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How Bad Can Wi-fi Be?
An anonymous reader writes "Sunday night in the UK, the BBC broadcast an alarmist Panorama news programme that suggested wireless networking might be damaging our health. Their evidence? Well, they admitted there wasn't any, but they made liberal use of the word 'radiation', along with scary graphics of pulsating wifi base stations. They rounded-up a handful of worried scientists, but ignored the majority of those who believe wifi is perfectly harmless. Some quotes from the BBC News website companion piece: 'The radiation Wi-Fi emits is similar to that from mobile phone masts ... children's skulls are thinner and still forming and tests have shown they absorb more radiation than adults'. What's the science here? Can skulls really 'absorb' EM radiation? The wifi signal is in the same part of the EM spectrum as cellphones but it's not 'similar' to mobile phone masts, is it? Isn't a phone mast several hundred/thousand times stronger? Wasn't safety considered when they drew up the 802.11 specs?"
I suggest not. Some tinfoil hat designs can actually increase your exposure to radio waves.
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I've always wondered why these networks use 2.4GHz radio waves.
:)
I'm not a physicist, so really: is there an advantage to this frequency? Why not 1.2GHz.. or 3.6GHz, etc.? Why something so close to the frequency range of microwave ovens?
If this is a really dumb question, I already ask for forgiveness.
My son was diagnosed with leukaemia (AML15 for those interested) on his 1st birthday. My first trip home from the hospital I turned of the wireless router, cordless phones and my mobile/cell. He's now 3, built like an ox and hopefully fixed for good.
My neighbours all have wireless, cordless and mobiles so I eventually turned all mine back on. Two years on and no-one else in the house, including my 2 other boys, have cancer.
Who knows what caused it. Live life to the full, make the kids smile and if low power wireless gadgets worry you, please get out more.
Well again, on the show they said the woman in question was able to tell when wifi was on or off 2/3rds of the time in tests, 66% isn't really a high enough chance for me to believe hers is a real known problem, particularly when they didn't explain her testing methodology, if they only ran 3 tests for example then get 2 out of 3 right is in the correct range of a 50% chance of getting it right by mere guessing should she have got a 4th test wrong.
They did however mention that Sweden recognises electro-sensitivity as an official disability so there is perhaps some credibility in the whole idea, how much is still questionable of course.
Interesting:
:)
:)
since i was a child, i noticed that i can say when certain electrodomestics were working: tv, video, refrigerator,etc...
i maked some experiments long time ago( that scared my parents as hell
i asked my father to switch on and off a tv (with no sound) and i tell from outside the house if is working or not. The result was that i can tell from 20 tests, in 20 of them i can tell if it was on or off ( my father randomly choose a state with a coin toss and tell me to say if it was on or off).
i tested covering my ears with cotton or something absorbent, but only decreased the sensitivity, so i deduced the detection system was sound based ( i was like 16 years old (like 10 years ago), so may me my deduction was incorrect).
The same happen to me when i was exposed to certain frequencies....may be are harmonics (i tried 100kH sounds and i can hear some of the nearby frequencies, but i cant hear some lower...)
is interesting to see that other people experiment the same
All day we're around Microwaves, XRays, High voltage lines, lights, televisions and Radio signals. There are TONS, of course... but how much more is actually from outside the atmosphere?
Actually, in the late 1890's and early 1900's people who worked in the field of XRays often died from over exposure of radiation. They simply didn't know what they heck they were working with. Thomas Edison was so horrified of what happened to his worker Clarence Dally due to radiation poisoning that he abandoned any further research with X-rays. Not to mention Marie Curie death due to exposure to radiation and countless others that worked in her field.
Back then of course people thought drinking radium was a good health product and that shoe sales man could operate their x-ray on a casual basis to fit shoes giving them more REM exposure in a day than a modern nuclear power plant worker is allowed a year.
I'm not saying that WiFi is dangerous, but as a precedent people have often generally underestimated some dangers with emerging technologies and we should never discount such a thing could happen. Of course we due scientific study than complete news worthy paranoia.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Um, if you can't prove that it's 100% safe, then why are you so upset like there IS no threat? You have to be honest with people. Some people will be crazy no matter what you do.
And if over-reaction is such a bad thing, why don't you stop. Just like you, when I hear people over-reacting, I start to suspect they're crazy, especially when they start telling me about how safe cars and sharks and vaccines are, relatively, because it starts to sound like they're bullshitting me on their side, when all they have to do to win me, is be honest, and less dramatic.
"...despite massed ranks of scientific and medical studies and scientists saying there was no danger from MMR vaccinations..."