Have you ever thought about how light emerges, how photosynthesis turns it into biological energy and how it allows us to see the world around us? Why do diseases emerge and why can they be cured by drugs, radiation and others? How is information transported to and processed in our brain?

At the most fundamental level it is the motion of electrons inside and between atoms and molecules that is responsible for all these phenomena crucial for life and health. Their oscillatory motion in and around atoms / molecules forms miniscule antennas, which serve as emitters (in natural as well as man-made light sources), receptors (in photosynthesis) and detectors (in our eyes) of light.

Their motion across biological molecules transports bio-information in our nerves and is involved in processing this information in our brain. Loosely-bound atomic electrons (chemists call them valence electrons) are responsible for binding atoms to form molecules, the smallest units of matter capable of performing biological function. This biological function changes when the structure of the molecule changes. A structural change, in turn, is triggered by motion of the electrons and by motion of electrons in the chemical bonds of the molecule, too. Hence, electron motion also is the fundamental initiator of molecular processes responsible for the emergence of a disease and the unfolding of curative effects of its treatment.

All these motions of electrons typically take place on time scales of hundreds to thousands of attoseconds. As an example, the figure shows how a charge set free at one end of a biomolecule (red cloud) migrates to the other end within about 750 attoseconds.