Kimberly Blozie Kimberly Blozie

Techworld – Infected with SPIN

A friend of mine just posted the following to his Facebook wall:

Can DNA teleport?
Me being the geek and desirer of most things sci-fi to become real, I immediately raced over to Techworld to read their article. I also read the scientific paper by Vitiello et al. and it doesn’t even mention the word teleport. Rather it is a paper focused on novel techniques to test people for AIDS.
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The techworld article and title are very misleading. Yes, the experiments in the paper are fascinating but they have nothing to do with teleportation.  I suppose science media is not immune from a little spin infection from time to time. The pang for attention often clouds clear thinking, and although I am a fan of the power of persuasion, distorting scientific facts is just not cool.
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Here is my comment on Techworld’s article in attempts to set things straight:
“I just read the [scientific] article, it says nothing about a new strand of DNA in the tube. It hypothesizes that that water formed a nano-structure & that is was able to emit an EM signal also similar to the original DNA. The paper further states that the water nano-structures were able to amplify into actual DNA strands. I used to do PCR, the enzymes that read the DNA are super sensitive. I am not sure they could be fooled by water-based nano-structures. It will be interesting to see future experiments”

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  • J Dunn

    As the author of the article I should point out that I used the word ‘teleportation’ with some trepidation and I did qualify that usage.

    In the realm of quantum physics, the exact term to describe particle entanglement and the apparent transfer of information between separate entities using everyday terminology is extremely troubled.

    Teleportation is not a good word on some levels but there ia long reference literature in which the term is applied loosely to the phenomenon supposedly being observed in this experiment.

    As to the experiment itself, I hope my scepticism is pretty clear.

    • kimberly

      Hello John,

      Thanks for writing me back.
      Indeed, I see that qualification and I agree the word teleportation is troublesome, mainly because smart people (who may not be familiar with the quantum usage of “teleportation”) read said word, followed by “Nobel Prize Winner Claims” in your title then read your article and get excited about a bit of DNA that somehow made its way from one tube to the other. Every sci-fi fan is going to drool at evidence of teleportation. (I know did.)
      Perhaps the phrase “properties were transmitted” or “water took on properties of” although less striking is more accurate because nowhere in the scientific paper do the authors use the word “teleport”. Also because the main point of the paper was to devise novel ways to test people for AIDS.

      None-the-less, this is a very fascinating article. Perhaps the host DNA aerosolized and was deposited into the other tube? (I did not read that both tubes were capped in the paper) Replication of this experiment is indeed very much needed.

      Thanks again for commenting!

  • Bill

    Kim,
    There was nothing misleading about the Techworld article. The problem you are having is not in the article…it is in your mind.
    Did you expect to find diagrams and schematics for building a teleporter?
    You need to relax.
    All things sci-fi are already real. It’s just that we have a hard time seeing them from within these corporeal forms we inhabit.
    Electrons “change” when we observe them. Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
    Imagination is the engine of the quantum world. Or, perhaps the quantum world is imagination. We imagine that we exist and so…we do.
    If you think it, it will be.
    Think about this… 7 hz is the “border” between Theta waves and Alpha waves. Those brain frequencies are the territory of relaxation, creativity and… yes… imagination.
    Remember…There is no spoon.

    • Kimberly Blozie

      Hi Bill,

      Thanks for your comment. In some ways you are preaching to the choir and in other ways, you are preaching to a raised eyebrow.

      The choir says: Indeed, the future is literally not yet created, and that what we imagine, can happen. What are smart phones, airplanes and rocket ships after all? These things were considered science fiction only a hundred years ago or so. I love Lazlow, Schrödinger, Goswami and others. Believe me, I am all about this Bill.

      The raised eyebrow says: The point of my blog was not about condemning imagination and our amazing creative potential as human beings, or about quantum physics but it was about criticizing Techworld for publishing an article with a misleading title. The DNA did not teleport (in the general way that word is thought of). The water in the other test tube took on electromagnetic and nano-level properties of the DNA.

      Would you want to step into a teleporter where all that would come out on the other end is a water based electro-magnetic nano-structure of you?