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Back Of The Envelope Calculations Regarding Alexandrov, Et Al. 2009, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

The paper entitled “DNA Breathing Dynamics in the Presence of a Terahertz Field” written by Alexandrov, Gelev, Bishop, Usheva, and Rasmussen that was posted on the Physics ArXiv on October 28, 2009, dealt with the effects of terahertz electromagnetic radiation on the DNA molecule. Figure 4 of the paper indicates that a segment of DNA that is between 60 and 70 base pairs in length will develop a “bubble” (i.e. separation of the hydrogen bonds between base pairs) at a location of about 45 base pairs, when exposed to 2 THz electromagnetic radiation for a time period of at least …