Seppo Vainio is a professor of developmental biology at the University of Oulu in Finland. He is also the scientific director of the Kvantum institute and deputy director of the "GeneCellNano" flagship initiative. In 1992, Vainio obtained his doctorate in embryology at the University of Helsinki, and in 1997 he completed his postdoctoral studies at Harvard University. Currently, Prof. Vainio is a lecturer at the University of Oulu. His research focuses on organogenesis and extracellular vesicles—nano-sized bubbles secreted by all the cells in an organism. These were discovered in the middle of the last century, but were initially considered cell waste. It is now clear that they are a tool for intercellular communication. Seppo Vainio's research has provided insight into how these vesicles participate in the development and interaction of various organs and tissues. At the university's Infotech research centre, Vainio's main area of study is novel biosensor strategies. Vainio is the author of more than 230 scientific publications, which have been cited more than 16,780 times, and his h-index is 63.

Beyond all of this, Seppo Vainio, as noted by his friend Ari Turunen, is also a former punk rocker, a drummer named Sidi who still plays, and he has a meditation room in his home in Helsinki with Tibetan singing bowls.

Rīgas Laiks: Tell me, is nature the primary object of your research?

Seppo Vainio: Yes. After all, I am a biologist by training.

RL: What exactly is nature?

Vainio: Philosophically, or in general?

RL: I am asking about the concept itself. What do you mean by the word "nature"?

Vainio: Living creatures.

RL: Flora, fauna, fungi?

Vainio: Yes, all of it together. Bacteria, viruses, fungi. Of course, there are many species we haven't identified, but there are those about which we know a great deal, such as bears, wolves, fish, birds, frogs.

RL: So, in answer to my question, is nature a bag full of living creatures?

Vainio: In general, yes. That, of course, is a philosophical question—whether the whole planet together is not nature. What belongs to nature? This concept could be applied to the entire Universe.

RL: But didn't you say that nature is everything alive?

Vainio: Well, in that case we can ask: what is life?

RL: As far as I know, there is no answer to that yet. A biologist friend of mine said this: “Biologists aren't interested in life, they are interested in living organisms. They don't even think about what life is.”

Vainio: We had a discussion earlier about human mortality, and I was talking about limited lifespans. If you look at bacteria, at cancer—we are actually an exception. Bacteria, for example, are a fairly indivisible form of life; they inhabit the entire planet. And then there is the so-called Gaia hypothesis: species evolve to be able to spread across the planet. Afterwards, these organisms become increasingly complex. And that is how we, in essence, become mortal, because we are...

RL: ...too evolved to live forever.

Vainio: Yes. But returning to the question of nature—it, in my view, is rooted in evolution. Let's assume things develop gradually. And if we think about the evolution of culture or, for example, the fact that there is chemical evolution, cosmic evolution, then—the evolution of life... Artists have begun to speculate that perhaps now the evolution of robots has begun: ChatGPT, artificial intelligence, and the like. The question arises: is this something for which we are only an intermediate stage? But as a biologist who is trying to understand what life is... This could be the next great turning point. For example, like Einstein's theory of relativity. A lot of it is based on measurements.

RL: On things that can be measured?

Vainio: You have to think about the prehistory. We were the yardstick, the point of reference for everything. But because you see the world differently, measurements are necessary. In the Western world, it is accepted to think that we are separate from the world, because we do not actually see our own inside—the real living systems—we only see the surface. But we are undeniably located inside ourselves, and that is perhaps why we are different. Yet science strives to be objective and attempts to find an absolute definition, so that a person knows who they are and what they look like. To do that precisely, measurements must be carried out. Because of them, measuring instruments were introduced. Using them from a scientific point of view is justified by the fact that in everyday life we only use our senses. And because we are all collectively separated from the world—I translate information from my senses to my consciousness—science has introduced these devices so that things can be objectively measured. Also, the reason for using these devices is that my brain is in some way separated and receives these impressions. In that way, I learn. I learn what I can eat, what I can do, I can be active. But in reality, the inside of my brain is separated from the rest of my body. Imagination can translate physical things and affect the body; this is considered pseudoscience, based on the fact that we lack a mechanistic understanding. Our project is about a paradigm shift. All the cells in our brain communicate, neurons form connections. To connect everything correctly, a mediator is needed. That is why there are such small carriers that travel from one to the other. One can say that information is moved along bridges, so to speak.

