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0 pointstgv1y ago0 comments

What would the effect be? How would it show up? What mechanism can explain radio waves affecting brain structures? What tissue can receive radio waves? What frequency are we even talking about?

Anyway, the way to start with your hypothesis is really simple. Relate the amount of relevant electromagnetic energy in the environment to whatever symptom you think it causes and measure the population for that symptom. Get people who exhibit the symptoms to places where that energy is absent (removed from society, in a Faraday cage, whatever). Check if the symptoms disappear. It doesn't have to disappear completely, just gradually. If you believe that even the slightest amount of EM radiation will still have an effect, so a test free of it is practically impossible, I have a surprise for you.

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6 comments · 4 top-level

MrDrMcCoy1y ago· 1 in thread

> What tissue can receive radio waves?

https://www.sciencealert.com/birds-see-magnetic-fields-crypt...

Some aboriginal people never developed the concept of left and right, instead using cardinal directions. I've heard that a few can even tell such directions in total darkness, but am having a hard time finding a source for that. I suspect that humans once had similar EM sensitivity to birds in the same way we once had senses of smell that rivaled dogs, and that these traits may randomly resurface in a handful of people.

tgvOP1y ago

First: we don't have it anymore, and it's extremely unlikely that a pretty advanced extra sense just pops up in random people. Second: the Earth's magnetic field is quite static, while radio waves (the supposed contamination source) with some strength ranges from 100kHz to 5GHz. Third: the Earth's magnetic field has always been here, and there always has been EM background noise, so any recent effects must be attributed to intensity.

amatecha1y ago· 1 in thread

basically all living tissue absorbs RF because it's full of water. This also affects brain electrical activity: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK208983/

tgvOP1y ago

First: those effects are of high power, nearby fields. The EM contamination in our environment is very low power, mostly lower frequencies, and evenly distributed. It's hard to imagine it affecting any brain signal, since even the lowest present frequencies are three orders of magnitude faster than a neuron's polarity change.

I don't know that water absorbs normal radio frequencies. Above 1GHz or so, it starts to absorb, but the effect is heating, nothing else. Having a mobile phone next to your head increases the temperature in nearby brain tissue a little bit, so it's hard to image that the low power frequencies can do anything else but increase the temperature very, very lightly, something which the body can deal with effectively.

I don't see it.

Terr_1y ago

Also add some tests to check whether it's psychosomatic. For example, a device that appears to be on but is actually off, and vice versa.

If symptoms vanish just because you disabled the power LED, then that tells you something else is going on.

LorenPechtel1y ago

You've got the right test procedure.

And note that it doesn't have to be all EM energy--sensitivity to one common frequency plus a lack of understanding of what's happening could explain it.

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6 comments · 4 top-level

MrDrMcCoy1y ago· 1 in thread

> What tissue can receive radio waves?

https://www.sciencealert.com/birds-see-magnetic-fields-crypt...

tgvOP1y ago

amatecha1y ago· 1 in thread

basically all living tissue absorbs RF because it's full of water. This also affects brain electrical activity: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK208983/

tgvOP1y ago

I don't see it.

Terr_1y ago

Also add some tests to check whether it's psychosomatic. For example, a device that appears to be on but is actually off, and vice versa.

If symptoms vanish just because you disabled the power LED, then that tells you something else is going on.

LorenPechtel1y ago

You've got the right test procedure.

And note that it doesn't have to be all EM energy--sensitivity to one common frequency plus a lack of understanding of what's happening could explain it.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse