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9th Grade Science Experiment: Garden Cress Won't Germinate Near Routers
New submitter SessionExpired writes "Five 9th graders from Denmark have shown that garden cress won't germinate when placed near a router (Google Translation of Danish original). Article text is in Danish, but the pictures illustrate their results. The exact mechanism is still unknown (Danish original), but experts have shown interest in reproducing the experiment."
experts have shown interest in reproducing the experiment
Or not reproducing, as the case may be.
That means the garden cress is doomed to join the ranks of species like the dodo that couldn't cut it in the modern world, amarite?
A perfect weedkiller!
Your typical slashdotter probably sits closer to their router than the plants. And is about as likely to germinate.
They should have used a control, and put cress near a lamp bulb that gives off the same amount of heat.
Simplest explanation is the additional heat which was nearby but not enough to alter room temperature affected them.
now maybe the wife will stop complaining about missing a day's worth of birth control!!
Well, your Mom is in heat so I'll try the germination experiment right now. (And yes, while humans lost oestrus, your Mom is such a dirty slut that she got it back.)
This seems...unlikely. Why do I have the feeling that one of their parents held strong opinions about the dangers of wifi even before the experiment?
This is interesting, especially coming from freshmen in high school, but don't expect too much out of them. I agree, that residual heat could play a part, but, more interestingly, what if it was the proximity to radio signals? That would be very, very, very intriguing, and unlike first poster on the page, I think this will definitely see follow-up from somebody in academia, if nothing else but to disprove their rudimentary study.
Sadly posting as A/C so my mod point above wouldn't be undone.
The experiment was setup to validate a foregone conclusion. The (probable, as I can't read the Danish complete report) untested control factor was the impact the different rooms had in the absence of the routers. Retesting both samples without the presence of the routers could fix this issue.
Anyway, it is good science (it is testable and verifiable) but bad journalism.
Unless it can be reproduced or its mechanism explained, it is nothing but fuel to add to the "communication radiation exposure is bad" hysteria.
but this time move the routers to the other room. As it stands, they still don't know if it was the routers causing the problem or something else in that particular room (temperature, draft, amount of sunlight, etc).
So it would seem it doesn't matter that the device had routing capability, as they were using it as an AP. They should call it a wireless AP then, not a router, as the routing bit is irrelevant.
Some local newspaper has grabbed hold of the story and the implication is that the result is solid science, where in fact it is either a preliminary discovery, or an aberration of some sort. Things like this happen all the time, which is why there is a need for reproducing the results, which has not yet been done. However, the story is already circling the globe and no doubt this will add more fuel to the fire of people claiming this type of radiation is harmful. It's irresponsible journalism on Slashdot's part by posting this story and over-hyping something that could be nothing. Next thing we know, every lab error will be either heralded as cold fusion, the discovery of dark matter, or space aliens, if we go by the standard of proof in this article. When this most likely goes sour, I hope it doesn't turn off those hard working kids from science altogether.
That being said, I would be interested if this experiment was reproduced by several respectable researchers, but the skeptic in me says that this will likely not happen. This story is really jumping the gun, and doesn't belong in anything but a small town Danish newspaper, let alone Slashdot.
When I was 16 or so, I was working on my uncle's boat in Alaska. It was a slow day, so we were painting railings and such. I heard my uncle call my name, wondering where I was. I called back that I was on top of the wheelhouse. He went ahead and shut off the radar, but I'd already been standing next to it for and hour or more. I honestly don't mind since pulling out seems so unnatural. I guess if I ever want to have kids I'll just have to try harder and think fertile thoughts.
Have they ruled out dogs peeing, kids peeing, asses with an axe to grind peeing, copper or other poisons in the pot, or other assholery? More likely than experimental error or bias in dirt or planting or seed selection.
Does the router bloe hot air?
I misspelled blow, but I think I stumbled across a funnier spelling, so I'm leaving it.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Simple cause: Plants don't run Linux ;-)
Table-ized A.I.
Thanks, Editor-dot, for not reviewing TFS. This was an experiment to test EM radition, its nothing to do with 'routers'. Believe it or not, there are things which are 'routers' that are not supplied by your ISP when you sign up for home broadband.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Another interesting experiment would be to keep an eye on these kids and see what they will become later. This might be very interesting.
First, the frequencies used by mobile phones are fairly different from those used by wifi routers. Second, I wonder what the total power output of the routers (and the received power at the watercress) was during the experiment. Third, I'm wondering how the kids will duplicate this experiment around a cell tower...very interesting.
(There is much anecdotal evidence about the bad health effects of cellphone radiation out there--I will not be surprised if the evidence proves a mechanism one day.)
