UK falls for Woo-Fi

I thought "woo-fi" referred to the practice of drawing around the outside of your CDs with a green felt-tipped marker pen, so as to allegedly increase the fidelity.
 
tracer said:
I thought "woo-fi" referred to the practice of drawing around the outside of your CDs with a green felt-tipped marker pen, so as to allegedly increase the fidelity.
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funny, I thought it was going to be about speaker cables.
 
Michael Redman said:
I would like to know how much radiation we get exposed to from new technologies (wi-fi, cell) compared to what we've had around since early 20th Century (radio, TV).

Is there some reason to think that the frequency matters?
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Only in the limited sense that high frequency radiation tends to be high energy. Whether the difference in frequency of RF / Microwave signals is significant (for similar power output) I do not know. I very much doubt it, but that's not what matters.
I think the significant numbers are likely to be-
Output power, time of exposure and distance from source (which is the real question of interest with cellphones which are maybe 3cm from the brain.)
The complicating factor, as new systems are added is whether overlapping sources could result in combined effects which are potentially harmful, although each individual source is itself safe. I suspect the whole thing is a storm in a teacup, but I think the suppliers have an incentive to advertise the evidence for this.
 
LOL, "electronic smog." Amusing. Maybe they missed the part about the broadcast TV and radio death rays.
 
chocolatepossum said:
The article seems to imply that there is scientific evidence that suggests mobile phones and power lines have adverse health effects for those in close proximity to them. Am I to take it that this is untrue?I suspect that it is, but I need to arm myself with the facts regarding this, because I've been trying to persuade my parents, who I live with, to switch to a wireless router. They both read the independent occasionaly and have recently become very quick to react to health scares in the news.
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Virtually all scientific studies on adverse effects of both radiofrequency (mobile phones and such) and powerline EMF have found no adverse effects on humans at any power level or proximity that humans would encounter. One or two studies of which I am aware that did claim adverse effects could not be replicated in follow-up studies. If there's a health risk it's apparently so small that it can't be found in hundreds of studies.

The Health Physics Society, http://www.hps.org has some very helpful data under their "Experts Answers" section. Well worth a look.
 
Michael Redman said:
I would like to know how much radiation we get exposed to from new technologies (wi-fi, cell) compared to what we've had around since early 20th Century (radio, TV).

Is there some reason to think that the frequency matters?
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Obviously there's a lot more radiating devices around now than 75 or even 50 years ago. But the RF fields are hundreds of thousands or even a million times smaller than those of a commercial radio or TV station. The net amount of RF "pollution" is more, but not millions of times more.

Frequency DOES matter to some extent. Really high frequencies don't penetrate very far into the skin, while lower frequencies do (Ask an old timer about Diathermy treatments). Radio frequencies of a wavelength between 3 and 4 meters (The US FM band) tend to be well absorbed by humans because an adult human is around the height of a half wave dipole at that frequency and thus makes a nice antenna. I'd much rather stand in front of a 10ft radar dish than in front of a high powered commercial FM antenna.
 
Virtually all scientific studies on adverse effects of both radiofrequency (mobile phones and such) and powerline EMF have found no adverse effects on humans at any power level or proximity that humans would encounter. One or two studies of which I am aware that did claim adverse effects could not be replicated in follow-up studies. If there's a health risk it's apparently so small that it can't be found in hundreds of studies.
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So, are the following claims really false?

But last year a study by the official National Radiological Protection Board concluded that children living close to the lines are more likely to get leukaemia, and ministers are considering whether to stop any more homes being built near them. The discovery is causing a large-scale reappraisal of the hazards of the smog.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer - part of the WHO and the leading international organisation on the disease - classes the smog as a "possible human carcinogen". And Professor David Carpenter, dean of the School of Public Health at the State University of New York, told The Independent on Sunday last week that it was likely to cause up to 30 per cent of all childhood cancers. A report by the California Health Department concludes that it is also likely to cause adult leukaemia, brain cancers and possibly breast cancer and could be responsible for a 10th of all miscarriages.

Professor Denis Henshaw, professor of human radiation effects at Bristol University, says that "a huge and substantive body of evidence indicates a range of adverse health effects". He estimates that the smog causes some 9,000 cases of depression.
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Or are these the unreplicable studies you were talking about?

