Water Clusters and Homeopathy (was Avogadros number)

[Pj Broadfoot]

Andy,
This may be the reference you were seeking. In addition, there
are many new evidential studies coming to light, including photoluminescence,
Benveniste's work and subsequent corroboration from other researchers, not to
mention studies in chaos mathematics and fractals, et.al. We are just now
beginning to discover the science behind all the intuitive work and research
on live beings.
Bizarre chemical discovery gives homeopathic hint
19:00 07 November 01
It is a chance discovery so unexpected it defies belief and threatens to
reignite debate about whether there is a scientific basis for thinking homeopathic
medicines really work.

A team in South Korea has discovered a whole new dimension to just about the
simplest chemical reaction in the book - what happens when you dissolve a
substance in water and then add more water.

Conventional wisdom says that the dissolved molecules simply spread further
and further apart as a solution is diluted. But two chemists have found that
some do the opposite: they clump together, first as clusters of molecules, then
as bigger aggregates of those clusters. Far from drifting apart from their
neighbours, they got closer together.

The discovery has stunned chemists, and could provide the first scientific
insight into how some homeopathic remedies work. Homeopaths repeatedly dilute
medications, believing that the higher the dilution, the more potent the remedy
becomes.

Some dilute to "infinity" until no molecules of the remedy remain. They
believe that water holds a memory, or "imprint" of the active ingredient which is
more potent than the ingredient itself. But others use less dilute solutions -
often diluting a remedy six-fold. The Korean findings might at last go some
way to reconciling the potency of these less dilute solutions with orthodox
science.
Completely counterintuitive
German chemist Kurt Geckeler and his colleague Shashadhar Samal stumbled on
the effect while investigating fullerenes at their lab in the Kwangju Institute
of Science and Technology in South Korea. They found that the football-shaped
buckyball molecules kept forming untidy aggregates in solution, and Geckler
asked Samal to look for ways to control how these clumps formed.

What he discovered was a phenomenon new to chemistry. "When he diluted the
solution, the size of the fullerene particles increased," says Geckeler. "It was
completely counterintuitive," he says.

Further work showed it was no fluke. To make the otherwise insoluble
buckyball dissolve in water, the chemists had mixed it with a circular sugar-like
molecule called a cyclodextrin. When they did the same experiments with just
cyclodextrin molecules, they found they behaved the same way. So did the organic
molecule sodium guanosine monophosphate, DNA and plain old sodium chloride.

Dilution typically made the molecules cluster into aggregates five to 10
times as big as those in the original solutions. The growth was not linear, and it
depended on the concentration of the original.

"The history of the solution is important. The more dilute it starts, the
larger the aggregates," says Geckeler. Also, it only worked in polar solvents
like water, in which one end of the molecule has a pronounced positive charge
while the other end is negative.
Biologically active
But the finding may provide a mechanism for how some homeopathic medicines
work - something that has defied scientific explanation till now. Diluting a
remedy may increase the size of the particles to the point when they become
biologically active.

It also echoes the controversial claims of French immunologist Jacques
Benveniste. In 1988, Benveniste claimed in a Nature paper that a solution that had
once contained antibodies still activated human white blood cells. Benveniste
claimed the solution still worked because it contained ghostly "imprints" in
the water structure where the antibodies had been.

Other researchers failed to reproduce Benveniste's experiments, but
homeopaths still believe he may have been onto something. Benveniste himself does not
think the new explain his results because the solutions were not dilute enough.
"This [phenomenon] cannot apply to high dilution," he says.

Fred Pearce of University College London, who tried to repeat Benveniste's
experiments, agrees. But it could offer some clues as to why other less dilute
homeopathic remedies work, he says. Large clusters and aggregates might
interact more easily with biological tissue.
Double-check
Chemist Jan Enberts of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands is more
cautious. "It's still a totally open question," he says. "To say the
phenomenon has biological significance is pure speculation." But he has no doubt Samal
and Geckeler have discovered something new. "It's surprising and worrying,"
he says.
PJ (Paula Jo) Broadfoot DVM Van Buren, AR
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