from NewScientist Website
AS THE old saying goes, it's good to
have an open mind but not so open that your brains fall out. This
week we report claims about the way that DNA behaves that are so
astonishing that many minds have already snapped shut.
This scenario inevitably conjures up echoes of the "water memory" experiments in 1988 by the late Jacques Benveniste (New Scientist, 14 July 1988, p 39).
Back then, Benveniste reported that
antibodies could leave a ghostly "memory" in water that made the
water behave as if the antibodies were still there, even in
solutions so dilute that no antibody molecules were left.
Eventually, his findings were dismissed, as was he.
But science should be no respecter of
persons, and the researchers we contacted for comment rightly said
his results should be ignored unless and until they have been
repeated by independent groups. Nobel laureates are not immune from
eccentric beliefs. Others believe in telepathy, have communed with
fluorescent raccoons, and championed vitamin C as a cure for cancer.
What's more, the latest paper follows earlier work by Montagnier. Given the remarkable implications of the claims and the relative simplicity of the experiments, other groups will almost certainly take a look and attempt to repeat Montagnier's results.
As one researcher told us:
Like many of the researchers we contacted for comment, we won't believe it till someone repeats it. But we do think they should try.
As with cold fusion in 1989, heretical
findings with far-reaching implications are sometimes worth
investigating, even if the chances that there is something to it all
are remote. Back then it was harnessing the power of the sun in a
test tube; in this case, our picture of infection might need a
Either way, it's important to find out.