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Mon, 25 Aug 2003 15:03:00 +0100

 

Water Remembers? Homeopathy Explained?

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The Institute of Science in Society

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General Enquiries sam

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ISIS Director m.w.ho

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Water Remembers? Homeopathy Explained?

New research suggests water remembers what has been dissolved in it, even after

dilution beyond the point where no molecule of the original substances could

remain. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho reports.

 

For more than a century, practitioners of homeopathy have used highly diluted

solutions of medicinal substances to treat diseases. Some substances are diluted

way beyond the point at which no trace of the original substances could remain.

It is as though the water has retained memory of the departed molecules. This

has aroused a great deal of scepticism within the conventional medical and

scientific community. To this day, ‘homeopathic’ is used as a term of derision,

to indicate something imagined that has no reality.

 

But a series of recent discoveries in the conventional scientific community is

making people think again.

 

First, there were the South Korean chemists who discovered two years ago that

molecules dissolved in water clump together as they get more diluted (see SiS

15), which was totally unexpected; and further more, the size of the clumps

depends on the history of dilution, making a mockery of the ‘laws of chemistry’.

 

Now, physicist Louis Rey in Lausanne, Switzerland, has published a paper in the

mainstream journal, Physica A, describing experiments that suggest water does

have a memory of molecules that have been diluted away, as can be demonstrated

by a relatively new physical technique that measures thermoluminescence.

 

In this technique, the material is ‘activated’ by irradiation at low

temperature, with UV, X-rays, electron beams, or other high-energy sub-atomic

particles. This causes electrons to come loose from the atoms and molecules,

creating ‘electron-hole pairs’ that become separated and trapped at different

energy levels.

 

Then, when the irradiated material is warmed up, it releases the absorbed energy

and the trapped electrons and holes come together and recombine. This causes the

release of a characteristic glow of light, peaking at different temperatures

depending on the magnitude of the separation between electron and hole.

 

As a general rule, the phenomenon is observed in crystals with an ordered

arrangement of atoms and molecules, but it is also seen in disordered materials

such as glasses. In this mechanism, imperfections in the atomic/molecular

lattice are considered to be the sites at which luminescence appears.

 

Rey decided to use the technique to investigate water, starting with heavy water

or deuterium oxide that’s been frozen into ice at a temperature of 77K. The

absolute temperature scale (degree K, after Lord Kelvin) is used in science.

(The zero degree K is equivalent to –273 C, and deuterium is an isotope of

hydrogen which is twice as heavy as hydrogen).

 

As the ice warms up, a first peak of luminescence appears near 120K, and a

second peak near 166 K. Heavy water gives a much stronger signal than water. In

both cases, samples that were not irradiated gave no signals at all.

 

For both water and heavy water, the relative intensity of the thermoluminescence

depends on the irradiation dose. There has been a suggestion that peak 2 comes

from the hydrogen-bonded network within ice, whereas peak 1 comes from the

individual molecules. This was confirmed by looking at a totally different

material that is known to present strong hydrogen bonds, which showed a similar

glow in the peak 2 region, but nothing in peak 1.

 

Rey then investigated what would happen when he dissolved some chemicals in the

water and diluted it in steps of one hundred fold with vigorous stirring (as in

the preparation of homeopathic remedies), until he reached a concentration of 10

to the power -30 g per centilitre, and compare that to the control that has not

had any chemical dissolved in it and diluted in the same way.

 

The samples were frozen and activated with irradiation as usual.

 

Much to his surprise, when lithium chloride, LiCl, a chemical that would be

expected to break hydrogen bonds between water molecules was added, and then

diluted away, the thermoluminescent glow became reduced, but the reduction of

peak 2 was greater relative to peak 1. Sodium chloride, NaCl, had the same

effect albeit to a lesser degree.

 

It appears, therefore, that substances like LiCl and NaCl can modify the

hydrogen-bonded network of water, and that this modification remains even when

the molecules have been diluted away.

 

The fact that this ‘memory’ remains, in spite of, or because of vigorous

stirring or shaking at successive dilutions, indicates that the ‘memory’ is by

no means static, but depends on a dynamic process, perhaps a collective quantum

excitation of water molecules that has a high degree of stability (see " The

strangeness of water and homeopathic memory " , SiS 15).

 

Source

Rey L. Thermoluminescence of ultra-high dilutions of lithium chloride and sodium

chloride. Physica A 2003, 323, 67-74.

 

Living with the Fluid Genome

By Mae-Wan Ho, ISIS-TWN, London & Penang, ISBN: 0-9544923-0-7, 2003.

 

Inside story from a scientist who has warned that genetic engineering is both

dangerous and futile. Tells you why the whole biotech enterprise - from GM crops

to gene drugs and human cloning – is a phenomenal waste of public finance and

scientific imagination, and what it means to be living with the fluid genome.

 

Soon to be on sale in bookstores, and still available from ISIS’ on-line

bookstore

 

Details here.

 

Some words of mouth

 

" Probably the most disturbing book of recent times, on a par with Rachel

Carson’s Silent Spring. Opens the lid on the intellectual corruption of Western

science. " Noel Lynch, Green Member of the London Assembly, UK

 

" This book serves a need to describe the obvious to literate and astute masses!

As educators, we need to critically analyse our failure to convey the

fundamental biological insight of life as a continuum to our students. " R.H.

Richardson, Professor of Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, USA

 

" A trenchant, lucid and thrilling account of how a multi-billion industry has

been built on fraudulent concepts. " Caroline Clarke, Concerned Citizens of

Burnhams, UK

 

" An excellent scientific summary; explains in layperson’s language the

differences between GM and non-GM DNA, the problems of GM, and how GM has come

from a flawed, narrow, reductionist concept of a static genetic structure. It

brings to life the reality of the fluid genome as part of the dynamic,

integrated whole. " Margaret Stronach, Friends of the Earth, Wokingham, UK

 

" Mae-Wan Ho is the tenacious champion of a heretical science that is

fast-becoming the mainstream. " Dr. Finn Bowring, School of Social Sciences,

Cardiff University, UK

 

" An exposé of the risks of genetic engineering and a warning to developing

countries that new technologies are not necessarily beneficial, appropriate or

needed. " Martin Khor, Director, Third World Network

 

" This enlightening book takes you through the theoretical and empirical evidence

on why we must totally reject the creation of Frankenstein foods. " Edward

Goldsmith, Founding Editor of The Ecologist.

 

 

 

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General Enquiries sam

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