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Is there any merit to non-ionizing frequencies having harmful impacts on human biological function, I thought so, but is it all "conspiracy" and laughed out of

Is there any merit to non-ionizing frequencies having harmful impacts on human biological function, I thought so, but is it all "conspiracy" and laughed out of the room or a legitimate scientific part of these discussions?

hgomersall 2y ago
Well the microwave oven is an example of non-ionising frequencies having harmful impacts on human biological function.
bithive123 2y ago
I'm not a physicist or biologist but what's always made sense to me is that anytime you walk outside during the day you are bathed in broad spectrum radiation from the sun. So anything weaker than the sun is probably safe enough. Anything a million or billion times weaker is probably a million or billion times safer. We already know when and how radios get dangerous (large transmission towers, microwave ovens, etc) and how to mitigate that danger. Inverse cube law and somesuch.
- avidiax 2y ago
  The sun is damaging because it contains ionizing radiation (radiation that is powerful enough to directly disassociate a molecule into ions). This is the UV portion of sunlight. UV starts at 800,000 GHz. The 6Ghz being discussed here is completely non-ionizing, not even comparable to UV. The only concern with 6Ghz is that is can also cause dielectric heating, which is the same as a microwave. But again, at 25mW, you can't even feel the heat from direct contact with the antenna, let alone a few meters away. Your exposure follows the inverse-square law [1], which means that it drops proportional to the square of the distance. So if it's not a problem at 10cm, it's 100x less of a non-problem at 1m. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law
- rjegundo 2y ago
  evolutionary argument is humans are aligned with broad spectrum radiation from the sun, but not the artificial forms which have different magnitudes in different frequencies. Eg: you are much less likely to get sunburn if you get plenty of natural (or artificial) infrared.
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    There is no such thing as artificial forms of RF. They're all wiggling photons. If nature gave us a flute, and man discovered how to make a bass guitar, all though they sound different the only real difference is that the bass guitar is wiggling air molecules more slowly than a flute would. There is zero, nil, no distinction whatsoever between a "natural" and "synthetic" photon wiggling at a given frequency. > you are much less likely to get sunburn if you get plenty of natural (or artificial) infrared. I'm gonna need to see a source for that.
    - FollowingTheDao 2y ago
      > There is no such thing as artificial forms of RF. They're all wiggling photons. This is categorically untrue. Polarization: A Key Difference between Man-made and Natural Electromagnetic Fields, in regard to Biological Activity https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914
      - avidiax 2y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38915555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38915555
      - kstrauser 2y ago
        Horseshit. Sorry, but there are times to be tactful, and times to be blunt, and this is bluntly idiotic. I got as far as 2 sentences in: > All types of man-made EMFs/EMR - in contrast to natural EMFs/EMR - are polarized. which is so unbelievably wrong, like, completely out of touch with reality levels of incorrect, that I see no value in reading further.
wongarsu 2y ago
Most concerns focus around the electromagnetic radiation heating your tissue. Microwave ovens operate at 2.4MHz, and most common frequencies can work like a microwave with varying efficiency. At the intensities of normal transmissions that isn't really a concern. For a time this seemed like something we might worry about with phones, since during a phone call there we have an active antenna right next to your fairly sensitive brain that might not like being heated up. But even there it turned out that the effect was too small to be of concern
- hammock 2y ago
  Is there any theorizing or research being done around potential non-heating harmful effects of non-ionizing radiation?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    Not directly, because there's no plausible hypothesis by which it could cause any biological effects whatsoever.
    - FollowingTheDao 2y ago
      Yes, there is. And a hypothesis needs to be tested. Science! Polarization: A Key Difference between Man-made and Natural Electromagnetic Fields, in regard to Biological Activity https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914 Ion Channels seem to be effected by EMFs even at powers that we are subjected to every day. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33945157/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33945157/
      - hammock 2y ago
        Interesting. Thanks for sharing
  - 2y ago
aidenn0 2y ago
Microwave frequencies can harm biological function through heating tissue; in particular eyeballs have lots of water and poor ability to dissipate heat. However, very low power densities are almost certainly safe. [edit] Another example of non-ionizing radiation harming human tissue would be if you stick your hand in front of a cutting laser. Maybe obvious, but you asked...
