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Electrical Noise Causing Physiological Stress?
el johnno writes "The Globe and Mail is reporting on possible physiological problems caused by so-called 'dirty electricity.' Poor power quality caused by electrical feedback and harmonics from consumer electronics are cited as a possible cause of various 'physiological stress' problems. While previous research in this area looked for connections between EM fields and cancer, some research is now looking into possible connections to fatigue, headaches, depression, and other symptoms. From the article: 'If electricity were flowing in a constant way, most people's bodies would likely adapt, but with all the interference from modern devices, the resulting fields are too variable for people to get used to.'"
I guess it doesn't matter if the field is intentional or not. Both WiFi and some cell phone traffic makes me physically sick over the course of the day. In some cases I can even tell if the router is on or not.
Before you laugh, I've had one job where there were two cell repeaters in the building plus an extensive wifi network. There were some rooms where my eyes would water if I entered them, and at the end of each day I'd sit in the car for 10 minutes to "detox". Didn't seem to bother anyone else.
They also installed a cell tower about 100 yards from my apartment last fall. For the remaining 2.5 months that I lived there, I could barely think and it effectively knocked 2 hours off my sleep. I.e. if I slept for 8 hours it would feel like i slept 6 (I usually turn off everything when I go to bed, too. No computer, no cell).
A running computer does the same, but the dose is a lot smaller. For this reason I only use laptops now (lower power usage). I still hate computer labs.
So yeah, this stuff is no joke.
boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse
There are existing cases to show that bombarding individuals with various frequencies of sound can have adverse effect. In some tests, using sound-waves beyond the human range of hearing still induced many dementia-like effects over time.
This would probably be the opposite of the effect many try to achieve by adding "soothing" environmental sounds (like water from those little water fountain things)... unpleasant noise, even noise that doesn't consciously register, may cause behavioral, mood, or personality alterations.
I know that I find myself rather irritated when I hear the whine of a monitor or TV (bad capacitors). Many people can't hear the sound at all without it being pointed out, but it is something that drives me crazy. In the case of devices that have been ready to go due to caps, I myself may not hear anything but at times I could swear I *felt* the damn thing going...
To summarise it, what if stress and depression arise from chronic overuse of the brain? Information overload and lack of sleep could be the real culprits. Think about it.
Just wondered - 50Hz in the UK, 60Hz in the US, probably other frequencies elsewhere. Voltages: much higher in the UK. Perhaps someone should do a study into whether the problem is worse at higher or lower frequencies - maybe, like with sound, some frequencies are euphonic and others not...??
:-)
Mind you, maybe it's just the annoying hum of transformers that's getting everyone down. I know I hate alarm clocks which hum - I once had to create an isolation platform out of an old face-cloth, a book and some cut squash-balls to minimise the annoying hum from an old alarm I had (whilst I was a very poor student). Mind you, I eventually sorted that problem out by blowing it up by connecting a 90wpc stereo amplifier to its speaker (don't ask - it was an experiment, ok?) and fried the lot
John
Who comes out better - the Europeans who get hammered with 220V suckiness 50 times a second, or the Yanks who 'only' get 110V of grief, but 60 times a second?
Bring back DC!! Oh, they are!
AT&ROFLMAO
Sure, it reeks of pseudoscience, but from my personal experience I can see two ways "dirty electricity" could matter.
1) I lived in a place that had really crazy electrical wiring. As in, about every month or so all three lightbulbs on our cieling fan would all blow out at the same time. If I kept my CRT near one wall, the pattern would make the swimming noises you sometimes see if you put an electric fan near a TV. It made me too nauseous to use it for any extended period of time. Solution? Moved my damn computer to another wall (actually in front of a glass wall -- no EMF interference there).
2) Some fluorescent lights drive me batty. Many lights flicker at double the frequency of the power supply (60hz x 2 = 120hz), which is bloody human noticeable, regardless of how many scientists cast doubt on this. Come to my karate class, wave your hand in front of you, and you'll see multiple images of your hand. Or sometimes no intervening images at all on a punch if you throw it fast enough, which probably makes you look a lot faster than you really are. If you had a "dirty" power supply, I could see it perhaps making a difference to fluorescent lights that are tied to the cycle of the power supply.
No matter how advanced we become technologically, we still cling to ridiculous superstition. It used to be sacrificing goats to prevent crop failure, now it's mysterious black boxes to "clean" our electricity. It's all about trying to gain a semblance of control over the events that effect us greatly in
our day to day lives, but that we cannot influence.
(One common thread in all these alternative therapies - at the end of the chain, you have someone raking in the bucks.)
This world needs a little more rational thinking. Either that, or some good homeopathic remedies for gullibility.
That is EM radiation, but not something that's affecting you. The shielding in computer audio is usually non-existant. In the tight spaces of a laptop, this gets even worse. On my laptop you can "hear" the IR device giving out light. ;-)
Claiming that one can not only directly feel weak fast changing EM fields (light and IR heat excluded!) but no less then also feel the difference in their spectral distribution is just too much of a quackery!
