Why Nuclear Reactions May Occur in Cells

Cold fusion became a hot topic in 1989. Two Utah scientists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, announced results of an experiment in which they passed a current through deuterium oxide (heavy water). Water molecules split, and positively charged deuterium ions migrated to a negative electrode made of palladium metal. Some deuterium fused, generating excess heat.

Such cold fusion reactions do not conform to our current understanding of nuclear physics. The papers published by Fleischmann and Pons were initially dismissed as junk science. Although scientists have since replicated their findings, no one has yet offered a satisfactory explanation for them.

The journal Current Science published over 30 articles in 2015 describing research on cold fusion (under the heading “low-energy nuclear reactions”). In one article, the French scientist Jean-Paul Biberian describes research suggesting that low-energy nuclear reactions also occur in living organisms:

Over the past two centuries a large number of experiments with animals, seeds and bacteria have suggested that biology is not only a chemical process, but also a nuclear one. These experiments have provided evidence that one element can transmute into another in living organisms. With the development of low energy nuclear reactions (cold fusion), the topic of "biological transmutations" is back on the scientific agenda. Although very few scientists work in this field, its importance is such that its further development is crucial.

Biberian made his own measurements of the elemental contents of plant seeds, bacteria, embryo cells and algae, before and after their growth. He found significant variations, confirming that elemental transmutation does occur in living systems.

Another French researcher, Louis Kervran, published several books on biological transmutations.  Biberian describes Kervran’s work:

He pointed out that the ground in Brittany contained no calcium; however, every day a hen would lay a perfectly normal egg, with a perfectly normal shell containing calcium. The hens eagerly pecked mica from the soil, and mica contains potassium. It appears that the hens may transmute some of the potassium to calcium. From 1960 to 1980, Kervran reported the astounding results of his research showing that living plants were able to accomplish limited transmutation of elements.

Combining potassium with hydrogen to make calcium (K + H -> Ca) could be considered as “biological cold fusion.” In his earlier books, Kervran proposed that biological transmutation is a “different from the atomic fissions or fusions of physics.”  He suggested that “it reveals a property of matter not yet seen,” and speculated that it might not obey the law of conservation of energy. 

Carl Sagan wrote Kervran to say “I would strongly suggest that you read an elementary textbook in nuclear physics.” Scientists joked about nuclear-powered chickens. In his final work, "Biological Transmutations and Modern Physics," Kervran repudiated his earlier statements, but mainstream physicists never accepted his explanations for biological transmutations, nor the experimental evidence he provided.

Kervran wrote that enzymes are responsible for cellular nuclear reactions, but provided little detail on their biological aspects. His books suggest that organisms use nuclear reactions mainly to fulfil their nutritional requirements, such as providing calcium for eggshells.

My theory is that an ability of cells to use nuclear reactions arose early in evolution. Their primary function is not nutritional, but to provide energ for sensing the environment, for movement, and to build and maintain cellular matter. Higher organisms may supplement the energy consumed by nerve and muscle cells with nuclear reactions. Bacteria may employ nuclear reactions to help power the flagella they use to move from place to place.

The enzyme that essentially all organisms use to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the “energy currency” of life, bears a strong resemblance to the enzyme that powers bacterial flagella. ATP synthase is a “molecular motor.” It spans bacterial cell membranes, and membranes of the sub-cellular bodies in higher organisms called mitochondria. Its internal portion rotates an amazing hundred times per second or more. As it rotates it adds phosphate to adenosine diphosphate (ADP) to make ATP, and spins off the ATP molecules.

My books proposes that In mitochondria, oxygen-oxygen nuclear fusion plays an important role in ATP production. This reaction takes place in the internal (F1) portion of the ATP synthase enzyme, supplementing the “proton motive force” exerted by hydrogen ions on the external (F0) potion of the enzyme. Please see the diagram for more details.

Because of the large energy release from nuclear fusion, even a very small number of reactions would provide a significant energy boost. Furthermore, there would be a trade-off between using fusion as an energy source, and dealing with damaging reactive oxygen species produced by nuclear reactions.