RL: From one neuron to another?

Vainio: Yes, there are billions of them. They are called synaptic vesicles. It was thought that this was a unique brain function, that these synaptic vesicles operated only in the brain, without crossing its boundary. But that implies there is some boundary separating the brain from the rest of the body. To explain what is happening in the brain or in my system as a whole, other means are needed. It turns out that this is not just how the brain functions. It happens everywhere, even in nature.

RL: How was that discovered? Does it happen at the molecular level?

Vainio: Yes. That is an interesting story if we wind it back all the way to Democritus—the guy who reasoned that matter is made of atoms.

RL: Indivisible units.

Vainio: It took quite a long time until the existence of atoms was proven. Until then, it was just an idea. Now we believe that atoms exist, and we have plenty of evidence for it. But this idea came from Democritus's brain. He voiced it and wrote it down. And after a significantly longer time, science and technology reached a stage where it could be proven. Take into account what I said about the brain. For example, biochemists who study blood. There are devices that can separate specific blood elements. However, the resolution is still not high enough to identify finer details. The same applies to the new paradigm about the units of life that are transported between cells. Brain vesicles, which are more or less physical entities, perform the transfer. Suppose this is one nerve, and this one—the other. And this—the synaptic gap. Then the transfer happens. A signal is created. A connection is established with the next neuron. The entire mechanism is based on tiny vesicles or spheres. They are like droplets of fat, round, invisible to the naked eye. And they are everywhere in the brain. And they cross the border between the brain and the bloodstream. So, theoretically, there are bridges by which my imagination can transfer constructed molecular information. And in the blood, there is this substance which we can extract. That is why we use massive g-force...

RL: Gravitational, or what kind?

Vainio: Nowadays, ultracentrifugation is used.

RL: What do you mean by g-force?

Vainio: It is centrifugation, in which a lot of additional force is applied. In centrifugation, rotation is used, by which one can separate...

RL: I wanted to understand how it was discovered that these connections are everywhere, not just in the brain. But they are not neurotransmitters, it is something else.

Vainio: Yes. But we can think of them as neurotransmitters that are in the blood. They are also in urine, sweat, saliva. Blood was perhaps the first place where they were discovered.

RL: You are talking very quickly. Perhaps tell me in more detail: what exactly was discovered?

Vainio: It was determined that there are tiny pico-, nano-, and micro-sized vesicles in them—like droplets.

RL: And is there a network around them?

Vainio: They are considered a new mechanism by which cells package information.

RL: New in the sense that science discovered it recently?

Vainio: Yes. These vesicles are a newly discovered way in which information is transferred. Like a message in a bottle.

RL: How was it discovered that this same mechanism works everywhere?

Vainio: Various fields attest to this. The main experiment was carried out in Sweden by Jan Lötvall. He published an article in the journal Nature about the fact that these things move to other cells and transfer genes. Cells or molecules package information in such a way, it is like a parcel. Cells can put whatever they want inside there. And so cells can move information either from the brain to the body, or vice versa.

RL: Why do you say that molecules are alive or that each molecule is alive?

Vainio: Vibrations are alive. There is a process called cymatics. By using sound and vibrations, one can simulate almost any living organism.

RL: But, from your point of view, at what level does life begin? According to you, atoms are not alive. Molecules might be alive, might not be. Bacteria are already alive. At what point does life begin?

Vainio: I have written a lot on this topic.

RL: Well, I haven't read it. A lot of it is in Finnish.

