Infrared Light From the Sun Boosts ATP Production in Your Mitochondria Without Food (Scientists Just Figured Out How It Works)

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Sun’s Hidden Gift: A Photon Peak at 0.754 Electron Volts

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The Sun’s Hidden Gift: A Photon Peak at 0.754 Electron Volts

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Dr. Roger Seheult, co-founder of MedCram and one of the paper’s authors, walked through the full argument in a detailed video presentation.

The Sun’s Hidden Gift: A Photon Peak at 0.754 Electron Volts

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Dr. Roger Seheult, co-founder of MedCram and one of the paper’s authors, walked through the full argument in a detailed video presentation.

The Sun’s Hidden Gift: A Photon Peak at 0.754 Electron Volts

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The hypothesis centers on a Nobel Prize-winning theory of electron movement—and it suggests our modern indoor environments may be starving us of a form of light our mitochondria need to function properly.

Dr. Roger Seheult, co-founder of MedCram and one of the paper’s authors, walked through the full argument in a detailed video presentation.

The Sun’s Hidden Gift: A Photon Peak at 0.754 Electron Volts

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

The hypothesis centers on a Nobel Prize-winning theory of electron movement—and it suggests our modern indoor environments may be starving us of a form of light our mitochondria need to function properly.

Dr. Roger Seheult, co-founder of MedCram and one of the paper’s authors, walked through the full argument in a detailed video presentation.

The Sun’s Hidden Gift: A Photon Peak at 0.754 Electron Volts

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Their new preprint, titled “Metabolism in the Solar Photon Field,” proposes a mechanism that could explain why hospital ICU patients recover faster outdoors, why color blindness improves under incandescent bulbs, and why death rates from heart disease, cancer, and stroke all peak in winter.

The hypothesis centers on a Nobel Prize-winning theory of electron movement—and it suggests our modern indoor environments may be starving us of a form of light our mitochondria need to function properly.

Dr. Roger Seheult, co-founder of MedCram and one of the paper’s authors, walked through the full argument in a detailed video presentation.

The Sun’s Hidden Gift: A Photon Peak at 0.754 Electron Volts

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

Their new preprint, titled “Metabolism in the Solar Photon Field,” proposes a mechanism that could explain why hospital ICU patients recover faster outdoors, why color blindness improves under incandescent bulbs, and why death rates from heart disease, cancer, and stroke all peak in winter.

The hypothesis centers on a Nobel Prize-winning theory of electron movement—and it suggests our modern indoor environments may be starving us of a form of light our mitochondria need to function properly.

Dr. Roger Seheult, co-founder of MedCram and one of the paper’s authors, walked through the full argument in a detailed video presentation.

The Sun’s Hidden Gift: A Photon Peak at 0.754 Electron Volts

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

A team of researchers spanning astrophysics, neuroscience, medicine, and optical engineering believes they’ve uncovered why sunlight—particularly its infrared wavelengths—may be essential to human metabolism and survival.

Their new preprint, titled “Metabolism in the Solar Photon Field,” proposes a mechanism that could explain why hospital ICU patients recover faster outdoors, why color blindness improves under incandescent bulbs, and why death rates from heart disease, cancer, and stroke all peak in winter.

The hypothesis centers on a Nobel Prize-winning theory of electron movement—and it suggests our modern indoor environments may be starving us of a form of light our mitochondria need to function properly.

Dr. Roger Seheult, co-founder of MedCram and one of the paper’s authors, walked through the full argument in a detailed video presentation.

The Sun’s Hidden Gift: A Photon Peak at 0.754 Electron Volts

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

A team of researchers spanning astrophysics, neuroscience, medicine, and optical engineering believes they’ve uncovered why sunlight—particularly its infrared wavelengths—may be essential to human metabolism and survival.

Their new preprint, titled “Metabolism in the Solar Photon Field,” proposes a mechanism that could explain why hospital ICU patients recover faster outdoors, why color blindness improves under incandescent bulbs, and why death rates from heart disease, cancer, and stroke all peak in winter.

The hypothesis centers on a Nobel Prize-winning theory of electron movement—and it suggests our modern indoor environments may be starving us of a form of light our mitochondria need to function properly.

Dr. Roger Seheult, co-founder of MedCram and one of the paper’s authors, walked through the full argument in a detailed video presentation.

The Sun’s Hidden Gift: A Photon Peak at 0.754 Electron Volts

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients

A team of researchers spanning astrophysics, neuroscience, medicine, and optical engineering believes they’ve uncovered why sunlight—particularly its infrared wavelengths—may be essential to human metabolism and survival.

Their new preprint, titled “Metabolism in the Solar Photon Field,” proposes a mechanism that could explain why hospital ICU patients recover faster outdoors, why color blindness improves under incandescent bulbs, and why death rates from heart disease, cancer, and stroke all peak in winter.

