.
Clarice Aiello [00:35:23]:
Right. We can get treatments. But if there are enemy governments that start doing research and find a certain magnetic field that does bad things, all that it would take is for them to put a cell phone virus.
Mizter Rad [00:35:40]:
Right.
Clarice Aiello [00:35:43]:
Crazy, right? In principle. Again, not saying it's already done. Not saying that it's close to getting done, but this is why we also need to get this research going is to really have defenses to start, but. Right. So that we're not completely helpless if such thing arises. Right. And that's the power of this stuff. You don't need complicated magnets or anything.
Clarice Aiello [00:36:13]:
You need a cell phone.
Mizter Rad [00:36:14]:
Right, right. Interesting, interesting. Also that you mentioned that you were talking about the fine tuning of cellular performance. It can be for the good, but it can also be for the bad.
Clarice Aiello [00:36:29]:
That's correct.
Mizter Rad [00:36:30]:
So that's interesting. Do you think in that same line of thought, do you think it's important? And now maybe this is more a political question. And again, there's no right or wrong answer here. I just want to know your personal opinion. Do you think we will need at some point some sort of global, intranational, international regulations for all these topics that we're talking about, quantum biology or electromagnetism or a little bit like.
Clarice Aiello [00:37:00]:
I think so.
Mizter Rad [00:37:01]:
Like nuclear agreements that have been signed?
Clarice Aiello [00:37:04]:
Yeah, I think so. And I think that more knowledge is better than no knowledge. Right. So this is why I am starting to do research in a very open science way. That's a slightly different topic, but I think that right now we're just starting. But I think that as this field becomes more and more active, that's exactly what we're going to need to have. We're going to need to have regulation. Right now, there are regulations for, like, electromagnetic threats, right? And when people think about electromagnetic threats, people think about big electricity towers and so forth.
Clarice Aiello [00:37:50]:
When people put out those electromagnetic regulations, they are essentially forgetting or neglect, neglecting because they don't necessarily have the knowledge that for some processes, such as those quantum processes, more is not necessarily better. The effect peaks at low magnetic field. So if you want the effect magnitude does not always go up with those with the strength of the field.
Mizter Rad [00:38:19]:
Right.
Clarice Aiello [00:38:20]:
It goes up and down. So what I think virtually all electromagnetic threat regulations at place right now miss. They all miss. And they say, well, things only really get dangerous if you're very close to a cell tower or something like this. That's not necessarily true. Right. That's most likely not true. So we need to start taking care about that.
Clarice Aiello [00:38:50]:
And again, it's better that this research be done in the open so that it doesn't come as a surprise. Right. We cannot afford being caught without strategic defenses in place.
Mizter Rad [00:39:10]:
Absolutely. I see what you mean. And talking about this, you know, having a strategic base for, let's say, the future trajectory of humanity and our evolution. Do you think that quantum, or the work you're doing with quantum biology could influence, in a way, the trajectory of human evolution? In other words, do you think that we could direct our own evolutionary path through advanced technologies that could spin off your research?
Clarice Aiello [00:39:45]:
Maybe. Maybe. And I think there are ways that, for example, if we want to colonize Mars with a different magnetic field, I don't doubt that we can start selectively producing embryos that don't dislike the magnetic field of Mars or something like this.
Mizter Rad [00:40:10]:
Interesting.
Clarice Aiello [00:40:12]:
I think it's very possible. The other way that I think quantum biology could really change the way we live is, for example, with smart clothing, smart textiles, imagine.
Mizter Rad [00:40:26]:
How is that? Tell me more.
Clarice Aiello [00:40:30]:
There are many companies in the world that are developing smart clothing. It's clothing that take measurements and do stuff. Imagine that. If clothing could not only take measurements, but that could actuate on stuff. For example, you have a wound here, and you tell your dress, well, produce me a magnetic field here during the day so that it speeds up my wound healing or something. I think this is very real as a possibility. Again, I'm just advocating for really start using this degree of freedom in biology, which is its capacity to react to electromagnetic fields in a rational way.
Mizter Rad [00:41:21]:
Interesting.
Clarice Aiello [00:41:23]:
I don't think this proposition is crazy or outrageous at all.
Mizter Rad [00:41:27]:
No. I mean, it sounds pretty simple. Yeah, yeah. It sounds simple and exciting, for sure. And I was wondering, when I was preparing for this conversation, if you ever, or let's say, as you dive deeper into understanding quantum biology, do you ever come across, maybe when talking to friends or family members or maybe just reflecting yourself, do you ever come across with philosophical questions about our existence and the universe as you understand more and more, maybe how nature and quantum bio exist in our world?
