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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.
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.
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.
Shhh... Montsanto is listening
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.
Yep. The plant can feel the steamroller crush of nearby technology running amok, so, it simply gives up in disgust.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
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.)
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.
and the flowers have already switched to IPv6.
If I were them, I would find a way to measure the internal temperature of the cress.
At least read TFS.
..garden cress won't germinate when placed near a router
So, you see, there is actually no cress for them to measure. It never germinated.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
...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
I'll happily go fuck myself when this result is repeated by experienced scientists with all proper controls. If this result is unreproducible, you can go fuck yourself instead.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
A consumer router is about the same size as an access point and often contains access point functionality. You're being pedantic without a cause.
... 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.
What if it was fairies or elves or unicorns?
All of those are about as likely as the culprit being radio waves. Go outside, look up at noon time. Notice that that big burning thing in the sky releasing lots of radio waves does not seem to be harming the plants.
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
Jokes on you, I went out and looked at it and now I see spots, clearly it causes harm~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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
Flamebait or not, I think in the end, all the tests and experiments will show that WiFi has a negative effect on both Animals (Including Humans) and Plant life. If Magnets can negatively impact Human behavior, why do people deny these invisible signals of don't?. I'm not saying they do or don't, I'm just saying the test results will show a negative light on these signals.
All my equipment is wired by the way, and It's going to stay that way. Not only because of the unknown, but for performance and security reasons.
Well when all the science is against your belief, all you have is angry response. I can practical see the foam and spittle spraying from you mouth.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Do note the sarcasm. I aske... DEMANDED a pony.
Thank you.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Shhhh, don't tell everyone or else the reptilian overlords will hunt you down!
If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?
"claimed"? I'm still using the present tense.
If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?
IANAL, but I suggest you stop suggesting to people that they should look directly into the sun.
You can be proud of yourself. Stifle kids interest in science just because the are not trained and experienced scientist. Who made you a teacher?
This is interesting, especially coming from freshmen in high school
This is the real news here. It's not "OMG access points sterilize things!!!!", it's "wow, in this age of school experiments consisting of celery in food coloring, here's a bunch of kids that did an actual experiment. Oh, and they got interesting results that require further investigation." I'm not going to move my router based on this experiment, but I sure hope someone does the follow-ups, because that is science.
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.
what celery in food coloring experiment? I never got to do a celery and food coloring experiment. Now I feel left out! I may not be as special and unique and as much of a winner as everyone else!!
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
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.
Don't despair! You've found what makes you a special and unique snowflake!
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.
"I'll happily go fuck myself when this result is repeated by experienced scientists with all proper controls"
I'll do you one better. I've already done this experiment with far better controls and computer-controlled everything in my research facility. Ive done it with cress, lettuces of various types, and fruiting plants such as tomatoes and peppers. The results are the same. This same setup is also how I test my LED lighting.
Would you like this with or without lube? I only ask because my dick's going in, too!
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.
Well, I see why you're a FORMER high school teacher.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
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.
I would imagine that it was not "we outlaw experiments" but rather "outlaw experiments that are far above the level that the students can conduct with proper scientific process"
The point being, there are plenty of ways to get kids interested in science, that will allow them to do projects, and get results, that are not nearly as prone to producing aberrant results. MY understanding of how to teach kids science is to have them perform KNOWN experiments that the teacher KNOWS the possible outcomes of, because they have been performed thousands of times by well trained scientists. That way, the teacher can actually teach, because they will be able to tell if proper scientific process has been followed, based on the results, and guide the students into learning the proper scientific process.
Having young kids do actual research on subjects that are not well studied already, or with huge variable pools, does not really teach them anything. its just "I did an experiment and something happened! but because I don't know what was supposed to happen, I cant tell if I followed good scientific procedure." Which is really what they need to be learning.