kstrauser 2y ago
There’s none other than localized heating effects, and yes, it’s laughed out of the room. So, obviously you don’t want to microwave your eyeballs, but you’d feel that in other nearby tissues as heat. If you don’t feel heat from a non-ionizing RF source, you’re not getting cooked. In any case, the amount of infrared coming off an incandescent lightbulb is about 3 orders of magnitude higher than the energy coming off a WiFi router antenna. If being in the room with a lightbulb is safe, so is being in the room with WiFi. There isn’t a set of rules of physics where low-power, non-heating, non-ionizing RF is dangerous, and also where CPUs work. They’re incompatible. You can’t have both of those at the same time.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  > There isn’t a set of rules of physics where low-power, non-heating, non-ionizing RF is dangerous, and also where CPUs work. They’re incompatible. You can’t have both of those at the same time. Please elaborate on this? But it sounds like you're overgeneralizing. There's a lot of ways non-ionizing RF could potentially be "dangerous" to some kind of biological tissue, we just haven't found those ways in humans. For one category of mechanism, there's plenty of proteins that absorb certain wavelengths and activate cellular pathways based on the amount they receive.
rjegundo 2y ago
There's merit. Just to complex to understand and unpleasant to realize. Eg of research indicating we should at least do more deep research before calling it "Safe": https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9189734/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9189734/
devm0de 2y ago
We honestly don’t know. Current safety standards mostly focus on preventing tissue heating, because that’s the one effect we can reliably measure and understand. But there’s a chunk of exploratory research out there looking at potential “non-thermal” effects—things like subtle shifts in cell signaling, membrane permeability, or oxidative stress—that might not show up as a measurable temperature increase. So far, the studies that have been well-designed and replicated haven’t consistently nailed down a clear causal link between non-thermal EMF exposure (within the limits that regulators consider safe) and actual health problems. Still, some researchers argue that we’re not accounting for all the slow-burn, cumulative effects that might be happening. It’s not easy to tease out these subtle influences from the noise of environmental variables, and that makes it hard to really say we’ve got a handle on the whole picture. Check out Prof Michael Levin's Bioelectricity work if you want to go down a very interesting rabbit hole about what we're only recently discovering about how our biology might really work and how electricity and emf's shape it.
zer8k 2y ago
With a large enough antenna and enough power you can cook your neighbor. The ham radio licensing procedure in the US mostly focuses on this effect. Even though there's nothing conclusive I'd imagine there are other deleterious effects that aren't trivially measurable. If it can heat it up it can do other stuff too. Cooking your brain by standing too close to a high power transmission tower can't be good. I'm an amateur extra, I would challenge any "scientist" laughing EMF dangers off to go find the nearest AM radio tower and spend 6 months in the transmission room for "science". Without sarcasm, the studies I have found over the years ruled out cumulative effects (unlike ionizing radiation). They so far haven't been able to rule out various types of cancer, ALS, or other diseases caused by long-term exposure.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  I also have an extra license. AM transmits up in the ballpark of 50,000W. Anything at 50,000W with toast you like a marshmallow. That has nothing to do with RF, but with the sheer amounts of power pumping through it. I am plausibly a "scientist" who has done "science", and I'm not standing next to a AM radio tower for precisely the same reason I wouldn't stand next to a 50,000W light bulb, EMF be darned. It's not on studies to rule out all the things you mention. The job of studies is to demonstrate that EMF does cause any of them. "EMF is safe" is falsifiable: if you can find one counterexample, it's untrue. And yet, after all the years we've been working with it, other than people who get cooked from sheer power levels, we don't have any proof that it causes those (or any) diseases.
FollowingTheDao 2y ago
Yes, there is evidence, but as usually you will get downvoted to oblivion before you can get the point across. One of the things being pointed to are these EMFs effecting ion channels. The TRPV1 receptor is one of these channels. The TRPV1 receptor is a heat receptor but has many functions. Since this receptor is in the skin 5G and 6G can effect it. The receptor pumps calcium into the cell, and any neurologist will tell you what that can do. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6592873/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6592873/

hgomersall 2y ago

Well the microwave oven is an example of non-ionising frequencies having harmful impacts on human biological function.

