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Near UV isn't, but the photons still carry considerable energy to push chemical reactions over the edge. Whereas microwaves are far, far below the visible spect

Near UV isn't, but the photons still carry considerable energy to push chemical reactions over the edge. Whereas microwaves are far, far below the visible spectrum, and none of that causes cancer. A microwave injury is serious stuff, but it seems like a huge stretch to attribute a later cancer to that exact incident.

JPLeRouzic 4y ago
> Near UV isn't, but the photons still carry considerable energy to push chemical reactions over the edge. In my opinion (I am an amateur biologist) there is no need to deploy considerable energy to mess things at the cell scale: Most interactions there occur because of thermal noise. Furthermore most protein interactions depend how they are folded which involves different fields, including Van der Waals forces. Van der Waals forces carry an energy of 4 to 40 meV per bond which is in infrared range. So even infrared can mess up the internal working of cells. It could be that even lower frequencies also have a biological effect: (Non-thermal effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7417565/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7417565/ Yet cells have many "quality control" mechanisms so usually the is no permanent damage. But infrared exposure could bring benefits to cells also.