Although some people swear to the efficacy of homeopathy's "remedies," skeptics have been fond of pointing out that these fluids are so dilute that no molecules of the active ingredients are likely to remain. Believers respond that the fluid remedies somehow retain the "essence" of the active ingredient. In effect, they maintain that water has a "memory." No wonder mainstream scientists scoff at homeopathy.

But wait. Perhaps water can have a memory! A Cal Tech chemist has put extremely dilute solutions under his electron microscope and found that some contain strange "ice" crystals, even though room temperature and pressure prevail. Called "IE crystals," they are produced through the action of ions. They are stable even at higher temperatures.

Subsequently, an immunologist at the University of California at Los Angeles discovered that the IE crystals can stimulate parts of the immune system. Water containing these strange forms of ice show a hundred times more bioactivity than plain water.

Comment. Of course, we want to see independent confirmations of the Cal Tech and UCLA work, but we hope they will be objective rather than the usual knee-jerk reactions to homeopathy. See SF#59/317 and SF#69/318 for past confrontations over homeopathy.

SCIENCE FRONTIERS
No. 121, JAN-FEB, 1999
SCIENCE FRONTIERS is a bimonthly collection of digests of scientific anomalies in the current literature. Published by the Sourcebook Project, P. O. Box 107, Glen Arm, MD 21057. Annual subscription: $7.00.
ISSN 1094-8325

http://www.knowledge.co.uk/frontiers/