Vainio: I have written about evolutionary theory. Life began in the sea, where atoms somehow formed molecules, but then living systems arose. I reasoned: well then, nature works just like we do, it created elements in a place where there is water. Let's assume I hand you a glass, you can drink from it and pass it around. Maybe add something to it first. Life is such a moving system. So, first came atoms, then—molecules. Afterwards, new information structures arise that move the mixture of life's primordial soup. Then, let's assume, we were formed—something that resembles a cell but is, in fact, already alive. In my opinion, life is more or less an exchange of content, a constant exchange of information.

RL: If we look at it that way, then life begins at a very low level of complexity. Do you consider every molecule to be alive?

Vainio: In my opinion, we must be more open to new ideas: thinking is only one tool. We could use our senses more broadly—in a ritualistic, almost shamanic way, using all the tools available to us to understand what is happening.

RL: Alright, then a personal question: what helped you study this subject? Meditation? Shamanic practices?

Vainio: Essentially, all of that. You see, what I do is, in principle, like a work of art: I am trying to encompass the entire Universe. I have quite large ambitions. I truly would like to arrive at something that would explain in more detail what all of this is really about. It is quite crazy: I look in the mirror and look the way I look. Paradoxically, I eat, drink, make myself who I am—that all happens, but I have no particular intuition about it, it has happened automatically. I said: “I am myself, I am powerful.” Understand, in that sense I am the ruler of the Universe. Our brains are universal; ancient Indians and others talked about this. We communicate with trees and other living organisms. That largely influences our thinking, possibly our diet and illnesses. Illnesses also evolve, after all.

RL: Do you communicate with trees?

Vainio: Theoretically, yes.

RL: Have you ever done it consciously?

Vainio: I have, but not scientifically. Half the day, trees produce similar tiny vesicles, and they end up in lung cells. Actually, what we are talking about is quite similar to the coronavirus. These particles are also linked to many illnesses.

RL: Recently I spoke with a Canadian epigenetically-minded researcher who told me about genome predisposition to various illnesses. Over the course of the conversation, he agreed that the most miraculous aspect of the story of human origin is cell differentiation: in the beginning there is one type of cell, but they are multifunctional. Some form specific nails, others—the brain, still others—skin or eyes. Their functions differ, but their origin is similar.

Vainio: I am an embryologist by specialty.

RL: That is why I mentioned it. This epigenetics researcher agreed that cell formation is the most mystical, because there is the least knowledge about it. It is not understood why cells develop such specific functions, what determines that in the embryo stage of a being. Have you arrived at any interesting answer to this question?

Vainio: For my part, we could probably talk about how those vesicles are involved in all of this. First of all, molecules also regulate epigenesis. So these vesicles, in principle, carry micro-RNA—genetic material that suppresses gene expression. But they also carry epigenetic factors.

RL: Really? Epigenetic factors can also be external, after all.

Vainio: I am talking about secretions. They carry molecules, enzymes, proteins, genes—everything. The vesicles have created their own language, which is passed throughout.

RL: So is the determining factor the set of molecules?

Vainio: It is like a message that delivers information. When I say a word, you understand something. Afterwards we talk more, clarify this and that. Similarly, there is a constant dialogue between cells. It is, in essence, a new communication mechanism. It is pico-, nano-, and micro-scale communication, invisible to the naked eye. That is also why we didn't know it existed.

RL: But it is hypothetical.

Vainio: Oh, no!

RL: Have you seen how cells communicate at the nano-level?

Vainio: We and many others have seen it. There is electron microscopy for that.

RL: With which one can see cell communication?

Vainio: Yes. We can also do it in real time.

RL: When cells communicate with each other, can we speak of a specific language in which they communicate? Or is it a simple exchange of signals?

Vainio: Yes, in essence, it is a language. In our opinion, these vesicles are like the notes of life. It is like writing a composition: one needs many notes to be able to create different melodies with different characteristics. If we speak about cells, for example, muscles, nerves, then this differentiation truly does exist. I agree, how new species arise or an individual tree, or each one of us, is still difficult to understand.

RL: Is there still no understanding of it?

