Within a cell system structure dictates function. Any interaction between cells, or a cell and its environment, has the potential to have long term implications on the function of a given cell and emerging cell aggregates. The structure and function of cells are continuously subjected to modification by electrical and chemical stimuli. However, biological systems are also subjected to an ever-present influence: the electromagnetic (EM) environment. Biological systems have the potential to be influenced by subtle energies which are exchanged at atomic and subatomic scales as EM phenomena. These energy exchanges have the potential to manifest at higher orders of discourse and affect the output (behavior) of a biological system. Here we describe theoretical and experimental evidence of EM influence on cells and the integration of whole systems. Even weak interactions between EM energies and biological systems display the potential to affect a developing system. We suggest the growing literature of EM effects on biological systems has significant implications to the cell and its functional aggregates.

Keywords: electromagnetic fields, consciousness, structure-function, cell aggregation, environmental influences.

A biological system is dependent upon inter- and intra-cellular communication for its development, maintenance, and proliferation. This communication allows an individual cell to interact with neighboring cell systems as well as its environment. The literature concerning intra- and inter-cellular communication is rapidly growing, focusing on electrical and chemical mechanisms (Qian, 2007; Nielsen et al., 2012; Venturi and Fugua, 2013). However the means by which a biological system can communicate, or interact, through a non-chemical non-electrical medium have yet to be extensively examined. There have been initial studies on the possible contributions of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum (non-chemical non-electrical) to biological systems (Gurwitsch, 1926; van Wijk et al., 1993; Cifra et al., 2011). These studies have demonstrated that there is, at the very biological systems and the EM spectrum.