Imagine if our bodies were in communication with one another through a secret, light based code, decipherable only on a cellular level. As far out as that idea is, it is one possibility put forward by findings in the area of biophotons. Sergey Mayburov, from the Lebedev Institute of Physics in Moscow contends that miniscule particles of light emitted by cells constitutes a primitive form of communication.

Biophotons is a fringe area of scientific enquiry – it's dedicated to the emission of photons (the elementary unit of light) from living cells. These particles are not visible to the naked eye, and so differ from other ways in which cells emit light, like the bioluminescence which makes fireflies glow.

Mayburov has been studying fish eggs and recording the patterns of biophotons emitted. Other studies of fish eggs are have suggested that the biophotons from growing eggs can encourage the growth of other eggs of a similar age. However, the biophotons from mature eggs can hinder and disrupt the growth of younger eggs at a different stage of development. Mayburov measured the amounts of Biophotons emitted by fish eggs. His research contended that biophoton streams consist of short quasiperiodic bursts, which he says are remarkably similar to those used to send binary data over a noisy channel, like most error correcting software which makes digital communication (like Skype) a possibility. It's a very low level of communication but it suggests a level of information exchange between our bodies and our immediate environment that hasn't been scientifically explored to date.