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Even if you could do it double blind, there's still the problem of variance in all living things. You could buy two potted plants and water them exactly the same, and one of them is gonna do better than the other no matter what.


We currently have four plants at home grown from some seeds collected from a plant elsewhere. Three are about 12" tall and equally well developed and a dark green colour. One is about 3" tall and a much lighter green.

I am no scientist or plant expert, but if I was going to do such an experiment I would probably want to use ten or so in total, and ensure that each plant had an identical amount of water and that they were planted the same - ie. seed central, the same way up etc. I am sure there are lots more things to think about, for example a group of plants will get different amounts of light and heat, so you would either need to alternate the group or move them around.

On the subject of microwaves themselves - a family friend mentioned the scare story and said their daughter showed them a large number of printouts and after reading it they got rid of their microwave. I did some searching and found all the various sites and concluded it was a load of hokum. I was suprised that they believed it - the daughter is an analyst for IBM and pretty smart by all accounts.

Gareth