Biochemical trapping of unidentified events

It is noteworthy that all of the four classes of biochemical compounds exhibit some differences corresponding to a significant increase of the variability at D + 40 by comparison with D + 730 samples.

Correlations With Distances: Various Kinds of Dose/Effect Relationships

Linear Correlations and Regressions. Plotting the concentrations versus distances from the epicenter of the UE gives rise to significant correlations. In all these cases, the slopes of the regression lines (bE) and (bo) corresponding respectively to (D + 40) and (D + 730) samples have been compared. In order to strengthen the significance of these comparisons, tests have also been performed versus the slopes at (D + 730) artificially increased by switching the extreme values (i.e., H and L) to their respectively minimum and maximum values, within the limits allowed by their SD (br).

The main results are summarized in Table 11. The most striking differences appear in photosynthetic pigments, which exhibit the largest susceptibility to the phenomenon.

However, a more accurate analysis of the observed relationships revealed some particular features that will now be examined.

Since no direct evidence of traumatism by contact (such as burning, charring, or visible damage on leaves) could be found, and some of the major alterations occurred in the samples situated nearer the epicenter of the UE, this may suggest the hypothesis that the observed effects are due to an energy source whose effects would decrease as a reverse function of distance (i.e., a radiative source).

The case of glucose is illustrated by Figure 1; the natural plot (Figure 1A) suggests a hyperbolic curve. If Ro is the response at d = 0 and Ri at di, the difference delta R = Ro - R algebraically behaves as the velocity of an enzyme (Bounias, 1979) according to the general equation

Ri = R _Max à di ⁿ (L / + di ⁿ )