University Bans wi-fi as Health Concern

BaltikaTroika writes "A Canadian university has banned wi-fi, since the university President sees a possible link between electric and magnetic fields and brain tumors. According to the head of the university, "the jury's out on this one, I'm not going to put in place what is potential chronic exposure for our students." Is anybody outside of this university's administration concerned about this?"

Comments

Should I Be

[NerdENerd]

I have a wifi router under my couch, hope my nuts are OK!

Re:Should I Be

[darth_linux]

he's prob married.

Re:Should I Be

[Jozer99]

In other news, a Canadian University has banned music, idleness, and electricity. "All embellishments to life are the work of the devil. Good living comes through hard work in the fields, and beatings for impure thoughs. Plus, a little yellow fever never hurt anyone too bad." said a school recruitment official.

Re:Should I Be

[b0r0din]

And here I thought the Trinity was drinking, drugs, and premarital sex.

Noisiest spectrum evar.

[LackThereof]

WTF?

Better ban cordless phones, too, and everything else that uses 2.4 Ghz.

What about cell phones?

[Chalex]

Have they also banned cell phones? Because students tend to hold those next to their heads instead of on their lap. Since the power drops off as 1/r^3 (roughly), the distance between your brain and the antenna is a big deal.

Re:What about cell phones?

[Raindance]

You're absolutely right.

And aside from this proximity issue, cell phones often get above 1 Watt of output. Wifi devices tend to be between 20 and 100 miliwatts.

Anecdotally, I get a terrible headache that lasts for hours if I talk even 30 seconds on a cell phone. I'm probably not typical, but I'm certain cell phones aren't as harmless as most folks (and regulatory agencies) think.

Re:What about cell phones?

[1u3hr]

I believe not too long ago, Slashdot had an article concerning the cooking of an egg situated between two cell phones.

That's a hoax, written six years ago, and Slashdot editors were suckered by it, as they have been many times before.

Ivermee, a 60-year old archiver in a law firm in South Hampton, has written almost all of the pieces on the Wymsey site, including the egg article, which he wrote back in 2000. In the piece, he outlines eight ridiculous steps for hard boiling an egg using the transmissions of two cellphones pointed at each other with the egg in between.

"I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously," he tells Gelf over email. "No other page on the site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. What seems to be happening is that it 'travels' from blog to blog, forum to forum. It was big in Australia last year and seems to be big in the US right now."

Re:What about cell phones?

[chriswaclawik]

Quick lesson: EM field from a point source: 1/r^2 strength EM field from a line/wire (theoretically infinite): 1/r strenth EM field from a plate (theoretically infinite): constant strength The derivations involve many repulsions and attractions of charges as you integrate along an entire line or plane. This is stuff you should know after learning multivariable calculus.

Re:What about cell phones?

[canajin56]

There is a widely discussed problem called electrosensitivity, or ES. Thousands of people suffer from it. However, searching the internet, I can find no articles on it other than conspiracy sites that claim that millions of people are affected, and the government and medical industries keep it secret because they love their cellphones. In fact, while these website site all of these journal papers and conferences on the subject, there references appear to be completely fabricated to make them seem plausable. The only actual scientific articles have asserted that such a syndrome does not exist. Several groups in the UK and the USA have conducted double blind tests in which sufferers are secretly exposed to EMR of frequencies like that they claim cause their symptoms (Monitors, cell phones, etc), and they did not react. On the other hand, when exposed to a radio device they are told is active, but which is nothing more than a box with a light, they react immediatly. These studies are dismissed by the ES campaign groups, who declare they are secretly funded by the cellphone companies. Some even declare that all scientiests are against them because scientists love computers and other electronic gadgets, and all scientists will forever bury the mounds of evidence.

DIfference?

[Kickboy12]

How's wifi different than any other radio signal? Sure, it's a different frequency and bandwidth, but radio waves are passing through us all the time. Are they gonna ban radio stations now cause it might be cancerous?

Seems a little far-fetched.

Re:DIfference?

[austad]

Your analogy makes no sense. A lightbulb emits light from the UV to the IR range, and a laser emits a specific frequency which could fall anywhere in there. IR is less dense (wavelength-wise), but it will still burn you. I don't understand where you are coming from here. A laser is powerful at lower wattages than a lightbulb because of its focused directional beam, which you mention, but then go on to argue that higher frequencies are more directional, which they may be, but have you ever seen the radiation map things for a 2.4ghz antenna?

Anyway, it's in the millwatt range, and people aren't putting their heads or their crotches on the access point and nothing is going to happen. This guy that banned wifi is a complete idiot.

Other things to ban at University:

[EraseEraseMe]

Carcinogenic inks in the paper
Alcohol
Cigarettes
Vending Machines
Money
Pesticides on the grass
Asphalt roads
Air Conditioning
Natural Gas heating

ah, yes, my alma mater.