Let me give a real world example I experienced as a student. In one of my electronics courses in college, we used a workbook designed by students of another school. It included lots of problems such as calculating the final resistance of a circuit. Now, in a professionally designed workbook, generally the problems are arranged so that when you finally produce an answer, the answer is in such a format that you can tell you've proceeded through the math correctly. In OUR workbook, the problems where not designed that way, the result being, you would spend twenty minutes hashing out a bunch of numbers, and the end result looked like it was spit out of a random number generator.
While it is true that real world applications of this sort of math would often produce similar results, In an education environment, producing obfuscated results simply confuses the student, You do the math, look at the answer you got, and think to yourself. "well, I hope that's right." Because the answer your derivations produced is in such a obtuse format.
The point is, in a learning environment, working toward a known answer is key to learning the steps in getting their correctly. Once you know how to take those steps, you can move on to taking those steps blindly towards unknown answers. I will concede that yes, there is eventually a time you may ask students to step out and work towards unknown answers, but I personally feel that such levels of education are better suited to college, possibly even masters degree level, simply because there is such a great quantity of knowledge required to properly proceed through the scientific process.
Think about it, Any high school chemistry teacher worth their pay would never ask a student to mix two chemicals together if the teacher did not know what the reaction would produce. The same standard should be held for biological science at that level.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
You've cited an interesting article: 10 minute exposure, 900 MHz, intensity low enough not to cause heating. The authors refer to the radiation level as "low", however 5V/m, while not high, is not what I'd call low. Response to radiation, if I read the article correctly, was dose-dependent.
It lends credence to the student's results, and suggests lines of inquiry with variables like frequency and intensity. Seeing a trend or threshold effects would be instructive.
Thanks.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
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?
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.
Why? I believe there are plenty of 'bad' teachers who still have jobs.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
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.
We should also see which is more efficient: 5 * 9th-graders or 9 * 5th-graders!!!
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
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!
That is an interesting article. But it bothers me that qPCR is the only assay they used. I'd really like to see those microarrays they talked about, it's been over 5 years and they already had the RNA from the qPCR. Either someone didn't think it was worth funding, or they didn't find anything worth publishing. Also, calmodulin is involved. There are techniques to measure and visualize calmodulin activity. Showing that calmodulin-Ca++ binding actually increases in those timeframes would be much stronger evidence for their claim.
So, no I'm not quite going to fuck myself yet. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and there's nothing extraordinary here.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Would Montsanto be threatened if they discovered various routers in their corporate offices?
I'm not saying that
if you get wrong results (although your data shows it) you get bad mark.
I'm saying that, in an educational setting, the student should be performing an experiment the teacher knows the outcomes of. If done properly, result A is produced. If poor procedure is followed, result B is the expected result. The student would be expected to perform the experiment to the best of their ability, trying to follow proper procedure. Ideally, they perform the test at least three times. Then, they write up their findings. Now, This is the "teachable moment" as we are so fond of calling it, the actual educational part of all this. The teacher reveals the intended results of the experiment. Then the students are tasked with reviewing their work, and discovering where mistakes in their procedure where made that caused result B, instead of result A. Perhaps at this stage, the students are tasked with performing the experiment one more time, this time correcting the error, to see how proper procedure results in result A. In a well designed exercise, Both result A and result B in the experiment produce fascinating results, thus investing students interest in science. (A fair amount of classroom science has results where A is interesting, and B is not, which also can spur a desire to learn how to do the process correctly, allowing for the exciting result.)
The point is, to foster an interest in science, while instilling in the student the knowledge and skills required to perform scientific processes with the appropriate rigor and technique. Once this is very well mastered, students move on to designing and executing their own experiments. As we have seen here, there is a great deal of discussion as to the various places proper scientific process was or was not followed in these students experiment. Couple that with the fact that the phenomena they are attempting to study is still in great debate by professional scientists around the world, and you have students set up in a situation where, despite having performed an experiment, they have not really learned anything about how to do science properly.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
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.
The seeds were too busy reading /. to remember to germinate.