bithive123 2y ago

I'm not a physicist or biologist but what's always made sense to me is that anytime you walk outside during the day you are bathed in broad spectrum radiation from the sun. So anything weaker than the sun is probably safe enough. Anything a million or billion times weaker is probably a million or billion times safer. We already know when and how radios get dangerous (large transmission towers, microwave ovens, etc) and how to mitigate that danger. Inverse cube law and somesuch.

avidiax 2y ago
The sun is damaging because it contains ionizing radiation (radiation that is powerful enough to directly disassociate a molecule into ions). This is the UV portion of sunlight. UV starts at 800,000 GHz. The 6Ghz being discussed here is completely non-ionizing, not even comparable to UV. The only concern with 6Ghz is that is can also cause dielectric heating, which is the same as a microwave. But again, at 25mW, you can't even feel the heat from direct contact with the antenna, let alone a few meters away. Your exposure follows the inverse-square law [1], which means that it drops proportional to the square of the distance. So if it's not a problem at 10cm, it's 100x less of a non-problem at 1m. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law
rjegundo 2y ago
evolutionary argument is humans are aligned with broad spectrum radiation from the sun, but not the artificial forms which have different magnitudes in different frequencies. Eg: you are much less likely to get sunburn if you get plenty of natural (or artificial) infrared.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  There is no such thing as artificial forms of RF. They're all wiggling photons. If nature gave us a flute, and man discovered how to make a bass guitar, all though they sound different the only real difference is that the bass guitar is wiggling air molecules more slowly than a flute would. There is zero, nil, no distinction whatsoever between a "natural" and "synthetic" photon wiggling at a given frequency. > you are much less likely to get sunburn if you get plenty of natural (or artificial) infrared. I'm gonna need to see a source for that.
  - FollowingTheDao 2y ago
    > There is no such thing as artificial forms of RF. They're all wiggling photons. This is categorically untrue. Polarization: A Key Difference between Man-made and Natural Electromagnetic Fields, in regard to Biological Activity https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914
    - avidiax 2y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38915555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38915555
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      Horseshit. Sorry, but there are times to be tactful, and times to be blunt, and this is bluntly idiotic. I got as far as 2 sentences in: > All types of man-made EMFs/EMR - in contrast to natural EMFs/EMR - are polarized. which is so unbelievably wrong, like, completely out of touch with reality levels of incorrect, that I see no value in reading further.

wongarsu 2y ago

Most concerns focus around the electromagnetic radiation heating your tissue. Microwave ovens operate at 2.4MHz, and most common frequencies can work like a microwave with varying efficiency. At the intensities of normal transmissions that isn't really a concern. For a time this seemed like something we might worry about with phones, since during a phone call there we have an active antenna right next to your fairly sensitive brain that might not like being heated up. But even there it turned out that the effect was too small to be of concern

hammock 2y ago
Is there any theorizing or research being done around potential non-heating harmful effects of non-ionizing radiation?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- kstrauser 2y ago
  Not directly, because there's no plausible hypothesis by which it could cause any biological effects whatsoever.
  - FollowingTheDao 2y ago
    Yes, there is. And a hypothesis needs to be tested. Science! Polarization: A Key Difference between Man-made and Natural Electromagnetic Fields, in regard to Biological Activity https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14914 Ion Channels seem to be effected by EMFs even at powers that we are subjected to every day. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33945157/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33945157/
    - hammock 2y ago
      Interesting. Thanks for sharing
- 2y ago

aidenn0 2y ago

Microwave frequencies can harm biological function through heating tissue; in particular eyeballs have lots of water and poor ability to dissipate heat. However, very low power densities are almost certainly safe. [edit] Another example of non-ionizing radiation harming human tissue would be if you stick your hand in front of a cutting laser. Maybe obvious, but you asked...

