Highland frogs: metamorphosis
Further links
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Amphibians and extremly diluted
thyroxine
Aim:
To document an
international
multicentre
research project
including inter-laboratory and independent repetition of experiments on the effect of highly diluted
thyroxine
on the metamorphosis of highland amphibian larvae. Research papers (see links) were published in peer reviewed, mostly PUBMED / MEDLINE listed journals, with impact factors up to 4.5.
Methods:
Thyroxine
was used because this hormone plays a key role in amphibian metamorphosis. Starting from a dilution of 10-4 parts by weight of tetra-
iodo-thyronine
sodium
pentahydrate
, the substance T30x was obtained by 26 successive steps of tenfold dilution in pure
water,
followed by vigorous agitation and was tested versus analogously prepared water (W30x). Grass frog
rana
temporaria
were taken from alpine biotopes and were treated with T30x or W30x from the 2-legged stage on by adding 3microL of probes per animal to the basin water at intervals of 48h. Two end-points were considered: first, entry into the 4-legged stage, and second, tail reduction. All experiments were performed blind.
Experiments were performed since the early 1990s by the initial team (P. C. Endler, based at that time at
Graz University
and W. Scherer-
Pongratz
at the
Graz
Boltzmann
Institute
) and by independent researchers (R. van
Wijk
from
Utrecht University
, H.
Lassnig
from the
Federal Institute of Veterinary Medical Investigation Graz
, C.
Zausner-Lukitsch
from
Vienna University
, G. Bach of
KIKOM, Bern University
and B.
Harrer
from
Patienteninformation
fuer
Naturheilkunde
Berlin
). A total of 22 sub-experiments were performed, each involving 60–100 animals per group, 15 by the initial team and 7 by the 5 independent researchers.
Results:
Independent
Metaanalysis
shows that in most sub-experiments – the sole exception being two performed and reported by the initial team themselves – a trend was found of T30x-animals being slower (up to 6 h within 3 days) than W30x-animals. Pooled T30x values obtained by the initial team were 10.4% smaller than W30x values (100%) (
p
< 0.01 and d > 0.8), and pooled T30x values from the 5 independent researchers were 12.4% smaller (p < 0.01 and d > 0.8), i.e. differences between groups were statistically highly significant and the effect size was large in either case. Analogously, the number of animals entering the juvenile stage with reduced tail was smaller for T30x than for W30x. For details, see
Experiments 1990
,
Repetition 2002
,
Repetition 2010
,
Repetition
2012
.
Conclusion:
A metamorphosis hormone diluted beyond Avogadro’s limit using a process of stepwise dilution and agitation according to instructions of homeopathy produced a clear trend of metamorphosis inhibition. This was observed by and
raw data
were made accessible by 7 researchers from
Annotation:
Similarly,
experiments on climbing activity
of highland frogs were
repeated within the team
. A detailed account of the difficulties when using
lowland animals
, a
bibliometric
survey on the international
state of repetition of fundamental research experiments
,
a
backstage report
and an
anthology “Ultra High Dilution
”
have been published previously. The
authors
are interested in an open-minded interdisciplinary discussion of results and research strategies.
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