Biological Function and Health
One example of such a system is…you. By volume, two-thirds of your cells consist of water. In terms of the molecular fraction, this translates to more than 99% because so many of those diminutive molecules are required to build that two-thirds volume fraction. Modern cell biology considers that 99% of your molecules as mere background carriers of the “important” molecules of life, such as proteins and nucleic acids. Or, put another way, conventional wisdom asserts that 99% of your molecules don’t do very much.
However, EZ water envelops every macromolecule in the cell. Those macromolecules are so tightly packed that the enveloping liquid-crystalline water largely fills the intervening space. In other words, most of your cell water is EZ water. This water plays a central role in everything the cell does, as elaborated in my earlier book, Cells, Gels, and the Engines of Life.
What’s new is the role of radiant energy: incident radiant energy powers many of those cellular functions. An example is the blood flowing through your capillaries. That blood eventually encounters high resistance: capillaries are often narrower than the red blood cells that must pass through them. To make their way through, those red cells need to bend and contort. You’d anticipate the need for lots of driving pressure to succeed in driving those cells through the capillaries; yet, the pressure gradient across the capillary bed is negligibly small.
The paradox resolves if radiant energy helps propel flow through capillaries in the same way that it propels flow through hydrophilic tubes (Fig. 2). We recently confirmed the validity of that mechanism in the mammalian circulatory system. We found first that after the heartbeat had been terminated, flow continued (albeit at lower rate). Something beyond the heart can apparently drive the blood. We then tested the signature feature of the flow phenomenon (Fig. 2): propulsion by radiant infrared energy. We added infrared energy and found a reversible blood-flow increase of about 300%. Thus, radiant energy may constitute an unsuspected source of vascular drive, supplementing the heart. And, this propulsion mechanism appears to work through the medium of water.
Why you feel good after a sauna now seems more understandable. If radiant energy drives capillary flow, and ample capillary flow is important for optimal functioning, then sitting in the sauna should inevitably be a feel-good experience. The infrared energy associated with heat should help drive that flow.
The same if you walk out into sunlight: we presume that the feel-good experience derives purely from the psychological realm; but the evidence above implies that sunlight may build your body’s EZs. Fully built EZs around each protein seem necessary for optimal cellular functioning.
Beyond applications for natural science and health, the discovery of the fourth phase has practical applications. They include flow production (already mentioned), electrical energy harvesting, and even filtration. I will briefly mention the latter two applications.
Filtration occurs naturally because the liquid-crystalline EZ phase massively excludes particles and solutes in much the same way as does ice. Accordingly, fourth phase water is essentially solute free. Collecting it provides largely solute-free and bacteria-free water. A working prototype has confirmed this expectation. Purification by this method requires no physical filter: the fourth phase itself does the separation, and the energy for achieving this comes from the sun.
Energy harvesting, a second application, seems straightforward: light drives the separation of water-molecule charge, and those separated charges constitute a battery.