Seeds Induced to Germinate Rapidly by Mentally Projected `Qi Energy’ Are Apparently Genetically Altered

American Journal of Chinese Medicine, Wntr, 2000 by Feng Bai, Chulin Sun, Zhiyi Liu, Jinchuan Shen, Yinzhu Shen, Rongchao Ge, Caili Bei, Jindong Zhang, Xiaohong Shi, Yicheng Liu, Xuiecheng Liu

Mentally controlled qi energy can induce crop seeds to sprout and root for several cm within about 20 min. The RAPD method was used to compare treated groups of wheat and pea seeds and their controls using 11 selected primers. Seven primers amplified polymorphisms in wheat seeds and 5 in pea seeds. It was thought preliminarily that qi energy changed the structure of a germination-correlated gene site speeding up expression and advancing it in time.

Chulin Sun is a woman with exceptional powers (Shen and Sun, 1996, 1998; Sun, 1998). A member of the Chinese Somatic Science Research Institute, she is a practitioner of Waiqi. Waiqi is a type of qigong that teaches the practitioner to bring the qi energy of traditional Chinese medicine under the control of the mind. Chulin Sun can induce plant seeds to grow shoots and roots several cm long within 20 min using mentally projected qi energy (Fig. 1). This has been demonstrated on more than 180 different occasions at universities as well as science and research institutions in China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) as well as other countries (e.g., Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, etc.) (Ge et al., 1998; Qin et al., 1998; Lee et al., 1999). We took part in and repeated the qi germination experiments seven times, and five of them succeeded (Ge et al., 1998). This remarkable effect on seed development has drawn widespread attention (Tompkins and Bird, 1973; Lee, 1998), but the biological mechanisms that underlie this phenomenon are unknown. It will be of great significance to study the influence of qi energy on metabolism, growth and development, and gene expression, especially since these effects may be relevant to human health and longevity. RAPD (random amplified polymorphic DNA) is a molecular marking technique developed by two teams, Williams et al. (1990) and Welsh et al. (1990), to detect DNA polymorphisms. It uses the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify different genome sites with 10 (or 9)mer single primers. Differences among the genomes are revealed by the presence or absence of certain DNA fragments that are amplified, the DNA fingerprint being obtained by gel electrophoresis. Because of its speed, simplicity and high efficiency (Williams et al., 1990), the RAPD method is widely used in research fields such as the identification of biological species and genera, and population and segregation analysis. In this paper, RAPD primers were used to test whether accelerated germination induced by qi energy was associated with changes in the genome.

Materials and Methods

Seeds

The wheat seeds “Jingdong No. 8″ and pea seeds “2185″ were supplied by the Beijing Agriculture Scientific Institute and the Seed Farm of Luancheng County in Hebei Province, respectively. “Jingdong No. 8″ is a conventional strain, which has been planted on a large scale in the Beijing area for eight to nine years. Both peas and wheat are very strict self-pollinators, so their genomes should be uniform.

Qi Treatment

Twenty wheat or pea seeds were placed into a small mortar, and after some water was added they were treated by Chulin Sun for at least 20 min. The seeds of the corresponding control groups germinated naturally in an incubator a week before at 23 [degrees] C and then at 9 [degrees] C to retard their growth once the lengths of their shoots and roots were deemed suitable.

DNA Extraction

Small amounts of DNA were prepared using phenol:chloroform extraction. Two hundred mg of shoot and root with the same length from both the treated and their corresponding control groups of seeds were cut into segments of 0.5 cm each. 400 [micro]l of grind buffer [which contained 5% sucrose (w/v), 250 mM NaCl, 50 mM EDTA, 50 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.5)] was added to the mortars, and the tissues were finely ground. This material was transferred to 1.5 ml Ependorff tubes with pipettes. The mortars were washed with 400 [micro]l of the buffer and the material was transferred to the corresponding tube. The tubes were centrifuged at 5000 rpm for 2 min, and the supernatant discarded. Four hundred [micro]l of suspension buffer [which consisted of 0.5% SDS (w/v), 250 mM NaCl, 25 mM EDTA, 250 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.0)] was added to the sediments and mixed. DNA was extracted with an equal volume of phenol:chloroform:isopentanol (25:24:1) after incubation at 70 [degrees] C for 20 min. A volume of isopropanol equal to 2/3 of that originally present was added to the supernatant to precipitate the DNA. This was centrifuged at 14000 rpm for 5 min and then washed with alcohol. The DNA was dissolved in 50 [micro]l 1 x TE after vacuum desiccation and diluted 40 times when amplification was to be performed.

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)

Eleven 10mer primers from kits (OPE, OPF, OPG, OPJ, OPP, OPT) supplied by Operon (Alameda, CA, USA) were selected. The experiments were conducted as described by Williams et al. (1990) and Welsh et al. (1990) with some modifications. Primer pairs were enzymatically amplified from 10-50 ng of wheat or pea DNA in a 20 [micro]l reaction. Reactions contained 10 mM Tris-HCl, 50 mM KCl, 1.5 mM Mg[Cl.sub.2],0.001% glutin, 0.1 mM of each nucleotide, 0.2 [micro]M random primer and 1 U Taq polymerase. PCR amplification was performed in a PTC-100[TM] DNA amplifier, with a 1.5 min initial denaturation (94 [degrees]), followed by 40 cycles of 45 seconds denaturation (94 [degrees] C), 45 seconds annealing (36 [degrees] C) and extension for 2 min (72 [degrees] C). After completion of the 40 cycles, there was a final extension for 4 min (72 [degrees] C), and the PCR products were then horizontal gel electrophoresised (HGE) on 1.4% agarose gel, stained with ethidium bromide, visualized with ultraviolet light and photographed. The RAPD experiment was repeated three times, yielding the same results each time