Vainio: I understand the basic principles, but the real things happen at a finer level. That is why this finger also differs from the other, although they consist mostly of the same thing. When these dialogues take place, a coding system is involved. I can recognize you among tens of thousands of people because you look different than anyone else. You are not cloned.

RL: In the origin of things, there is an interesting question as to at which level it happens. It seems that the number of variations is not infinite. Physicists say that all electrons are identical, there is no differentiation. But at a certain level, progressive differentiation begins, which becomes infinite: the number of these cells is infinite, and they are not identical, or rather, no one being is identical to another. Empress Catherine did not believe in Leibniz's philosophy—that there are no two identical leaves. She ordered workers in the garden to find two identical leaves; they struggled significantly. In the end, they said: forgive us, we didn't find any. I assert, almost at a metaphysical, ontological level, that there are no two identical things at any level. Could that be the case from your perspective as a scientist?

Vainio: Well yes, that is the essence of life, after all. Nowadays, there are various "-omics," which means that we can take all the cells and see specific actions at the level of a single cell. If the cells look like cancer cells, we perform spatial transcriptomics: all the cells are identified and the differences are determined in those that form the tumour. It looks like the heterogeneity is indeed large. But each of these cells must be defined. For example, we are here. We know that we are here because there is a specific address. A specific time. We are in Finland. In a similar way, cells must know that this finger is different from the other.

RL: Why would cells in one finger have to know anything about those that are in another finger? They wouldn't care. Just as you are not interested in what is happening in Kaliningrad.

Vainio: When the palm formed in the embryo, apparently someone needed this separation.

RL: And who is this someone who had to know that?

Vainio: Good question. In theory, I myself should know that, because I created myself. That is the paradox: I look in the mirror, and it seems insane to me that I myself have created my finger.

RL: Do you want to say that you have created yourself?

Vainio: At some level—yes. I consist of cells, after all.

RL: That doesn't mean that you have created yourself.

Vainio: Yes, but I am part of a wider chain. Previous generations. According to evolution, the meaning of life is to die.

RL: Is that your formula, or did you borrow it from someone?

Vainio: I don't know, maybe I borrowed it. But it turns out, if an organism lives forever, evolution does not happen. Differences arise through meiosis of sperm and egg cells. Thus genes mix. Unique combinations arise. Charles Darwin formulated the theory of pangenesis. In the late 19th century, the microscope was invented; he knew that, for example, muscles consist of individual cells. We are made up of trillions of cells. He reasoned this way: if heredity happens, how do I transfer my information to the next generation in the sex act? He arrived at the idea that every cell transfers small particles to the sperm. He called these particles gemmules. We have revived this theory. In my opinion, it is interesting.

RL: And what did it change?

Vainio: It is like the difference between Newton's world and the world of the theory of relativity.

RL: Radical changes?

Vainio: Indeed. It is definitely a paradigm shift. I mentioned at the beginning that science is based on measurements. We interact with objects that we measure. We are not independent and are always in the centre of everything, this also applies to the exchange of information. So, there is also a sociobiological dimension: when I talk to you, you don't see it, but I infect you with these particles. There is evidence that this aerosol exists. It sounds quite poetic, but my spirit really is floating in the air. These particles are so small, it is like a gas. We form a sort of biological aura around ourselves. That is how we exchange information, too. When I walk through the forest, the tree physically enters me—theoretically. But we are still studying that.

RL: Do trees enter you because they emit oxygen?

Vainio: That, of course, too. But they also produce vesicles. They emit them like sweat.

RL: You know, they sound like some kind of mythical little bubbles to me. Have you seen them yourself?

Vainio: Yes, we have evidence that they are in spruce trees. In berries, food. Also in wine, beer.

RL: So we can exchange those bubbles?

Vainio: That hasn't been proven yet, however C. elegans...

RL: What is C. elegans?

Vainio: Small worms. They can be genetically corrected, all sorts of things can be played with their brain signals.

RL: Are the brain cells of these little animals sending something to each other?