When I was in fourth grade the teacher did a plant growth experiment with one batch of plants getting water and the other getting water + Miracle Grow. The plants without Miracle Grow seemed to grow a little better.... conclusion: There really isn't one!
Question: Was the router even turned on?
and make sure you have plenty of seeders.
Without investigating what-ifs, there would be no studies. This is their primary purpose.
Don't worry about your psychosis medication, that tin foil hat seems to be working wonders.
This is exactly what we should be encouraging kids to do. Regardless of lack of control or other "missing" experimental methods, this is a significant scientific result for a bunch of 9th graders. Good on them and good on their teacher for encouraging them to do the experiment and having the balls to publish it.
My wifi router is very warm to the touch the stuff around it is slightly warm to the touch. Plant biology being as it is and very dependent on hydration adn warmth, the point on the heat from GP still stand.
It said two different *rooms*. The room with the router could be a very different environment for a lot of other reasons.
Re-run the experiment in the same room so there are fewer variables to control. Place the sprouting trays in a line leading from the router, and see if sprouting and/or growth is always suppressed closer. Alternatively, same room but with a Faraday cage around some of the sprouting trays.
Wifi routers operate on microwave frequencies. It's possible that the harmful effects on the seeds were culinary rather than carcinogenic; that is, the seeds' internal temperatures were raised slightly, cooking them to death, instead of genetic damage. On the other hand, a human body has a giant active cooling system (the bloodstream and skin,) so minute temperature variations are less harmful. Alternate explanation: Based on my understanding of botany, I believe plant seeds usually consist of relatively few unusually large cells. This means there are fewer copies of each chromosome to go around, so damage to one chromosome is much more catastrophic than it would be in an adult human body, where mutations happen all the time and it's really no big deal. Finally, consider the inverse square law. The amount of radiation, say, two inches from a router, is vastly less than the amount of radiation a foot and a half away.
Radiation, coming from the sun as light or from routers or cellphones, carries energy. The more energy in one particular spot, the more likely it is that some complex molecule will either unfold (happens when frying eggs) or just dissemble (as happens with long exposure to UV light). If this particular molecule happens to be part of the DNA it might render the seed unusable.
and the flowers have already switched to IPv6.
And we, (that's the selective 'we') know the answers and the mechanisms, the whole bit.
But instead we're debating high school science fair results.
What does that tell you?
Truth is, anybody who wants to (really *wants*) to know the answer to this question can go do some research. The material is not hard to find. You can order the relevant titles at your local library.
But the reality is, nobody really *wants* to know. It's so much more difficult to enjoy your dumb techno-toys if you *know* they're messing up your brain.
Have a nice denial.
All you fucking idiots who claimed wifi sickness was made up by technophobes can fuck yourself.
...as it grows fine on keyboards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cress_keyboard-3_sprouting_other_side.jpg
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This is great way to educate children even if it turns out in the end that conclusions were incorrect.
I was picturing a giant 7513 towering over the puny seeds.
Is it too much to ask we get basic terms corre...
Oh dear science, I've become one of *those* people.
... but not due to the results; this is an example of good, solid science coming out of a secondary school with limited resources. Given what I could read of the translation, I don't think this is irresponsible journalism at all -- think of it more as journalism on the state of education, not science.
It is, of course, an extraordinary result, and will require extraordinary proof. I suspect the claims will not be reproduced; at the same time, I hope these kid-researchers keep their interest level in this experiment up regardless of outcome. From this, they'll learn about experimental errors, uncontrolled factors, and -- most importantly -- to divorce their ego from their results. That last bit is perhaps the hardest for most scientists to achieve.
I nominate this experiment for the prestigious Journal of Irreducible Results.
they don't eat that in denmark, dumbass.
They seemed to cover all their bases. They put all the plants in a room with a router and red light. They told the plants that the red light meant the router was on. Whenever the red light was illuminated, almost 90% of the participating plants did not grow, regardless of the power status of router, whereas when the red light was off, all the plants grew, even when the router was powered on!
You'll be fine. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/3109815261/
They're using 2.4GHz wifi routers. 3G and LTE was not chosen because of data cost.
The rooms are all locked, so only the teacher and the 5 pupils have access.
They've done the tests twice with the same results.
They've controlled temperature, water amount, sun radiation from windows and more factors, to control bias.
The danish newspaper Ingeniøren (The Engineer) has the teacher Kim Horsevad explain in detail in the comments on their article on the subject: http://ing.dk/artikel/folkeskoleelever-vaekker-forsker-opsigt-mobilstraaling-forhindrer-karse-i-spire-158867#comment-529110
His comment is REALLY long, so some other dane will have to translate if Google Translate doesn't cut it ;)
Radio is non-ionising, it wouldn't cause DNA damage. Nor is is possible that the radio could heat the seeds - not enough power. Far more likely is that heat from the router electronics dried out the medium the seeds were on, and more likely still is that the 'fail' group were in an entirely different room and thus at a completely different temperature.