Clarice Aiello [00:42:07]:
So I think that the philosophical question that I usually grapple with is more like, it's not surprising that nature might be the ultimate quantum engineer, right? If you will. For example, humanity got to quantum 100 odd years after the industrial revolution. Right? We went from classical machines to quantum in less than 200 years. Well, nature has had gazillion years to try those things out. It's not a crazy proposition that it took advantage of everything that it could, including quantum. It's not a crazy proposition that quantum is in nature's toolbox. It had a lot of time to experiment. I do believe that nature is like the ultimate quantum engineer, and we're so far from understanding all the ways that nature work.
Clarice Aiello [00:43:09]:
We need to start exploring this quantum knob that is very likely found in nature, because nature is tried and trusted by. By necessity.
Mizter Rad [00:43:22]:
Right. That's. That's. That's. That's beautiful. I mean, I always say, and I think more and more often this now, that when people say that we are destroying the planet, in a way, I understand what they mean, but I think in reality, we're destroying ourselves because nature will survive without us. I mean, it's always been like that. So it's a bit arrogant to think that we're destroying nature, you know?
Clarice Aiello [00:43:52]:
Totally, totally.
Mizter Rad [00:43:53]:
We don't have the power.
Clarice Aiello [00:43:54]:
We're so.
Mizter Rad [00:43:56]:
There's so much powerful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's beautiful. Look, I know that a lot of students and early career scientists out there are listening to the Mister rat show, and I would like you to tell them what kind of education paths and experiences you would recommend them if they're interested in all these topics.
Clarice Aiello [00:44:22]:
Yes. So, first of all, and that's another hat that I. That I. That I wear. I wish everyone could have a basic course to be quantum literate. I think everyone who has a high school education should be quantum literate. Quantum mechanics already powers the world that we live in. It's not a futuristic proposition.
Clarice Aiello [00:44:51]:
Your laptop only works because of transistors, and transistors only work because of the laws of quantum mechanics. Lasers, gps, magnetic resonance imagers, technology that we encounter every day, or almost every day. They are already powered by the laws of quantum mechanics. It's extremely important that people go find courses on quantum. There are plenty of good quantum courses in coursera edx. If you want to learn more about quantum quantum computing, there's a bunch of young people building a platform called qubit by qubit. Just Google Qubit by qubit. Quantum computing courses that are free.
Clarice Aiello [00:45:40]:
Quantum physics is not mysterious. I think there is. There are people who benefit from other people thinking that quantum is only for the elected few. I don't think quantum is mysterious. Quantum describes just another scale of matter, and we should all learn a little bit, learn how to talk quantum a little bit, because you will better understand the world around you. Now, quantum biology, there is a very nice layman's person book that details all of those flavors of quantum biology called life on the edge by John Jo McFadden and Jim Ocalili. This is a super cool read that I think excite many people to start looking into quantum bio, including myself. There aren't many courses on quantum biology.
Clarice Aiello [00:46:53]:
Future plug. I am writing a book about quantum and quantum biology like a textbook. If you're listening this episode, maybe two years after it was recorded, maybe it will be out.
Mizter Rad [00:47:08]:
But you shared with me some briefs. Actually, you shared with me a link. I'm going to put them in the footnotes of this episode. They're called quantum biology briefs. And what's in there, clarice?
Clarice Aiello [00:47:21]:
The link is bit.ly/QBbriefs, because they're brief. So bit ly, big q, big q, big b briefs, bit ly dash, big q, big b briefs.
Mizter Rad [00:47:38]:
I will share the link anyway. I'll share it.
Clarice Aiello [00:47:41]:
Awesome. There is a collection of briefs of how we've come to think about quantum biology as really an important science to develop, to help many other disciplines. So you're going to find a quantum biology and longevity brief. It's just a two pager. Quantum biology and AI. Quantum biology and quantum computing. Quantum biology and drug development. Quantum biology and the future on how we think quantum biology can really help with a myriad different scientific pursuits that humankind is on the path to.
Mizter Rad [00:48:19]:
Beautiful, beautiful. Clarisse, it's amazing to have you here in the Mister rat show. It was a pleasure to talk to you and learn more about you and your work. And I wish you had. All the best. Will be standing by following your work.
Clarice Aiello [00:48:36]:
Thank you very, very much. Keep tuned. We are starting a series of institutions related to quantum biology very, very soon. They're going to go online in a couple of weeks. Let's keep our fingers crossed that quantum biology develops as a science. And I really hope that the listeners have enjoyed this conversation, are interested in quantum, and got their interests peaked in both quantum physics and quantum biology. Thank you, Mario. Muchas, muchas gracias.
Clarice Aiello [00:49:18]:
And I hope we can continue this conversation at some point.