[macsox]

When I graduated from the University of Tinfoilhats, Ottawa campus, in 2001 with my degree in Paranoia Studies, I thought my hallowed school would never make the mainstream media. And, more importantly, that I wouldn't know if it was, because paying attention to the mainstream media allows the brain worms to eat your thoughts.

"The jury's out on this"

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, where have we all been hearing THAT phrase lately?

Fact: Nobody has ever demonstrated in a repeatable, peer-reviewed, properly-controlled study that low-level RF radiation at nonionizing wavelengths has any biological effect whatsoever. For every study that shows correlated effects, two more show none at all.

Fact: WiFi adapters, even the gray-market 100 mW jobs you buy on eBay, transmit 1/10 to 1/100 the power of a cell phone.

Fact: Your microwave oven leaks more 2.4-GHz energy than your WiFi card emits intentionally. For best results, cut a 1" slit in package wrapper and rotate dish after 2 minutes on HIGH.

Fact: DNA damage from 2.4 GHz radiation at athermal levels would require a form of matter-energy interaction that is currently unknown to physics. There's a guaranteed Nobel Prize for anyone who can document such an interaction, because as far as anyone knows, we pretty have all the fundamental interactions covered at this point. Get cracking!

(Probable) fact: This joker has some sort of financial interest in a local commercial ISP whose business would be threatened by a campus-wide network. Nobody that stupid runs a university... but conflicts of interest aren't exactly unheard-of in that line of work, are they?

Ban Girls

[Dante Shamest]

Ban Girls! They're too distracting. Like this one, she's

Well fuck, let's hope nobody lets slip to him

[mcc]

that the earth is one giant magnetic field

Brought to you by...

[coolgeek]

The very same university that banned masturbation because of concerns over loss of sight.

Re:Brought to you by...

[feagle814]

I don't remember seeing that.

Re:Not an incredibly bad idea

[Eivind]

There's a possibility that anything could be dangerous. There are a lot of studies on the effects of electromagnetic radiation. Not *one* ha shwon any harmful effects at the levels we're here talking of. (indeed not one has shown harmfule effects at a level 100 times higher than the one we're here talking of.

If we are to ban everything that is "possibly" dangerous, then we need to ban everything. Literally.

Possible link?

[TeknoHog]

the university President sees a possible link between electric and magnetic fields

No shit, Maxwell!

NO, 2.4 GHZ IS NOT THE FREQUENCY

[Anonymous Coward]

... at which water molecules resonate. Microwave ovens use 2.4 GHz because that's where the FCC said they could go. It has absolutely nothing to do with water-molecule resonance or any other bogosity.

Jeez, I wish people who have no earthly clue what they're talking about would refrain from posting.

Re:NO, 2.4 GHZ IS NOT THE FREQUENCY

[Karma Farmer]

Jeez, I wish people who have no earthly clue what they're talking about would refrain from posting.

Can we still moderate?

Re:Why not post the university in the summary?

[nidx]

I actually GO to Lakeheadu University (5th year comp-sci) and from what I understand this decision is because of our University President. Our school paper did an article about this issue earlier this year and if I remember correctly his reasons for the ban were "the unknown effects on developing brains" which I belive was related to his field of study. IMO it's all ignorant BS.

but I do love that this issue has reached slashdot!

Re:Hell yes I'm worried

[SEWilco]

If he's worried about electromagnetic waves he should ban electrical use on campus, magnets, and wave a compass around all steel desks and filing cabinets.. then have them degaussed (someplace else, of course, to keep the evil degaussing waves away).

And, of course, inspect all staff for magic magnetic bracelets and fire those wearing them. Except those working in the school's Department of Magick.

Planck's constant = 6.626068 x 10-34 m2 kg/S

[Futurepower(R)]

"... president Fred Gilbert won't allow it until he's satisfied EMF (electric and magnetic fields) exposure doesn't pose a health risk, particularly to young people."

The article makes it obvious he was trying to be a big hero at a town hall meeting. In actuality, he knows nothing about electromagnetism, but is not afraid to pretend that he does. We see a lot of that in recent years, as people pretend to know more about computers than they do.

Anyone worried about radio waves causing cancer can try to make that theory work. There is a huge barrier, however, in the form of a very very small number: Planck's Constant. Planck's constant = 6.626068 × 10-34 m2 kg/S. It's that 10**-34 that makes it difficult for low-energy electromagetism like wireless transmissions to interact with chemical reactions. Thirty-four zeros is a LOT of zeros after the decimal point.

Off topic: I've linked to the Encyclopedia Britannica above because the article about Planck's constant is very short. The article in Wikipedia is long. I've frequently seen the Encyclopedia Britannica be misleading because of the severe limitation placed on size of the articles due to paper costs. Wikipedia does not have that problem.

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