So, you see, there is actually no cress for them to measure. It never germinated.
Take a look at the photo:
http://www.dr.dk/imagescaler/?file=%2FNR%2Frdonlyres%2FBE4CAC3A-4A0E-42CF-9ACB-69325246A40F%2F5130743%2Fdb6ac36f2c8248a1b782e25f61f5bfb2_Karse_udsat_for_t.jpeg&w=460&h=259&scaleAfter=crop
See those green bits on the edge of the plate?
Yeah, I know... it's kinda small... But it's there. You can't deny it's there.
Also, from the not-so-fine translation:
And the result spoke his clear language: cress seeds next to the router was not grown, and some of them were even mutated or dead.
Mutated? How does something mutate if it does not grow?
Oh! I know! It's sensationalist BULLSHIT.
SOME the fucking plants withered cause they were exposed to heat and placed on a different kind of surface (wood instead of plastic sheets - one of those two gathers and condenses loose moisture they where spilling all over).
BOTH groups germinated just fine. One was kept hotter and with less moisture.
http://www.dr.dk/NR/rdonlyres/075641A4-F4D4-4ECF-834F-C0DAF2B8E1E1/5134835/Finaleposter24apr2013.pdf
Those girls should be failed, made to return the money and both them and the so-called journalists making this a slashdot-hitting news should apologize to everyone on at least 5 international TV channels and over the internet FOR LYING!
And the news agency should buy everyone a pony!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
But not for the reason you might suspect:
As a former HS science teacher, I was part of a department that outlawed all plant experiments. Why? Because just about nobody at the HS level has the expertise and the equipment to do a properly controlled study. We had all sorts of 'music makes my plants grow better' and 'plants like coke better than pepsi' experiments. And in every one, it was clear that the budding young scientist had no idea what they were doing. Simple things like putting a plant on either side of a window 'so they were the same' fall flat when one side of the window gets direct sun and the other does not.
I'd put some serious money on these kids having made some fairly simple mistakes when doing this experiment. Let me know when they make two identical chambers and run a couple of experiments where one has a router that is broadcasting and the other does not, one has a router with power and one does not, etc. And when they actually do that level of experiment and get the same results repeatedly, and they are interesting, let me know.
Until then, why the fuck is this on the news?
Teachers are a bunch of retarded left-wing dingbats, many of whom in Canada probably subscribe whole-heartedly to the "EM radiation" paranoia.
If the teachers had access to the experiment, fuck it, I don't buy it.
I remember watching a TED talk a while back about a fellow who was perfecting an electromagnetic cancer-killing device that was looking to be extremely effective. Perhaps a similar phenomina is in play here. Basically part of the DNA duplication process prior to cell division involves stringing out the chromosomes into long electrostatically-bonded chains. By electromagnetically interfering in that process the device caused virtualy all replicating cells to die, with the few survivors typically being extremely sickly. Since in most parts of the body cancer cells are the only ones replicating with any frequency the device presented a method of selectively destroying cancer cells without significantly harming the surrounding tissue. Initial studies done on people with inoperable or recurrent tumors showed success on par with intensive chemotherapy, but without the horrible side effects.
So anyway - we know that at least some EM fields are capable of killing replicating cells, and that's kind of the primary activity of embrryonic cells, so that could perhaps be the reason the seeds failed to germinate. Of course I have no idea what the strength, frequency, etc. of the anti-cancer device's EM fields were, so maybe it's not relevant, but something worth considering at least.
Another "attack vector" is that fats typically absorb microwaves far more efficiently than water, and are an important component of cell membranes. That means microwave heating would is actually concentrated on the protective membrane around the cell, and in an embryo that membrane is in the process of growing very rapidly as the initial cell subdivides, and may be more vulnerable to damage.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Did they try NOT eating surströmming at lunch in the vicinity of the experiment?
I'm pretty sure they did as they are danish and not swedish. Most danes are sane enough not to touch that stuff
Do note the sarcasm. I aske... DEMANDED a pony.
Thank you.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
A bunch of anti-vax types on my FB page were posting articles about how schoolchildren showed that plants that were grown with microwave water didn't grow, with side-by-side illustrations.
Snopes debunked it by repeating the experiment.
Until I see confirmations of the experiment, I am highly skeptical.
Seriously, it's unreadable.
Put a router under your bed when you invite your girlfriend over. As a proven method of of birth control.
Have gnu, will travel.
Heat from the router and laptops is very unlikely to have been a cause. The rooms were computer-controlled for atmospherics, and the pictures clearly show the dead zone around the entire setup, not just around the areas where heat would be likely to vent and collect.