OTOH, he may be honest but barking at wrong tree. When electric power is down, it is not surprising to feel a relief.
Now, there, I am probably not the only one who can say that prolonged exposure to various electric equipment produced, barely audible, sounds (especially high pitch, although hum too) make me feel some of the alleged symptoms. Right now, I hear quite loudly my and/or my coworkers CRT monitor(s) (high voltage transformer ferrite core - magnetostrictive material) and it gives me very unpleasent feeling in my neck. Similar goes for cooling fans hum. And, last but not least, most (cheap) capacitors' dielectrics are piezoelectric materials, so it may happen that some of the HF noise that came from mains "beats" with circuit-generated noise and result is sometimes in audible range.
In last century (give or take a half of century) the noise signature has changed greatly. We have not adapted to that. It seems that authorities (lawmakers) are not aware of magnitude of stress that is imposed on us by noise which is not high in loudness, but just constant and unpleasent/annoying.
Better understanding of the noise phenomenon, better design of electric (electronic) equipment and better health standards should make things bareable. Before anyone invests grands into mains filtering, they should consider good antiphones (both earplugs and earshells), better acoustic insulation for equipment suspected of producing noise and as much time spending outdoors, as far from "funny" sounds as possible.
Read this
. html
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/persinger
Especially this part, in the FIRST PARAGRAPH
"Over a scratchy speaker, a researcher announces, "Jack, one of your electrodes is loose, we're coming in." The 500-pound steel door of the experimental chamber opens with a heavy whoosh; two technicians wearing white lab coats march in. They remove the Ping-Pong-ball halves taped over my eyes and carefully lift a yellow motorcycle helmet that's been retrofitted with electromagnetic field-emitting solenoids on the sides, aimed directly at my temples. Above the left hemisphere of my 42-year-old male brain, they locate the dangling electrode, needed to measure and track my brain waves. The researchers slather more conducting cream into the graying wisps of my red hair and press the securing tape hard into my scalp."
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
An electrician and a professor were interviewed for a show on Wisconsin Public Radio a few months ago (sorry, RM only). Apparently the filters are named after the electrician (David Stetzer, Graham-Stetzer filters). Their only evidence was a handful of case studies. After the show I found one company that sells these filters. I emailed them suggesting that, if their products are so effective and the problem is so widespread and serious, they should loan out their testing instruments and/or give a 90 day trial. I'm still waiting to hear back (since December).
Robert Heinlein wrote a novella titled "Waldo", which nailed this possibility sixty years ago. In the story, power transmission is by radio, a la Tesla. One of the keys of the story is a general rundown in the physical health and vitality of younger people due the the EM interference in synaptic communication. Widespread lethargy and weakness resulted from the saturation, but no one noticed but one doctor, Waldo's, who wore a lead-lined trenchcoat to shield himself. He was considered an eccentric.
Waldo himself was an MD patient so weak that he built himself a satellite to live in so that he could move about under his own power in microgravity. He also diagnosed the problem, created a solution, and rolled up some bucks, so there's Heinlein in a nutshell.
Heinlein wasn't trying to predict anything, but to hit a target at sixty years, now that's good.
heh i like your answer. The conclusions are false imo. We are bombarded by much higher doses of energy from space than we are electronic devices. For that matter the cause of depression and many "psychological" problems are now KNOWN - a reduction of serotonin in the brain see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin
Get a program called SPECLAB, hook up a few hundred meters of coiled cable and plug it into the mic socket. Now witness the 15KHz tone of TV's in a lush waterfall pattern. It's a bit like the matrix, I can tell when a train goes past on the line a few hundred meters from my house, when someones using a drill in my street etc etc.
See here for more info: http://www.vlf.it./ Check out their Unexplained signals gallery, much fun. Just watch out for those russian ZEVS transmissions, I could go on for hours about it so.....
Cheers!
For just $59.95, I will sell you a magnetic bracelets that will protect you, as well as a quartz crystal neckless that will discharge "bad energy"!
I garantee that my solution is based on the same rigorous scientific research, and same theoretical underpinnings as the "science" in the linked article!
But seriously though, between some people wanting to teach "Intelligent Design" in schools, to people complaining about "bad vibes" coming from their toaster, to the unreasonable fear of nuclear technology, to the unreasonable fear of GM foods, to people wanting to ban research on stem cells, and the whole advent of all kinds of crazy "alternative medical treatments" like inner body massage, or yogurt enemas, or "color therapy" or whatever... the newfound popularity of fundamentalist Christianity or fundamentalist Islam. the proliferation of TV psychics.
Doesn't it seem like the public is become completly anti-science and anti-rationality nowadays? People are believing in all kinds of crap that wouldn't pass the laugh test 20 years ago, and now people take this stuff seriously? And it doesn't seem to be any one political group, or religion, or country - I could understand if it was just one group of ludites or reactionaries doing it - but it seems universal! What the hell is going on?