Vainio: They are the same bubbles that operate in my brain as well. That is just how it is. Science is simply huge, it is developing. But we have the data, there are many studies. This field is currently developing crazily. 100–120 of our scientists are working on this.

RL: I still would like to understand in what way a tree enters you, if not through oxygen.

Vainio: It produces these bubbles. You inhale them. Like the coronavirus in the lungs. That is how they reach the body. Well, and there is my brain. There is this brain-blood barrier, which doesn't allow molecular information to pass through. The question: how could this information still get there? And it gets there via this bubble. In essence, cells recognize these bubbles.

RL: When did scientists begin working in this field?

Vainio: In 2017. It is quite new.

RL: I have gotten the impression that science is always looking for light. But like a drunkard who doesn't know where he lost his key, so he looks where it is brighter, where something can be seen.

Vainio: That is indeed the case. Here, intuition and imagination also kick in. Ideas are constructed. Afterwards, we discuss them. You inhale them. They are transmitted from my brain to yours, and you decode them anew.

RL: Can this also happen during a phone call?

Vainio: What I am talking about is much more. That is why I don't like ChatGPT, artificial intelligence, and all that rubbish. I am also a musician. Let's say you go to a studio, there are 100 instruments there. To create music, everyone plays their own. Together they form something that sounds like music. To create a unified story, instruments are needed. I am a drummer; if you turn the drum channel up all the way, the drums will dominate in the song, one will hear only them. It is similar with communication. Once upon a time, we exchanged visual impressions, through hearing, touch. Dancing and drinking—that is an entire culture. Nowadays, we receive information primarily visually, a little bit through hearing, but the whole thing is gradually disappearing. We are losing the tone—as if from a song we only understand a part. It seems to me that digital learning is even worse.

RL: Can this exchange of information happen while we are talking on the phone? How can your brain's bubbles reach mine?

Vainio: It is clear that it cannot happen. The basis for such an exchange of information is aerosol physics. But the question is interesting. I think a lot about Plato's world of ideas. To someone, for example, the idea of a bicycle comes to mind, they think about how it would work. In the end, a thing like bicycles exists in the world. I think about how this world of ideas can be built in the brain as a material expression and spread in the sociobiological community. But it is only a hypothesis. We, however, can already study it at the moment.

RL: How can you study it?

Vainio: There was one interesting TED lecture about words. Google had digitized 50,000 books. And one researcher tried to somehow rationally use these books. So he asked the question: in which period of history did we begin to realize that each one of us is an "I", and not someone else? Without surprise—it was in the time of the ancient Greeks. He started to categorize words and their usage. In the end, he created an algorithm, with which, based on what a person says to him, he could predict whether the speaker would not end up in an asylum in two years. It is an almost alchemical process. These, without a doubt, are only assumptions. We can think about life like a box of spices. In the East, when cooking, one can add curry, garlic, salt, and the like. They have some 50 spices. And then there would be the Latvian taste.

RL: With three spices.

Vainio: And the food you prepare will differ from mine. My salmon soup will taste different, because I will have chosen other spices. It is similar with life: we all have the same building materials. But these bubbles mean that there are many variations in life. I am trying to offer the understanding that the choice of ingredients affects the entire life story, which includes both biological complexity and narrative complexity.

RL: Is narrative complexity part of life?

Vainio: Without a doubt. It even has its own philosophical side. If we think about the influence created by our conversation. When you go home, you will wake up in the morning, and maybe something will have happened under the influence of our conversation.

RL: A bubble?

Vainio: It could be anything. It depends on your context and how my bubbles have influenced yours. We are like chemists who exchange substances.

RL: Can we apply that to words? Assume that words are also bubbles?

Vainio: That is the point—words are functions of symbols, they are abstract. They are nothing.

RL: Then are they bubble shells?