To add, cress has quite a varied range of germination temperatures.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
and the experiment is correct. There is absolutley no garden cress germinating near my router.
Human females don't go into heat. You'd know this if you ever left your basement.
If the router gets hot, it will result in a column of rising air above it, which will draw surrounding cooler air in from all directions. The increased airflow wouldn't just be around the vents. I have no idea if the increase would actually be significant.
Cell phones do pulse usage (single channel voice is 8k/sec) and only when they are in an actual call. WiFi routers are almost constantly transmitting. If you want to compare phones to wifi, you should either be comparing a PC to a phone, or a cell tower to a wifi router.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Unless you are referring to the original Danish article, your comment could just as well be criticizing the translation and not the original paper.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
The second experiment added some Linux laptops that ping-flooded to generate lots of network activity. The second experiment showed a clear increase in plant "damage" /lack of development.
Were the laptops located so that their fans wouldn't be blowing hot air past the seeds, heating them and sucking the moisture out of them?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I've had a lot of experience in sprouting (alfalfa, beans like chickpeas, peas, lentils, etc) - i'm going to make two batches from the same mix of seeds/beans, and place one beside my wifi router, and see what happens...
Given that you're stating that the rising heat column would draw cooler air in across the plants, we can pretty much rule out heat, assuming your statement is true.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Meanwhile, 9th graders from neighbouring Holland have supplied Denmark with some of their own "special blend" garden cress. Problem solved.
Hey cool! I know the mechanism behind this! Garden cress are of the family Brassicaceae and many of that family are incredibly sensitive to a type of plasticizer called phthalates
I've worked in research horticulture for some years and research staff who focus on Brassica spp are incredibly careful about the components used in things like planthouses and controlled growth chambers
Not all plastics and plasticizers contain these compounds ( I've been told it is only in cheap plastics but I can't confirm this ). But if you're spending +50K on a controlled growth environment for your Brassica spp you want written confirmation from your supply company that no phthalates are used anywhere in it's construction as it negatively affects growth, including germination in some species. This include no phthalates in the circuitry, wiring and shrinkwrap where their outgassing could get into the growth chamber, even indirectly
I haven't read more than the abstracts of the articles below but they provide a useful starting point
Trace gases generated in closed plant cultivation systems and their effects on plant growth. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11541892
Growth inhibition in Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa var. chinensis) growth exposed to di-n-butyl phthalate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18678443
Add a piece of orgonite by the wifi and the cress will flourish.
Add a piece of orgonite by the wifi and the cress will flourish.
Sure, humans don't.
But he was talking about your mom.
Well, obviously the reproductive packets are being dropped. So just flush all tables and it should work.
The "healthy" and "sick" cress pictures are the same...note seed on plate rim.
About, 25 years ago I recall viewing an episode of 60 minutes. Where scientists claimed they were able to detect biological effect of very narrow frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. The implication of the press piece was that their employers, a mobile telecom, refused to follow up studies on their research and these two guys choose another research path and moved on.
1) See no evil, Hear no evil, Research no evil. .....
2)
3) Profit!
I think Router affect plants, but not so much harm to our health when used
--
tieng anh thieu nhi
A good lesson for the kids. What was the real cause of the results. What other factors that differ between the rooms was not controlled.
Heavy is the head that wears the tinfoil hat.
Cell phones, and even cell phone towers, have insignificant RF radiation compared to broadcasting towers. It is not uncommon to have more than a Megawatt ERP aggregate radiation from a broadcasting tower carrying several FM and TV stations. The high gain antennas are aimed with a down-tilt from the horizon, and sometimes these are located in cities, mountain top beauty spots, or alongside major roads. If exposure to VHF and UHF radiation is dangerous, we should start looking there. I doubt that it is so dangerous. The only effect that can be measured is a slight warming of the skin. The Sun is a huge RF transmitter that warms the skin a lot more. Oh wait! The sun causes deadly myeloma skin cancers, so maybe that is not such a good example.
Heavy is the head that wears the tinfoil hat.
Because the only way microwaves can interact meaningfully with biological stuff is by heating it up - they're not ionizing, so the photons themselves literally do not have enough energy to do any direct damage to biological matter.
This is a sufficiently bizarre result that I'm going to stick to skepticism in absence of any believable proposed mechanism. Basic Bayesian intuition is telling me that it's far more likely that this is due to some quirk in the experimental design than to any actual fertility-killing effects of wireless communication.
It think the term you are seeking is ad-hominem, which you appear to be quite guilty of yourself.
My 7th grade son did a similar experiment using a Faraday cage for half his plants and a non-metallic cage for the other half. He saw no significant difference between the two groups of plants, which were otherwise in the same environments.