Slashdot Mirror


Study Hints Ambient Radio Waves May Affect Plant Growth

dwguenther writes "A Lyons (Colorado) area woman with no academic pedigree has published a scientific paper in the International Journal of Forestry Research about the adverse effects of radio waves on aspen seedlings. Katie Haggerty, who lives north of Steamboat Mountain, found in a preliminary experiment done near her house that aspens shielded from electromagnetic radiation were healthier than those that were not. 'I found that the shielded seedlings produced more growth, longer shoots, bigger leaves, and more total leaf area. The shielded group produced 60 percent more leaf area and 74 percent more shoot length than a mock-shielded group,' she said." This was not a definitive study, as its author readily admits — it's hard to see how a double-blind study could even be designed in this area — but it was refereed.

16 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Not mine. by seanonymous · · Score: 2, Funny

    Mine prefer Drum and Bass

    1. Re:Not mine. by mrmeval · · Score: 5, Funny

      I modulated a 1 kilowatt microwave HERF gun with a microwave stirring device rotated using motor controlled by a PWM signal to vary the speed using an audio source playing White Metal at some plants and the all died. RADIO WAVES ARE EVIL!

      --
      I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
    2. Re:Not mine. by mrmeval · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm scared to. It might sound like Hello Kitty.

      --
      I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
    3. Re:Not mine. by russotto · · Score: 3, Funny

      Everything is balance. We ride the fragile zone of a magnetically and gravitationally protective mass where energy is flowing in and near it in prodigious quantities from an incandescent fusion inferno. It is a dangerous place where a steady state is disallowed and change is everything. To unbalance this is to court oblivion but to think it will last forever is folly. It is a seed pod and it will be burst from within or without. Nothing lasts forever ... even change.

      Nonsense. Either change lasts forever, or the universe will enter a steady state in which everything lasts forever.

  2. Somehow I always knew... by Narcocide · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... that one day AM radio would be the death of us all.

  3. Re:i don't know about radio, but i find by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sure you do, we all grow our "peppers" in a closet lined with tinfoil.

  4. Re:...not all EM radiation by countSudoku() · · Score: 5, Funny

    and us too! Great study, but it comes too late I'm afraid. I've already spotted at least 8 wild trees in urban areas that have sprouted what appear to be cell phone tower transmitters in them! We're boned!

    --
    This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
  5. Re:Double blind study by moonbender · · Score: 3, Funny

    If any of the researchers are used to talk to their plants while gardening, they shouldn't mention the experiment to the seedlings, though. You know, just to be sure.

    --
    Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
  6. Re:Double blind should not be hard by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Funny

    Confirmation bias is real.

    No it isn't, and nothing you say can change that!

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  7. Re:Double blind should not be hard by thrawn_aj · · Score: 5, Funny

    No no. You see, the sun is natural. Which means that it only emits magic sprinkles and unicorn dust. Only the teh ebul radio towers are out to get us.

  8. Re:If it's not a definitive study... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I dunno if your results will, but your lynching might.

  9. Re:i don't know about radio, but i find by Nebulo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Foil absorbs light? I think you've been "smoking" too many "peppers".

    nebulo

  10. The Effects by DynaSoar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Once it's shown that radio waves are detrimental to aspen seedlings, there will be:

    1. Signs posted around transmitter towers saying "WARNING -- Radio waves can be detrimental to your leaf area development". In both English as Aspenic.

    B. Pictograph version of the same for Aspens that read yet.

    Three. Non-animal subjects committees at arboreal research centers defining then testing for proper and ethical treatment of seedlings, such informed consent.

    IV. Radical vegans, rejected Greenpeace applicants and overly sensitive hippie hangers-on 'rescuing' seedlings from Torture Hothouses because they're being tested 24 hours a day and not allowed to sleep.

    Cinco. Smarmy, crooning, sexy but aloof modern folk singers moaning out a somewhat relevant lyric while you see pictures of abused seedlings, then their eyes tearing up as they beg you "Won't you please help? Think of the seedlings."

    === 100 years pass ===

    99. Members of the Poplar* Peoples' Front forming a picket line around the Deciduous Students Union, carrying signs made of rock (no living material was harmed in the making of these signs) in their branches, demanding representation of their own kind among elected officials (Vote Yeast, Not Beast) and protesting the deplorable treatment of some of the more 'culturally mature due to greater experience evolving' and 'third forest' species (Smile Mold Is People Too) while Jefferson Floodplain sings "Up against the wall... Up against the wall, Carbonizers" from their hit album 'Nothing Can Stop The Shape of Leaves To Come and then giggle when you start to turn blue and gasp because you have cyclic respiration and can't read sentences this long without stopping for air whereas their constant bidirectional respiration means they can talk for hours straight without stopping once.

    * Not misspelled, you meat chauvinist pig.

    --
    "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
  11. Got to protect seedlings from E-M radiation ... by RockDoctor · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... particularly that with wavelengths between around 350 and 700nm.

    • Practically every person who has ever died of cancer has been exposed to electro-magnetic radiation between 350 and 700nm.
    • Sexually Transmitted Infections are more frequently reported in people who have been exposed to electro-magnetic radiation between 350 and 700nm.
    • Many drowning victims have been exposed to electro-magnetic radiation between 350 and 700nm in addition to their obvious exposure to DHMO.
    • Drug dealers and terrorists frequently use electro-magnetic radiation between 350 and 700nm in performance of their terrorist acts (including growing "peppers" for their pizzas).

    I think that the journal publishing and the amateur scientist published should attempt to grow their seedlings in complete absence of electro-magnetic radiation between 350 and 700nm. That'll teach them something that every troglobite population on the planet learned millennia ago.

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  12. Welcome to weird science !!!!! by Dilaudid · · Score: 2, Funny

    Great a 3 kdawson-story day. What next? Ouija boards cause cancer in mice? Perhaps we could have an article on the risks posed by heavy electricity, or homeopathic remedies for Autism (One lady in wisconsin swears that her little jimmy is much better after his injections). Perhaps we should change the slogan for Slashdot from "News for Nerds" to "Alternative Health monthly", or "News for Arts Graduates who like Apple Products", or "Anti-Globalisation Discussion Group". As someone with a science degree and a basic grasp of statistics, general science and economics I'd rather eat my own excreta, thanks. Faraday cage. Pathetic.

  13. Re:i don't know about radio, but i find by ShadoHawk · · Score: 2, Funny

    Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. No seriously... Do you have one?