The hypothesis centers on a Nobel Prize-winning theory of electron movement—and it suggests our modern indoor environments may be starving us of a form of light our mitochondria need to function properly.

Dr. Roger Seheult, co-founder of MedCram and one of the paper’s authors, walked through the full argument in a detailed video presentation.

The Sun’s Hidden Gift: A Photon Peak at 0.754 Electron Volts

Sunlight isn’t just bright—it’s specific.

While most of the sun’s energy arrives as visible light, the highest number of photons actually falls in the infrared range, peaking at 0.754 electron volts, or roughly 1,600 nanometers.

We’ve got the sun and the sun particularly gives off photons that are the majority the most frequent being 0.754 electron volts which is a particular energy.

This isn’t random. The sun’s outer atmosphere, called the photosphere, is filled with negatively charged hydrogen atoms known as hydride ions. It takes exactly 0.754 electron volts to knock an electron off hydride and turn it back into neutral hydrogen.

That creates a transparency window—photons at that energy pass through more easily than any other wavelength. Higher-energy photons get absorbed. Lower-energy photons interact with free electrons and also get trapped.

The result? A flood of infrared photons at precisely that energy, far more than you’d expect from a star the sun’s size and temperature.

Infrared Light Penetrates Deep—and Reaches the Mitochondria

A 2025 paper by Glenn Jeffery’s lab at University College London showed that longer infrared wavelengths, especially around 850 nanometers, can pass clean through human tissue.

They photographed a hand with infrared light shining through it. The light didn’t just pass—it was measurable on the other side, even after being partially absorbed.

Clothing? Not a problem. Infrared between 750 and 1,000 nanometers sails through most fabrics.

That means sunlight can reach mitochondria deep inside your body—the tiny cellular batteries responsible for producing ATP, the molecule that powers nearly every biological process.

The Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain: Where Energy Is Made

Inside every mitochondrion is a chain of protein complexes embedded in the inner membrane. Electrons from food—glucose, fats, amino acids—flow through this chain in a stepwise descent, losing energy at each step.

That energy pumps protons across the membrane, creating a gradient. When protons flow back, they spin a molecular turbine called ATP synthase, which churns out ATP.

The bottleneck? Electron transfer itself.

If electrons could move faster through the chain, you’d make more ATP. If they slowed down, metabolism would stall.

The Old Hypothesis: Infrared Activates a Receptor in Complex IV

Scientists have known since at least 2005 that shining near-infrared light on cells boosts ATP production. The leading theory was that cytochrome c oxidase—Complex IV in the electron transport chain—acted as a photoreceptor.

The present study supports our hypothesis in 2005 that the endogenous mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C oxidase is an important biological photoacceptor that mediates photobiomodulation in the far red and near infrared range.

Another theory suggested infrared light loosened tightly structured water around ATP synthase, reducing drag and letting the molecular motor spin faster.

Both ideas had merit. But neither could explain a puzzling 2018 study.

The Problem: Some Wavelengths Speed Things Up, Others Slow Them Down

Researchers found that 810-nanometer light increased Complex IV activity and oxygen consumption. But 750 nm and 950 nm decreased it—by as much as 25% in intact mitochondria.

Together, 750 nm and 950 nm reduced mitochondrial respiration by 34%.

The study was titled “Inhibitory Modulation of Cytochrome c Oxidase with Near-Infrared Light Wavelengths.” The authors even proposed using specific infrared wavelengths to reduce metabolism in cases of brain injury.

How could the same organelle, the same enzyme, respond in opposite directions depending on wavelength?

Enter Marcus Electron Transfer Theory

Rudolph Marcus won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1992 for explaining how electrons move between molecules. His insight was deceptively simple: electrons don’t jump unless the surrounding environment is arranged just right.

Proteins, water molecules, and chemical bonds all have to twist into specific configurations before an electron can transfer. That twisting costs energy—called reorganization energy, symbolized by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

Marcus modeled this with parabolas. Imagine the electron sitting at the bottom of one parabola (the reactant state). To jump to the other parabola (the product state), the system has to climb partway up the first curve until it reaches a crossing point.

The height of that crossing point determines how fast the reaction goes.

The Sweet Spot: Activationless Transfer

When the free energy released by the reaction (ΔG) exactly matches the reorganization energy (λ), the crossing point sits right at the bottom of the reactant parabola.

No barrier. Maximum speed.

But if ΔG is too small, there’s still a barrier to climb. And if ΔG is too large—bigger than λ—the reaction actually slows down again, because now the crossing point is partway up the other side of the curve.

Marcus predicted this “inverted region” in the 1960s. It was experimentally confirmed in 1988.

