INTERORGANISMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES THROUGH EXTREMELY WEAK ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS

¹ Department of Biological Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60201
² The Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 02543

1. The mean rate of water uptake by beans during the first four hours of their submergence in water varies substantially from day to day, even when in presumed "constant" conditions.

2. The variations in rate in independent samples at different laboratory sites and even at widely different geographic ones may show a strong positive correlation not explicable in terms of variations in any obvious factor.

3. Superimposed on a major positively correlating state, is a secondary, shorter period fluctuation wherein the correlation between different groups of samples may exhibit either a positive or a negative correlation.

4. Groups of organisms in closely juxtaposed vessels may bias one another to adopt opposite sign of correlation under some conditions and the same sign under others.

5. This interorganismic biasing may be prevented by having the paired vessels in the very weak field of a very slowly rotating (2 rpm, CW) horizontal bar magnet, or by separating the vessels by 70 cm or more. In either case, the separate vessels then appear to correlate positively and negatively with about equal frequency, indicating independence of one another.

6. Pairs of vessels upon rotating tables at 6 rpm are modified in their interactions in manners dependent upon direction of rotation. Other factors equal, CW rotation appears to favor positive correlation between members of pairs, CCW rotation favors negative correlation.

7. Platform rotation even at the very slow rate of one revolution a day (CW) appears to effect an alteration in the character of the interaction between closely apposed bean samples.

8. Partial electrical shielding by copper plates and experimental alteration of the ambient background radiation by a lead plate modify the rate of water uptake by beans.

9. The interactions between organisms and organisms and their subtle physical environment as they determine positively and negatively correlating states are able to yield biological differences, even on the order of a 2-fold range, concurrently and under the same conditions of all obvious environmental factors.

10. Parallel and concurrent variations in bean samples as widely separated as Woods Hole, Massachusetts and Evanston, Illinois, suggest wide geographic scope of at least one of the major effective subtle parameters.

11. The nature of the phenomenon for beans is of such character that it appears probable that the living embryo within the dried seed possesses the capacity to regulate to a substantial degree the rate of water absorption by the seed upon its submergence.

12. On the presumption that the phenomenon that has been treated herein is a universal biological one, the implications of these findings are great. They relate to (a) reproducibility of experimental results, (b) biological influence of the weak fields of diverse facilities and equipment employed for measurement of biological phenomena, (c) additional and subtle means through which man's alteration of his environment may influence living creatures and (d) potential practical applications of knowledge of the subject for the health sciences.