Vainio: When we talk, it is similar to the exchange of bubble messages. That, in my opinion, is the essence of the principle. One has to think about frequencies, electrons. I can say one thing in different ways, change the frequency. Thus, an intervention in the world of bubbles occurs. Depending on my organization and brain, how I talk, in essence, influences you. It determines how strong the message is. Whether I am telling the truth or thinking to myself that I would prefer to drink another beer and go home. That all affects my message and how you will perceive this message.

RL: Intuitively, I am ready to agree with that, but I had not expected it to be confirmed from a scientific perspective.

Vainio: Yes, but that is exactly how science works. One must express new ideas and test them. This is currently a testable idea.

RL: But how can it be tested?

Vainio: You see, we have urine samples, we can test. We can have you talk for one hour, then extract all the vesicles. Repeat with 1,000 more people. Then analyze all the words with machine learning.

RL: And you will be able to recognize the system?

Vainio: Maybe. Well, that is the hypothesis.

RL: How did you start becoming interested in sweat?

Vainio: At one time, my intention was to understand how it would be possible to combine electronics with bioelectronics, so that it would be possible to carry out biochemical measurements. At that time, the most important companies in the market were Nokia and Polar.

RL: What does that have to do with sweat?

Vainio: I'll tell you right away. I work in the medical industry, therefore. I am a scientist who wants to share happiness and peace (laughs).

RL: Have you done anything good for humanity?

Vainio: Not yet. But that is why there is the story about sweat. Sweat is an interesting opportunity to combine bioelectronic technology with digital technology. A sports watch could carry out real measurements.

RL: Analyze sweat? Urine has long been used in diagnostics. Could sweat be able to tell something else?

Vainio: We have various sweat glands. We sweat out of fear or if we have eaten spicy food, or if we fall ill.

RL: Do these sweats differ chemically?

Vainio: Most likely. We don't know that for sure. My thought is this: let's assume, when you turn on speakers, an indicator lamp flashes, it is red. That means that a record can be put into the player. Similarly, in my opinion, the body also gives signals if any changes are occurring in it. The system reports to me, to you, to the others. When we were monkeys or not quite as smart, we used this information as biological hints. It was used as a biological language. In that sense, sweat is great. My idea would be to provide everyone in the world with such a wristwatch, so that it would be possible to learn more about our genes and heredity.

RL: I hope you are already investing in a company that would develop sweat detectors for all of humanity, because then you will become filthy rich.

Vainio: Possibly.

RL: But let's imagine a scenario where it would be possible to diagnose schizophrenia with sweat analysis.

Vainio: It would be.

RL: Everyone would have these watches, and the Finnish secret service would find out that in Finnish society there are actually 100 times more schizophrenics. They would ask themselves: "What should we do with this information?"

Vainio: That is a good question. One must think about the entire social organization in which we are linked and influence each other. Returning to the question about sweat: I have an unwritten theory of illnesses, which in principle is reducible to these bubbles. I have a good basis to say that, because medicine is a mess. There is no system, no formula. There are theories about DNA, proteins, and the like. But there is no clear principle that leads to illnesses.

RL: Is there no unified understanding?

Vainio: There is not. Okay, it is clear that here and there specific genes are missing or there are variants, due to which genes do not work as they should. It is understandable why only those cases which have already developed are studied in depth. But science should also look to the future. My prediction, based on what I know at the moment: we are facing some serious trouble.

RL: As Finns, Europeans, or humans?

Vainio: For everyone. That is why we are also thinking about the health of the planet, species differentiation, the importance of exosomes, and all this idea. A paradigm shift means that we have to rethink many things, including the origin of illnesses. We have worked blindly and developed technologies, not knowing that this subtle communication system exists in nature. Understanding must be changed at least about the causes. One must think about the gut, in which the microbiome lives. That, in turn, is linkable to food, about which Hippocrates already spoke: let thy food be thy medicine. In essence, our work is to create the understanding that we do this to ourselves because we live the way we live. That interestingly resonates with what Jesus said: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." It is similar with many things, I could have many examples: nuclear energy, LSD, and the like. It seemed to us: that is all harmless, simply take LSD, and everything will be fine. Or—make plutonium, and nothing will happen. Suddenly, as events move forward, we see that problems actually arise. Now we know that this nano-, pico-world exists. And we have simply destroyed everything. It is no wonder we have problems. We should better understand nature's subtlety. And that is a question on the scale of the entire planet: we must care not only for humans, but also for our relationships with other species on their broadest scale.

