PONE-D-21-22146

Low frequency weak electric fields can induce structural changes in water

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Rad,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

please address comments/suggestions from reviewers and revise your manuscript.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The paper provide new insights into the interaction of electromagnetic fields with aqueous systems. It also provide grounded experimental evidence of the possible existence of different frequency windows of interaction.The latter could account for possible therapeutic effect of specific delivered electromagnetic signals trough aqueous systems embedded into cells, organs and tissues. According to the latest purpose I suggest, in further future, experiment to perform the experiments in the physiological temperature range of humans and other living organisms including infectious agents.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript lacks sufficient statistical treatment. In various figures (graphs), it would be necessary to add a statement of what the presented curve represents: a statistical average of measurements or the best results.

There are also minor issues that should be clarified. They are presented in the revised pdf version of the manuscript.

Reviewer #3: Water molecules play essential roles in most of biological process, and the findings of structured water are really interesting and may contribute to our current understanding in biology. However, due to the diverse states of water molecule, the complex molecular interactions remain largely unknown. In this study, Rad et.al showed the low frequency weak electric fields can induce structural changes in water. These findings are very interesting, and may further be applied for various biological manipulation through the alteration of water structure.

This manuscript contains a set of interesting information that should attract the attention of a broad readership. I recommend publication with revisions (see below), which are mainly concerned with clarifications.

1. “Putting these last two findings together, one can say that application of an electric field on DI water from above (E = 600 ± 150 V/m, f = 7.8 to 75 Hz) may induce a molecular ordering in DI water similar to that of EZ water”

One of the unique features of EZ water is the capacity to repelling solutes. It seems not convincing to claim the molecular ordering in DI water similar to that of EZ water, merely based on radiance profile.

2. “All experiments were conducted with purified water inside a shallow rectangular polypropylene dish (4.5 cm wide, 2.5 cm long and 0.5 cm high).”

Please clarify the reason for using purified water in the experiment, since most biochemical reactions are performed in unpurified condition.

Does the shape of dish influence the results here? Does the height of DI water change the pattern of radiance readout? Also, the influences of shape of electrode and the spatial distribution of electric field on specimens may be interesting to readers. Please clarify in the discussion section.

3. “Raw spectral data emerge as the average of 100 scans, which took 10-20 seconds to acquire”

Please clarify the average of 100 scans come from single experiment or three-independent experiments.

4. “Each radiometric measurement was repeated three to five times…”

There is no data shows the replications and the variation between each experiment. In addition, please revise figure caption with more experiment details.

5. “…the excitation and post-excitation radiance dropped… “

Is the radiance drop significantly different from the control? Without statistical interpretation, it is difficult to determine the difference.

Moreover, compared the data in figure -4b and -4c, the spectrum of control group are different; especially, there is an distinguishing peak around 690 (cm-1) in 4c. Moreover, previous studies showed the repelling capacity of EZ water decreases with time. Did the electric field induced alteration of water last for more than 60 min?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Prof. Dr. Igor Jerman

Reviewer #3: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-22146_reviewer_Low frequency weak electric fields can induce structural changes in water_Rad.pdf

Low frequency weak electric fields can induce structural changes in water

PONE-D-21-22146R1

Dear Dr. Rad,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Wei-Chun Chin

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: The manuscript is an important contribution to disentangle the mystery of EZ water and the bulk water that is its "negative". Even if there may be some other interpretations of the results, your measurements clearly show that water can be changed in a significant manner and that these changes may last a considerable time. The research also shows that we are only et the beginning of understanding a complex interaction between electric field and water, which may be very important also for a new understanding of life.

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Prof. Dr. Igor Jerman

Reviewer #3: No