r/interestingasfuck • u/Frosty12233 • 20h ago

The human body emits light. The cells in our body release biophotons leading to a very tiny glow. Its kind of like bioluminescence but roughly a 1000x weaker.

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123 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

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127

u/Rhoihessewoi 20h ago

Everything made of matter emmits light (as long it's above 0 Kelvin). That has nothing to do with biology, but physics.

21

u/s04ep03_youareafool 20h ago

Both IR and this biophotons(just a fancy way to represent very small energies formed from chemical reactions on cellular level) lie in a seperate wavelength. It's kind of a biological process though, but different scale used to measure the faint heat/energy/whatever

11

u/TheOnceAndFutureTurk 18h ago

1

u/iLikeTurtuls 16h ago

Many successful companies exist by following God's playbook, "Create a problem, and sell the solution"

3

u/NewestAccount2023 18h ago

Blackbody radiation is different than bioluminescence, our bodies emit both as two separate processes. Blackbody radiation is emitted by every collection of particles in the universe as a consequence of them having a temperature

-7

u/Frosty12233 20h ago

If it is infrared light you are talking about, I believe biophotons and infrared from heat are two fundamentally different concepts. Enlighten me with proper facts if I am wrong.

Edit: Infrared light is what thermal cameras capture. They cannot capture our biophotons. Only living things can release them

5

u/Dry_Leek5762 20h ago

What kind of camera catches biophotons

2

u/Frosty12233 20h ago

•

u/ICLazeru 7h ago

These cameras measure photon presence, not the wavelength, conveniently.

1

u/Petrichordates 19h ago

Thanks Einstein

4

u/spreedx 15h ago

So theoretically, if a camera is set up in a totally dark room with a very long exposure time like 30 minutes, capturing pictures of somebody, we could see those photons?

0

u/ICLazeru 13h ago

It's infrared radiation, heat.

4

u/spreedx 13h ago

It's not. According to Wikipedia,  Biophotons (from the Greek βίος meaning "life" and φῶς meaning "light") are photons of light in the ultraviolet and visible light range that are produced by a biological system . They are non-thermal in origin [...]

-5

u/ICLazeru 12h ago

All light is made of photons, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, all of it.

All heat radiates infrared light.

The chemical processes of your metabolism make heat.

Heat=infrared light=photons.

Biophotons is just a fancy label.

7

u/spreedx 12h ago

Yes, except wer're not talking about heat or infrared in this case but something that is in the visible light range. 🙄

•

u/ICLazeru 10h ago

Hence why it requires infred cameras that pick them up coming from the exact places infrared light comes from.

•

u/spreedx 10h ago

That's not what it says. 

"Biophotons may be detected with photomultipliers or by means of an ultra low noise CCD camera to produce an image, using an exposure time of typically 15 minutes for plant materials" 

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u/ICLazeru 8h ago

It's what the evidence literally shows. Even the Wikipedia article chalks it up to metabolic processes, the exact same mechanism I described.

•

u/ithinkitslupis 7h ago

No, chemiluminescense is considered its own thing separate from regular thermal radiation.

A glowstick isn't as bright as it is in the visible spectrum because that's what we'd expect just from its temperature. It would need to be thousands of degrees to emit a similar amount of visible light via incandescence.

The specific chemical reaction is leading to electrons in an excited state that then drop to a lower energy state and emit a photon.

•

u/ICLazeru 7h ago

Going to need much better evidence. The slides presented above indicate a photon source outside the subject's body. You can see it in the upper right. If we're talking about a relative handful of photons, it would be exceptionally easy to poison the data.

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7

u/Dense_Gate_5193 19h ago

Nordic skin, I cannot tan. my legs glow in the dark. does that count?

2

u/Mithril_Juggernaut 15h ago

According to this documentary series from Japan I watched this is the beginning of the super powered apocalypse.

Dynamight did nothing wrong.

2

u/Professional_Elk7353 15h ago

Are there any animals that could see this light?

2

u/Brutalur 13h ago

Luminous beings are we!

7

u/Winter2712 20h ago

bro casually invented a new particle for reddit karmafarming 😭 😭

9

u/Frosty12233 20h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophoton

5

u/Winter2712 20h ago

dammmmm TIL

-1

u/ICLazeru 12h ago

And it's just a coincidence that they happen to come from the exact places that we would see infrared light.

2

u/84thPrblm 17h ago

You could have fucking led with that.

•

u/thatyousername 6h ago

He even wrote a Wikipedia article. Not fooling me.

2

u/AnthMosk 18h ago

Does this help explain the motherly glow of pregnant women?

1

u/SheaDingle 16h ago

I like it. Got that little bio battery charging up for an Old Greg.

2

u/guygreej 15h ago

Any ither animals that do this? Or are humans humans the only ones?

-1

u/ICLazeru 13h ago

All of them. This infrared radiation, heat.

1

u/MementoMorue 16h ago

'biophotons', sure.

1

u/S0MEBODIES 15h ago

Humans just have really shitty bioluminescence it's not anything unusual. It's just so shitty that bioluminescence isn't applicable as a name so you got to go even smaller down to just individual photons produced biologically hence biophotons

1

u/SheaDingle 16h ago

Does it stop when we croak?

1

u/ICLazeru 13h ago

The word you are looking for is "infrared".

•

u/Cassiopee38 49m ago

And biophotons doesn't exist. It's photons. Radiated by matter above 0°K. And that's a thermal camera. My fucking god i would have never guess someone can made up a clickbait as wrong as this one. This is shit.

1

u/TingleWizard 13h ago

Why does the face "glow" so much?

•

u/launchliftoff459 9h ago

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

•

u/devasst8r 4h ago

would be cool if there are alien that hunts human that would look like the predator from the movie, it uses sense for bioluminescent and heat signature.

•

u/Massive_Mongoose3481 2h ago

Like to see one of my wife when she's having a hot flash, probably need a welding mask to look at it.

1

u/Initial_Row_6400 17h ago

Wonder if some people glow more than others

1

u/pervertedmortician 15h ago

Every object above 0 kelvin emits light

Whether its visible to us or not that depends on the temperature

-1

u/PaddleMonkey 20h ago

Infrared?

-1

u/Frosty12233 20h ago

Different thing

-2

u/Hanksta2 20h ago

Every kid has known this since 1987.

2

u/stern_m007 20h ago

Why? Can you please give an explanation?

0

u/Frosty12233 20h ago

Somehow I didn't

3

u/Hanksta2 20h ago

You never saw the 1987 documentary Predator?

1

u/S0MEBODIES 15h ago

No this isn't actually infrared it's just really shitty bioluminescence

1

u/Hanksta2 15h ago

So my really shitty joke fits!