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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.
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.
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.
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.
...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
... 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.
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 ;)
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
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.
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.
Don't despair! You've found what makes you a special and unique snowflake!
and the experiment is correct. There is absolutley no garden cress germinating near my router.
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...