kstrauser 2y ago

There’s none other than localized heating effects, and yes, it’s laughed out of the room. So, obviously you don’t want to microwave your eyeballs, but you’d feel that in other nearby tissues as heat. If you don’t feel heat from a non-ionizing RF source, you’re not getting cooked. In any case, the amount of infrared coming off an incandescent lightbulb is about 3 orders of magnitude higher than the energy coming off a WiFi router antenna. If being in the room with a lightbulb is safe, so is being in the room with WiFi. There isn’t a set of rules of physics where low-power, non-heating, non-ionizing RF is dangerous, and also where CPUs work. They’re incompatible. You can’t have both of those at the same time.

Dylan16807 2y ago
> There isn’t a set of rules of physics where low-power, non-heating, non-ionizing RF is dangerous, and also where CPUs work. They’re incompatible. You can’t have both of those at the same time. Please elaborate on this? But it sounds like you're overgeneralizing. There's a lot of ways non-ionizing RF could potentially be "dangerous" to some kind of biological tissue, we just haven't found those ways in humans. For one category of mechanism, there's plenty of proteins that absorb certain wavelengths and activate cellular pathways based on the amount they receive.

rjegundo 2y ago

There's merit. Just to complex to understand and unpleasant to realize. Eg of research indicating we should at least do more deep research before calling it "Safe": https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9189734/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9189734/

devm0de 2y ago

We honestly don’t know. Current safety standards mostly focus on preventing tissue heating, because that’s the one effect we can reliably measure and understand. But there’s a chunk of exploratory research out there looking at potential “non-thermal” effects—things like subtle shifts in cell signaling, membrane permeability, or oxidative stress—that might not show up as a measurable temperature increase. So far, the studies that have been well-designed and replicated haven’t consistently nailed down a clear causal link between non-thermal EMF exposure (within the limits that regulators consider safe) and actual health problems. Still, some researchers argue that we’re not accounting for all the slow-burn, cumulative effects that might be happening. It’s not easy to tease out these subtle influences from the noise of environmental variables, and that makes it hard to really say we’ve got a handle on the whole picture. Check out Prof Michael Levin's Bioelectricity work if you want to go down a very interesting rabbit hole about what we're only recently discovering about how our biology might really work and how electricity and emf's shape it.

zer8k 2y ago

With a large enough antenna and enough power you can cook your neighbor. The ham radio licensing procedure in the US mostly focuses on this effect. Even though there's nothing conclusive I'd imagine there are other deleterious effects that aren't trivially measurable. If it can heat it up it can do other stuff too. Cooking your brain by standing too close to a high power transmission tower can't be good. I'm an amateur extra, I would challenge any "scientist" laughing EMF dangers off to go find the nearest AM radio tower and spend 6 months in the transmission room for "science". Without sarcasm, the studies I have found over the years ruled out cumulative effects (unlike ionizing radiation). They so far haven't been able to rule out various types of cancer, ALS, or other diseases caused by long-term exposure.

kstrauser 2y ago
I also have an extra license. AM transmits up in the ballpark of 50,000W. Anything at 50,000W with toast you like a marshmallow. That has nothing to do with RF, but with the sheer amounts of power pumping through it. I am plausibly a "scientist" who has done "science", and I'm not standing next to a AM radio tower for precisely the same reason I wouldn't stand next to a 50,000W light bulb, EMF be darned. It's not on studies to rule out all the things you mention. The job of studies is to demonstrate that EMF does cause any of them. "EMF is safe" is falsifiable: if you can find one counterexample, it's untrue. And yet, after all the years we've been working with it, other than people who get cooked from sheer power levels, we don't have any proof that it causes those (or any) diseases.

FollowingTheDao 2y ago

Yes, there is evidence, but as usually you will get downvoted to oblivion before you can get the point across. One of the things being pointed to are these EMFs effecting ion channels. The TRPV1 receptor is one of these channels. The TRPV1 receptor is a heat receptor but has many functions. Since this receptor is in the skin 5G and 6G can effect it. The receptor pumps calcium into the cell, and any neurologist will tell you what that can do. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6592873/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6592873/