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UK Schools Bans WiFi Due To Health Concerns
Mantrid42 writes "Schools in the UK are getting rid of their WiFi network, citing health concerns from parents and teachers. The wireless emanations, parents fear, may be the root cause of a host of problems from simple fatigue to the possibility of cancer. A few scientists think younger humans may be more vulnerable to the transmissions, because of thinner skulls. From the article: "Vivienne Baron, who is bringing up Sebastian, her ten-year-old grandson, said: 'I did not want Sebastian exposed to a wireless computer network at school. No real evidence has been produced to prove that this new technology is safe in the long term. Until it is, I think we should take a precautionary approach and use cabled systems.'"
$5 bucks says she's talking on her cell phone with her little Sebastian within a few feet of her.
When you have a populace so absurdly uneducated as to buy into this nonsense, evidence and facts are meaningless. No doubt they're being whipped up some pseudo-scientific con-artist, and used their cordless phones to spread the news. Too bad gullability wasn't fatal. That would weed some of the most ludicrous ninnies on the planet out of the gene pool.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Whole-brain heating is not the only biological mechanism of interaction with radiation. The bulk of relevant research in this area for the last few years seems to be focused on sub-thermal interactions.
Microwave radiation passing through a sample of polar molecules which are aligned can produce directionally correlated rotation in the entire collection. Any interaction for which all of the molecules rotate in the same direction is not a thermal interaction, as the thermodynamic limit does not apply to coordinated movements. Therefore you can't even use the language of "heat" to describe the interaction at this scale. It just so happens that lipid bilayers are polar molecules which are aligned, and unfortunately, the precise biological consequences of the effects of such rotations on the function of lipid bilayers is very poorly understood.
It seems quite naive for the people in this forum to be dismissing the concerns of those parents as uneducated and unscientific. There are serious unanswered scientific questions about the interactions and effects this will have, and you can't just wish or scoff them away. "The company that built it said it was safe" doesn't really qualify as scientific understanding, and "everything is dangerous" is an unscientific and fallacious argument.
any argument taken seriously that prevents young minds from communication is very troubling
the real issue here is NOT health - it is being driven by the idea that young minds have access to a world of ideas not under control from those in power. the Internet has a global set of ideas - empowering, liberating, libralizing, and educating ideasl this is quite contrary to the mentality in most lower schools which are follow the rules, learn/do what you're told, and tow the line.
the idea that kids the age of 8 or 9 or 10 (ish) are educated and empowered is deathly frightening to small minded parents, who are so childish themselves they can't deal with strong people. So instead, they cite some completely absurd health scare to keep kids from easy, broad access to online content.
it is sadly ironic that by applying an argument to protect their health, they will actually harm these children by limiting their access to the Internet
If you do a lot of research you will find that studies that claim that there is a relationship between EMF forces and cancer are almost all fatally flawed, (the infamous 1972 Colorodo Powerline study that started the scare had the flaw of all the group with elevated cancer rates having being exposed to herbicides that are known carcinogens) to the studies funded by the manufacturer of low emf electric blankets after the product was on the market.
There is no evidence to support the parents beliefs that withstands scrutiny, despite 35 years of research. (there does seem to be a statistically insignificant negative corralation between cell phone use and brain cancers, but nothing that is not accounted for by socioeconomic variables.)
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I agree, but don't you think that Michael Bevington is overreacting just a little bit?
Probably, but there's a simple way to find out, secretly turn off the network. If he makes the same complaints then you know it's not the wireless network.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Hey, if the man was getting sick, then he was getting sick. It's not an overreaction to want to get better, so if removing the network from his classroom made him not sick, then good for him. It wouldn't be very helpful to just tell him to suck it up.
It might be nice if someone in the area would contact him about setting up a controlled experiment where a router he is exposed to for a full day is turned on and off at random without his knowledge, and each day he records how he feels. If this were done for 10-20 days, the result would probably be pretty clear one way or the other.
The 2.4ghz segment of the microwave spectrum used for wireless devices is essentially harmless. E = hc/w where w = wavelength (normally he symbol lambda is used). The wavelength in this section of the spectrum is very large, comparatively speaking. You know those little holes in the screen of the microwave? Simply put, even those are too small for a microwave to fit through. And the amplitude of wireless lan devices is rather small--ban cellular phones long before you ban a wifi network. The most that particular set of frequencies can do is warm the human body up, and to do that it would need to be far more intense of a signal to have any noticeable effect. Those florescent bulbs used for lighting are more harmful--that white coating on the inside is all that's keeping ultraviolet light, which is harmful, inside the bulb.
There's no evidence that it isn't harmful, I'll give you that. But find evidence that the easter bunny doesn't exist while you're at it. Just because some mammals grow so large, or just because some electromagnetic waves have the potential of being harmful, doesn't mean they all do.
My favorite one is from many years ago. A ham radio operator moved into a new neighborhood and put up a tower and antenna in his back yard. The complaints came pouring in regarding to TV reception interferance problems, strange voices on the phone lines, voices on the intercom, etc. He replied to all complaints that he was sure his transmitter was not causing any of the problems and invited anyone to send a certified tech out to check for any out of band or excessive power transmission that could cause the problem.
Nobody sent a technician to check his station. This did not settle the complaints and the FCC was called out due to the number of complaints. The FCC sent him a letter in response to the complaints and they required of him to have his transmitter certified by the manufacture.
He wrote back and stated the transmitter was lost in shipping and he was waiting for the insurance to settle so he could purchase a replacement.
Meanwhile he documented and filed all the complaints as existing conditions to the new location prior to beginning operation.
The truth shall set you free!
Is that the real problem though? The gigantic radiation symbol isn't saying anything that's untrue - if people know that the meat is irradiated, then they're gonna react in a certain way, symbol or not.
The problem with labeling irradiated food with a radura (sp?) is that that symbol is more often used to denote dangerous radiation, in the same way that the similar biohazard symbol is used for biomedical waste. Personally, I don't see any need to label irradiated food in any special way at all.
SirWired