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> Informative exercise: put sunlight on that graph. Polarization: A Key Difference between Man-made and Natural Electromagnetic Fields, in regard to Biological

by oliv__ 5y ago

> Informative exercise: put sunlight on that graph. Polarization: A Key Difference between Man-made and Natural Electromagnetic Fields, in regard to Biological Activity [0] [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914

jjoonathan 5y ago
A. Does that paper have anything to do with any of the graphs in TFA? The point of the exercise was to calibrate intuition for trends and intensities, not to talk about damage models. B. Has this line of research actually shown anything in a bulk setting at sane levels of incident RF or is it still "we built an antenna structure out of saline and showed that a neuron can respond to the resulting voltage if we really blast it?" Thermalization mechanisms like rovibrational absorption (small scale) and conventional currents (large scale -- the focus of these new studies) aren't the only supporting evidence for thermal damage models, though. There is also the dose/response curve. We can generate RF at many thousands of times the intensity that we find in cell phones and observe the consequences. Often unintentionally. Those consequences look a heck of a lot like thermal burns. If there is an alternative damage mechanism, it has to saturate at a very low level, so that there are no observable acute effects from a wild overdose.
- oliv__ 5y ago
  A. This is simply a rebuttal to the too easy dismissal that is comparing levels of man-made radiation to sunlight. B. I am not a researcher, but you can read the paper and see for yourself. It was published in Nature in case you haven't noticed, this is not some kooky youtuber
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    A. The point of the exercise was to calibrate intuition for trends and intensities, not to talk about damage models. B. I've read a large number of papers in this genre and this appears to be another. Just like I feel my time is wasted every time I read another mouse-in-a-microwave study, I feel my time is wasted every time I read another "we built an antenna out of bio parts" study. And no, it's not "published in Nature," it's published in Nature Scientific Reports. That's an important distinction. It puts the paper far above kooky youtubers, yes, but it doesn't really filter for impact in the way Nature would: for example, I would expect to be able to easily get a mouse-in-a-microwave study into Nature Scientific Reports, but not Nature.

by oliv__ 5y ago

jjoonathan 5y ago

A. Does that paper have anything to do with any of the graphs in TFA? The point of the exercise was to calibrate intuition for trends and intensities, not to talk about damage models. B. Has this line of research actually shown anything in a bulk setting at sane levels of incident RF or is it still "we built an antenna structure out of saline and showed that a neuron can respond to the resulting voltage if we really blast it?" Thermalization mechanisms like rovibrational absorption (small scale) and conventional currents (large scale -- the focus of these new studies) aren't the only supporting evidence for thermal damage models, though. There is also the dose/response curve. We can generate RF at many thousands of times the intensity that we find in cell phones and observe the consequences. Often unintentionally. Those consequences look a heck of a lot like thermal burns. If there is an alternative damage mechanism, it has to saturate at a very low level, so that there are no observable acute effects from a wild overdose.

oliv__ 5y ago
A. This is simply a rebuttal to the too easy dismissal that is comparing levels of man-made radiation to sunlight. B. I am not a researcher, but you can read the paper and see for yourself. It was published in Nature in case you haven't noticed, this is not some kooky youtuber
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  A. The point of the exercise was to calibrate intuition for trends and intensities, not to talk about damage models. B. I've read a large number of papers in this genre and this appears to be another. Just like I feel my time is wasted every time I read another mouse-in-a-microwave study, I feel my time is wasted every time I read another "we built an antenna out of bio parts" study. And no, it's not "published in Nature," it's published in Nature Scientific Reports. That's an important distinction. It puts the paper far above kooky youtubers, yes, but it doesn't really filter for impact in the way Nature would: for example, I would expect to be able to easily get a mouse-in-a-microwave study into Nature Scientific Reports, but not Nature.