What Infrared Light Actually Does: It Shakes the Landscape

Here’s where the new hypothesis gets elegant.

Electrons move best when the surrounding molecules are arranged just right. Infrared light causes those molecules to vibrate, changing how often the mitochondria reach those favorable arrangements.

Infrared photons don’t carry enough energy to break bonds or drive chemical reactions directly. But they do excite molecular vibrations—in water, in protein side chains, in the scaffolding around electron transfer sites.

That vibration shifts the population of molecular configurations. Instead of sitting quietly at the bottom of the energy well, molecules start exploring higher-energy arrangements.

Sometimes that helps. If the crossing point is slightly uphill, infrared light pushes more molecules toward it, speeding up electron transfer.

Sometimes it hurts. If the system is already sitting at the crossing point, shaking things up can push molecules away from the sweet spot, slowing the reaction down.

Lab Proof: Forward Slowed, Reverse Sped Up

A 2018 study by Ma and colleagues tested this directly. They built a synthetic molecule with a donor and acceptor and excited it with light. Then they hit it with mid-infrared pulses to shake the molecular bridge in between.

Result? The forward electron transfer slowed down. The reverse transfer sped up.

IR excitation of hydrogen bond bridging modes accelerates charge recombination and slows charge separation.

Why? Because the forward reaction was near activationless—already sitting at the crossing point. Infrared light pushed it away.

The reverse reaction had a barrier. Infrared light supplied the activation energy, pushing more molecules over the hump.

Same system. Same infrared light. Opposite effects.

Why Broadband Sunlight May Beat Single-Wavelength LEDs

The electron transport chain isn’t one reaction—it’s a cascade of many, each with its own Marcus landscape, its own crossing point, its own reorganization energy.

A single infrared wavelength might speed up one step and slow down another. But sunlight contains a continuous spectrum of infrared wavelengths, from 750 nm to well beyond 2,000 nm.

Sunlight may be especially effective because unlike monochromatic light, it contains a broad spectrum of wavelengths that can interact with many different vibrational modes and electron transfer steps across the mitochondrial machinery.

That means more steps get nudged in the right direction simultaneously.

Consistent with this, Jeffery’s 2025 study found that a 60-watt incandescent bulb—rich in infrared across many wavelengths—improved color vision more than monochromatic 850 nm light alone.

• Monochromatic 850 nm (head + body): 9% improvement
• Incandescent bulb (head + body): 28% improvement

The effect persisted for weeks.

Deep-Sea Yeast Grow Faster Under Infrared Light—Without Extra Heat

One of the most striking pieces of evidence came from the ocean floor.

In 2026, researchers isolated yeast from sediments near a hydrothermal vent in the central Indian Ocean—half a meter from a “black smoker” chimney at 378°C.

They brought samples to the lab and exposed them to near-infrared light (810–1,050 nm) while carefully controlling temperature.

Infrared light boosted growth dramatically—even at the same temperature as dark controls. At 880 nm, growth increased threefold. Adding glucose produced only a 1.3-fold increase and wasn’t statistically significant.

Infrared light outperformed glucose as a growth signal.

When researchers inhibited cytochrome c oxidase with azide, infrared-stimulated growth dropped 44%, compared to just 11% in the dark. When they added gentamicin, which blocks mitochondrial ribosomes, infrared-stimulated growth fell another 57%.

Two independent lines pointed to mitochondria.

Even more remarkable: the most upregulated protein after infrared exposure was a mitochondrial ribosomal protein, MRPs18, increased 6.7-fold. That protein has a human equivalent, MRPS40.

When researchers inserted this single gene into Saccharomyces cerevisiae—a yeast that normally doesn’t respond to infrared—it suddenly became infrared-responsive.

Metabolism Scales With Sunlight Exposure Across All Animal Sizes

Here’s where things get eerie.

Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the ¾ power. A human doesn’t have 1,000 times the metabolism of a mouse—it’s more like 178 times, following the ¾ scaling law.

Solar power intercepted by an animal’s body also scales to the ¾ power—almost exactly.

For a fly, that’s about 0.0007 watts. For a human standing in sunlight, it’s roughly 196 watts. For an elephant, it’s several kilowatts.

The match holds across more than six orders of magnitude in body mass.

It doesn’t prove causation. But it’s consistent with the idea that sunlight—especially its infrared component—has been a universal regulator of metabolism across the entire animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years.

Why Death Rates Spike in Winter—For Almost Every Cause

In the United States, deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and influenza all peak 1–3 weeks after the winter solstice.

They all drop to their minimum 1–3 weeks after the summer solstice.

The seasonal swing in heart disease deaths alone is larger than the total annual toll from influenza.

In Australia, the pattern flips perfectly. The death spike comes in July, right after their shortest day—even though Christmas and New Year’s gatherings happen in their summer, in December.

