Independent researcher Roger Coghill, from Pontypool, Gwent, is doing his best to broaden understanding of scientific research in the former Eastern bloc.

Mr Coghill has brought at his own expense a -year-old pediatrician cum physicist, Sergei Gerasimov, from Luiv in the Ukraine, to the unlikely reaches of a Welsh valley. Additional charitable funding covers the doctor's minuscule salary of Pounds 500 for the duration of the three-month visit. Dr Gerasimov gained his medical degree in the Institute of Medicine, now a university, in Luiv, and with him in Wales are his wife and daughter.

He will research a number of unexpected observations made by Mr Coghill in his self-financed work on bio-electromagnetism (THES, October 13).

Mr Coghill has discovered that the human brain responds within minutes to the ingestion of small quantities of amino acid. According to preliminary work on himself as a research subject, his own brain's response is to reduce its electro-encephalograph output, or brain waves, at precisely the "spin-cyclotron" frequency of the particular amino acid ingested.

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He plans to display a poster presenting his preliminary observations, which has already been accepted, at the electromagnetic fields bio-effects review conference in Palm Springs, Florida next month.

Dr Gerasimov said: "We may be on the point of showing that brain frequencies are mediating cellular events. This could be a remarkable discovery, or it can come to nothing. But we have to do the work, and at the same time protect our priority in the field."

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Already recruited is Ollie the earthworm. He lives pressed against the side of the box in which he lives that is furthermost from a small magnet. Dr Gerasimov explained that magnets are used in the Ukraine to expel tapeworms from children.