RL: And what is wrong with LSD?

Vainio: No, I don't think there is anything wrong with it. Science consists of discoveries. But the question is whether a person trains themselves, using their thinking and meditation, creating their own abilities, or simply ingests chemical substances.

RL: Have you arrived at any significant scientific discoveries under the influence of psychoactive substances?

Vainio: I have gone a bit crazy now and then. But I haven't used very strong psychoactive substances. It is possible that my brain works too actively anyway. Psychoactive substances could land me in an asylum for life.

RL: I have been saving a question about intelligence for a long time. It sounds like one can attribute a certain level of intelligence to cells. Otherwise, their communication seems pointless and wouldn't work.

Vainio: Yes, that is how it is. You know, the more deeply I look at nature, the more I wonder myself. Everything works. We are talking about these vesicles, bubbles, which operate as a universal system, perhaps because of them one really has to change one's thinking.

RL: Perhaps one has to reformulate what intelligence is.

Vainio: The institution where I am scientific director also studies space issues—the Sun, planets, and so on. Scientists are allowed to be a little crazy. Newton, for example, was an alchemist. He carried out many experiments which were not appreciated in his time. In my field, too, there is a lot of philosophizing about how everything is linked to everything.

RL: What in nature surprises you the most?

Vainio: Integration. If we go down to the level of a single cell.

RL: Do you admire the possibility of a single cell?

Vainio: Yes. You see, if we think about a smartphone: it consists of tiny parts, but they are all known. There is no challenge for me there. However, the origin of our life is still a black box.

RL: And what exactly do we not understand?

Vainio: The fundamental problem of science is that if we cannot measure something, it does not exist for science. So, if you don't know that something exists, you cannot develop a device for measuring it. However, in the life sciences, there is a principle that as a result of evolution, as a result of chemical reactions, cells from the early "soup" created us as humans, with certain characteristics. So now we could take our cells, turn them into stem cells, and reduce them back to pluripotent cells. Yamanaka got a Nobel Prize for this. In essence, we can now correct genes, which means we can read all the genes that are in databases. However, thinking about genes as the essential propulsion of hardware, we still look with blind eyes. Because we don't know what is actually happening. We rely only on devices.

RL: Is planet Earth alive?

Vainio: Indeed.

RL: In what sense?

Vainio: There is a lot of energy exchange, there is movement. To understand nature better, one must be open to different approaches. And this interdisciplinarity, with which we attempt to understand the miraculous events we experience and which we call life—that is an exciting journey.

RL: In the traditional understanding, a miracle is something contrary to a natural process. What did you mean by this word?

Vainio: Let's take Jesus Christ as an example. Let's assume that he really could transform after death, wake up, and go to heaven. It seems to me that not enough is thought about that: is it only a fairy tale, or does it tell of a real possibility for a person to do that? If we think about these vesicles in the brain, the brain's possibilities are much greater than we could have imagined. I could even say that, talking about my influence on reality, anything is possible. You could meditate here. Maybe I could influence you without saying a single word, because the biological language would do everything. That is only an assumption. Science mainly deals with fairly trivial questions. There are not many super-exciting discoveries—such as those that Einstein, Newton, or Copernicus had.

RL: What is the most important thing you have understood in your life?

Vainio: One—these bubbles. The second—female sex determination. A view prevailed—similar to that about Adam and Eve—that females arise only by correcting the masculine. But the feminine sex has a fixed direction. We proved that it is an active process. That the feminine also has to be created. Thus it refutes what is written in the Bible.

RL: Thank you. At least someone is doing something about it! (Laughs.)

Article from the July 2024 issue of Rīgas Laiks magazine