In Singapore, 80 miles from the equator, there’s no seasonal pattern at all.

Latitude-based studies have found associations between sunlight exposure and COVID-19 mortality, independent of vitamin D. One study by Seheult found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, COVID mortality correlated with latitude.

The research here is observational, and many confounding factors—temperature, humidity, behavior—could play a role. But the consistency of the pattern, across infectious and non-infectious causes, across hemispheres, and tightly locked to the solar calendar, suggests something deeper than social gathering or cold weather alone.

Modern Indoor Environments May Be Starving Us of Infrared

LED bulbs emit almost no infrared. Low-emissivity (Low-E) glass windows, designed to improve energy efficiency, block most of it.

Seheult measured infrared levels in his own dining room with windows open: 0.8 watts per square meter.

Outside, under a shade tree with grass reflecting sunlight back up from all sides: 41.9 watts per square meter.

That’s more than 50 times as much.

We set up the situation where outdoors we’re getting plenty of infrared light not only from the sun but also reflecting off the grass and coming to us in plenty amounts versus being indoors where we have this low E glass blocking the infrared light and we have LED bulbs that are not producing any infrared light.

Hospitals Are Moving ICU Beds Outdoors—and Seeing Results

In Footscray, Australia, a $1.5 billion hospital was designed with ICU beds that can roll outside.

In London, King’s College Hospital spent £2 million converting its rooftop into a critical care garden with space for six patients surrounded by greenery.

St. George’s Hospital, also in London, opened a neuro-ICU rooftop garden. Queen Camilla visited in 2026.

The first patient to use King’s College rooftop ICU went outside on May 28, 2026.

Meanwhile, clinical trials using portable infrared devices have reported measurable benefits. A randomized, triple-blind, sham-controlled trial using 850 nm monochromatic light for 15 minutes daily reduced ICU length of stay by 30% and improved muscle strength in COVID-19 patients.

Another trial, also using monochromatic 940 nm light at 29 watts per square meter, cut hospital length of stay from 12 days to 8.

What’s New—and What Isn’t

The preprint by Seheult, Jeffery, Fosbury, and Zimmerman doesn’t claim to have discovered any single new phenomenon.

What’s already established:

• Mitochondrial electron transfer follows Marcus-type physics
• Red and near-infrared light alter mitochondrial function
• Water and protein structures affect electron transfer rates
• Infrared can change molecular electron transfer in isolated systems

All of that existed in separate silos.

What’s new is the integration.

The authors propose, for the first time, that infrared light modulates mitochondrial respiration by perturbing the reorganization coordinates that govern Marcus crossing configurations—changing the probability that electrons will find themselves in transfer-competent arrangements.

They introduce the term “photometabolism”: solar-driven, non-photosynthetic modulation of core metabolic processes.

And they argue this isn’t just relevant to humans—it’s a fundamental feature of life across the biosphere, from yeast at hydrothermal vents to elephants on the savanna.

The Hypothesis Is Testable

Seheult emphasized that the model makes specific, falsifiable predictions.

You could measure reorganization energies at different electron transfer sites. You could apply defined infrared wavelengths and watch which steps speed up or slow down. You could compare broadband vs. monochromatic light across a panel of mitochondrial assays.

I do believe that this hypothesis is testable. I believe there are experiments that could actually prove it or disprove it.

If the hypothesis holds, it has sweeping implications—not just for medicine, but for architecture, workplace design, lighting standards, and how we think about the relationship between life and starlight.

Rudolph Marcus passed away in 2025 at the age of 102. Months before his death, Seheult and Fosbury spoke with him on Zoom about the hypothesis.

He had spent decades proving that electrons don’t move in straight lines—they wait for the world around them to shimmer into exactly the right shape.

It turns out the sun may have been tuning that shimmer all along.

Sources

• Jeffery et al., 2025 – Longer wavelengths in sunlight pass through human body tissue
• Karu et al., 2005 – Cytochrome c oxidase as photoacceptor in near-infrared range
• Sanderson et al., 2018 – Inhibitory modulation of cytochrome c oxidase activity with 750 nm and 950 nm wavelengths
• Ma et al., 2018 – Mid-infrared excitation alters forward and reverse electron transfer rates in synthetic donor-acceptor molecule
• Hayashi et al., 2010 – Water bridges facilitate electron transfer in iron-sulfur proteins
• Daye et al., 2026 – Infrared stimulation increases growth and mitochondrial activity in deep-sea yeast isolated near hydrothermal vents
• Jeffery, 2025 – Broadband incandescent light produces greater improvement in color vision than monochromatic 850 nm
• Randomized controlled trial, 2021–2023 – 850 nm light reduced ICU length of stay by 30% in COVID-19 patients