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  • 2016-11-02 (xsd:date)
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  • Did a Study Confirm Humans Can Literally Feed Off Each Other's Energy? (en)
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  • In August 2016, web site Simple Capacity posted a curious story (Science Finally Confirms that People Absorb Energy from Others) which subsequently went viral on a number of meditation or alternative health and science social media pages. The article is a reprint of something first written on 22 November 2012 and published on the PreventDisease.com website. That author’s main claim was well summarized by the first two sentences of the article: This article distorted the findings of an actual scientific study about a species of green algae called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. That research, published in the journal Nature Communications on 20 November 2012, demonstrated that, in addition to photosynthesis, this species of green algae, under sub-optimal growing conditions, can derive energy by breaking down and consuming the cellulose (the main molecule of a green plant’s cell walls) of other nearby plants, as reported in a Universitaet Bielefeld press release: The paper also speculated that this technology could be used to convert cellulose waste (e.g. crops, paper, etc.) into a form of carbon that could be used as a biofuel, a process that currently relies on a type of fungi that needs additional sources of energy to grow. The press release continued on to speculate that If, in future, cellulose enzymes can be obtained from algae, there would be no more need for the organic material to feed the fungi. In the case of the Simple Capacity viral story, the major leap from the scientific study to pseudoscience occurred when psychologist and energy healer Dr. Olivia Bader-Lee (who may be a fictional character created for the purpose of promoting this one claim) commented on the study. The logic of the transition was not subtle: Bader-Lee’s claim was that this study of a specific species of algae reinforced a mystical notion that humans can sense and feed from one another’s energy: If, however, humans did act like Chlamydomonas reinhardtii when they couldn’t create food for themselves, it would be a macabre undertaking. The algae literally consume the physical organic matter of other plants, not some unseen, untapped metaphysical form of energy. The analogous concept for humans would be cannibalism. To be consistent with the study, humans would also be required to be built of cellulose (which we are not), as the algae’s mechanism for deriving energy from other plants is to produce an enzyme that breaks down the cellulose and converts it into a form that can be consumed by its own cells. This viral news story was a prime example of a poorly executed bait and switch. It provided results of an actual study to gain credibility before switching into unsubstantiated, unverifiable, and illogical claims, forcing a connection that — like Dr. Olivia Bader-Lee herself — will no appear, no matter how hard you look for it. (en)
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