In one minute

Jean-Paul Biberian reviews evidence that living systems can transmute one chemical element into another. Over two centuries, experimenters questioned Lavoisier's conservation law for chemical reactions and reported transmutations in plants, bacteria and other organisms. The line runs from Herzeele's experiments through Baranger, Kervran, Goldfein and Holleman to recent work by Vysotskii and Kornilova with modern analytical techniques. He notes that much of the older data comes from the 19th and early 20th centuries or from secondary sources. Taken together, living organisms appear able to produce nuclear reactions under some conditions, and the theory that explains this will likely also explain nuclear reactions in condensed matter.

Biological Transmutations: Historical Perspective