Wifi KILLS trees

[SullyJake1]

found this

New study suggests wi-fi kills trees : The Thin Green Line

[Isard]

Read comments.


Rethink position.

The real story here is how a news summary (not even a press release) about ongoing research related to a controversial subject at a University gets picked up by the media and progressively distorted. The Dutch Antenna bureau notes already how Dutch media misunderstood the story. The fact that Holland even has an antenna bureau which maps antenna radiation levels and looks into biological effects is interesting. The study is not finished. There is an observation about the general unhealthiness and poor growth of plants, trees in particular, in Holland and this study intends to find out if wi-fi radiation is one factor. The initial results some negative effect using a point source of 100 mW at a typical wi-fi frequency (around 2400Mhz) and distance of 1/2 meter. I am not sure how useful this study will be considering most plants and trees are much farther from wi-fi access points or cell phone towers and that radiation levels drop dramatically in relation to distance from the source.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/...#ixzz18mBj0x4d

[Human No More]

If it did, we'd all be long dead. 802.11 is not the only source of that frequency range.

[applejuice]

Hmm... very unlikely. I've been working for two years with those frequencies at higher transmission powers. There is some sort of urban legend about those frequencies being lethal to organic life, several studies about the effects have been carried and there's no compelling evidence that shows that microwaves at those frequencies and energies pose a danger to health. The term radiation can cause confusion: radiation means something that radiates energy (in this case, electromagnetic energy) to the surrounding space. For example, our body radiates thermal energy (you can feel the heat of a nearby person), a TV transmitter radiates EM energy that carries the information to the TV receiver, etc. A wifi antenna radiates energy in the order of milliwatts (or watts if it's a large wifi antenna), a microwave oven, in the order of hundreds of watts. The power density of a wifi antenna is very low, because the energy is not confined to a closed space. A microwave oven confines hundreds of watts in a very small volume and that's how they cook things. (In a microwave oven, a stationary wave forms, the oven itself is a resonant cavity)... So, given the low energies involved in telecommunications, I think it's safe to say that there is no danger involved in using those frequencies for those applications.

[James of terra]

If that was true, I would be gone along time ago... Work around all kinds of radation!!

[auroraglacialis]

Usually I am in for environmentalist messages, but this one is really sketchy. Not a lot of samples, unrealistic conditions - further studies required, I would say.

I am not dismissing, that EM waves/radiation can cause harm. Probably they are not benign overall, but I would guess that the effects are long term and do not affect everything the same way. Still, if that study is repeatable, my conclusion would be that one better not works too close to a sender and that even at larger distances than 1/2 meter there could be an effect. Radiation intensity diminishes with r³, but that still leaves a considerable long-term effect at some distance. Of course trees would not die right away, but over years they may grow differently or be more prone to illnesses (as overfertilized plants tend to be probe to wind attacks for example). A comparison would be to use a toxic substance on animals for testing. Usually this is done by a LD50 test, the toxic stuff is given to many animals in increasing dosages until 50% of the animals die (sigh!) that still means that 1/10 or 1/100 of that dosage is harmful, just it is not toxic. Only because it does not kill you right away does not mean it is benign.

Still - that one study with what - 20(?) trees - would not be enough for me to scream out "we're all going to die" (yet)