I used to think EM radiation and radio waves being carcinogenic was a myth, but specific claims like this make me feel unsure.
 
The market will push this story to the bottom of the agenda soon enough.

The most recent similar hysteria was over mobile phones, but the convenience of the technology outweighed the complaints and mobiles won.

Twenty years ago, microwave ovens were supposed to give you cancer and were the most evil thing imaginable, but everyone still has one and they sell at a steady pace. People aren't dropping like flies.

In the 1950s, televisions were allegedly going to kill us all by emitting dangerous radiation and frying our brains. Now most homes have at least one set.

When cameras were first invented, some people thought the photograph stole your soul. They were the tool of the devil. Now we all carry one attached to our cancer-causing, brain-frying, children-killing mobile phones. Oh, and my mobile has WiFi, too.

There's nothing new under the sun. Fortunately, WiFi technology is so good and so useful, the demand for it will far outweigh the unscientific concerns about health. I predict WiFi isn't going anywhere any time soon, any more than mobiles, microwaves, televisions and cameras are.

I love to point out to the scaremongering technophobes that the life expectency in the most technologically advanced countries is the highest.
 
Michael Redman said:
Is there some reason to think that the frequency matters?
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Frequency is very important, and not just because of higher frequencies having higher energy as other people have said. Different frequencies are absorbed with different efficiencies. For example, infrared radiation warms us up because organic molecules tend to absorb it very efficiently, while visible light has no noticeable effect even though it is higher frequency and energy. Similarly, microwaves of certain frequencies are absorbed very effeciently by water and so can be used for cooking food, while microwaves with much higher or lower energies are not absorbed much at all. In fact, very high energy light such as x-rays and gamma rays do not really cause any heating at all. They have such high enregy that they are not absorbed at all, they simply knock electrons out of atoms. This is damaging, but is a completely different process that is not possible at lower energies.

As far as I know there is no good evidence at all that would suggest any frequencies used for communication can be dangerous without going to ridiculously high power levels. However, while the concerns are generally unfounded they must be addressed because the possibility always remains that specific frequencies could be damaging. Unfortunately there seems to be very little understanding in either the general public or the media about which concerns could be real and which are completely unfounded. For example, mobile phones require study since they emit fairly high power and are held against the head for long periods, while wi-fi networks are much lower power and have essentially no chance of ever hurting anyone.

Edit : Incidentally, the argument that we have seen no effect from things in the past isn't generally valid. In the case of mobile phones, while power was higher in the past, the kind of disease they are claimed to cause, like cancer, takes a long time to develop. If mobile phones really do cause cancer we might not expect any problems to appear in the first users for another 10 years, in which case you could not argue that modern mobiles are safe just because we have not seen any bad effects yet.

Edit2 : Of course, as Teek points out, pretty much all technology has been called the work of the devil at some point. At present there is no evidence at all that mobiles, wi-fi, phone lines or anything like that cause any ill effects at all. However, we have to be careful about dismissing concerns out of hand. While the worries about new technology are not new, the technology is and must be evaluated on its own merits.
 
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chocolatepossum said:
So, are the following claims really false?

<claims>

Or are these the unreplicable studies you were talking about?

I used to think EM radiation and radio waves being carcinogenic was a myth, but specific claims like this make me feel unsure.
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IIRC, the mechanism by which EM fields could cause cancer were not known. Henshaw hypothesised that it wan't the presence of the EM field itself which was causing the problem, rather that the HT lines were casing the ionisation of molecules producing free radicals. These free radicals were suggested as the causitory factor.

The power levels associated with wireless networks et al (fractions of a watt) are comparatively tiny. It'd be surprising if they could produce dangerous levels of free radicals.

IMO, Henshaw's study didn't adequately take into account economic factors (such as poorer people living nearer power lines)
 
Last night newsnight had some woman who slept under a wire mesh to eliminate radiation. She also wore a beekeepers type hat with the same wire mesh when she went out. She claimed that she got really bad migraines from exposure to electro magnetic signals within 5 mins of exposure. Should be fairly easy to test.

I think that if we advise people who are worried that if they site their wifi unit on an eastern wall the feng shui will eliminate any risk they will probably go away happy.
 
Lothian said:
Last night newsnight had some woman who slept under a wire mesh to eliminate radiation. She also wore a beekeepers type hat with the same wire mesh when she went out. She claimed that she got really bad migraines from exposure to electro magnetic signals within 5 mins of exposure. Should be fairly easy to test.
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Very easy to test, so I hope some TV show is planning to do just that. Unfortunately, it will almost inevitably end up making the testee very upset at having been shown up up as a hypochondriac, so the show will have to handle it very sensitively.
 
Why?
If she's a hypochondriac, she's a hypochondriac. It's true!

I'm no transmitter expert, but what I'm reading here about wifi power output is much what I've seen elsewhere.

That said, the new "Cloud" network in the City of London has 127 hotspots, some of which are hidden in street furniture (ie embedded in roadsigns and lamp posts). It is almost certainly true that I could sit on one of these, 8 hours a day for twenty years without even warming my backside, but it might be nice to know where they are in case I'm carrying electronics that just might suffer interference- and I can understand people being a bit annoyed to find they've been sitting on a transmitter for days without being aware of it. Particularly people who firmly believe they are "sensitive "to such things, if only because they can kiss the JREF $1M goodbye , right then.

The Mater (who acquired her first pc at 79 , went broadband at 81 and thinks the Internet is a hoot) was amused by a church friend who was offered a portable (wireless) phone for her flat, but refused it because "they put out radiation".
For some twelve years, unbeknown to most of the congregation, the church steeple has housed the local police transmitter antennae. Not one murmur of headaches has been heard.
God works in mysterious ways.
 
Lothian said:
Last night newsnight had some woman who slept under a wire mesh to eliminate radiation. She also wore a beekeepers type hat with the same wire mesh when she went out. She claimed that she got really bad migraines from exposure to electro magnetic signals within 5 mins of exposure. Should be fairly easy to test.
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This is what annoys me about all these claims. While I don't believe there is any risk at all from any of the communication devices we use, I fully support testing them to ensure this is actually the case. However, the media and peopel in general seem to somehow make a connection to utterly ridiculous claims like this. So she claims to get a migraine from exposure to RM radiation. Does she live permanently in the dark? Did she not have a problem from all the equipment used to interview her? Her claim simply does not make sense. Many people claim to be "sensitive", yet none of them seem to notice the huge amount of EM radiation they are exposed to every day, they only seem to notice that from brand new technology that has been mentioned in the news. Why do the media have to be so irresponsible? By all means report on the possible risk from things like mobile phones, but please leave the "TVs emitting death rays" to science fiction.
 
Cuddles said:
This is what annoys me about all these claims. While I don't believe there is any risk at all from any of the communication devices we use, I fully support testing them to ensure this is actually the case. However, the media and peopel in general seem to somehow make a connection to utterly ridiculous claims like this. So she claims to get a migraine from exposure to RM radiation. Does she live permanently in the dark? Did she not have a problem from all the equipment used to interview her? Her claim simply does not make sense. Many people claim to be "sensitive", yet none of them seem to notice the huge amount of EM radiation they are exposed to every day, they only seem to notice that from brand new technology that has been mentioned in the news. Why do the media have to be so irresponsible? By all means report on the possible risk from things like mobile phones, but please leave the "TVs emitting death rays" to science fiction.
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The media tend to deconstruct every potential story into the most manageable chunks possible for their (perceived) short attention-span, average intelligence, not-too-well educated audience, and their limited column inches. The result is invariably a chinese-whispers soundbite version of the truth that grossly oversimplifies and distorts what may actually have happened. Taking out every other word would be in many cases less damaging. Ironically it seems to be done with "the facts" in mind, but in a black-and-white kind of way. Most subjects, needless to say, involve many shades of grey. But you lose your audience if you explore those.

So here we have "potential risks of EM that should be checked out" = "KILLER WIFI SMOG!!!!1". Like that Tyrannosaur protein article instantly became "OMFGBBQ JEWRASSIC PARK!". Let's not even think about the recent "Kryptonite discovered!" reports...
 
How on Earth could a pendant supposed to operate through laws never proven by science even be marketed as an effective cure in a normal newspaper? I find it very distrubing. My image of the independant (which I read sporadically, I live outside the UK) has taken a deep fall.
 
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