High school students discover plants don't grow near Wi-Fi routers

[TheBigFatClown]

@TheBigFatClown

Thanks for helping prove the point by linking to an environmentalist website which itself links no peer reviewed research. Fail.

There appears to be several reasons for colony collapse, but no research thats been able to hold together under peer review thats linked it to GMO. Just things anti-corporate neo-Marxists can't get excited about, such as US Navy research (don't ask why they look in to ag issues, I have no idea) suggesting parasites -- in some cases, they found.

Here's a page that references and sums up quite a bit of, you know, actual science. My apologies if it doesn't fit your pre-determined agenda:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/news/docs.htm?docid=15572

As for vaccines, please, lets not pretend there was ever any science involved in that paranoia. There's many pages that detail its history, and it was all started with one bunk report that people seized upon, then a celebrity jumped on the bandwagon, and next thing you know children are suffering from whooping cough and doctors for the first time in generations are worried about herd immunity.

The right wing has climate change deniers, the left has GMO, vaccines (actually a little overlap on the anti-vax front) and CCD. Sad, but both sides utterly disregard science when it doesn't fit.

As far as I've ever noticed though, at least the wireless fearmongering hasn't been political, just the typical low-level Luddite fear of new technology thats constant in society and history. Which is a relief, sadly.

My pre-determined agenda? Why...thank you for the compliment. I thought I was just responding to an article on the internet. It seems I have a master plan that I haven't yet discovered myself but now am very anxious to do so.

 

[Tanstar]

The funniest part of this article for me was, "Five students came to the realization that sleeping near their cell phones at night caused them to have problems concentrating during school the next day."

Teenage girls with easy access to their phones all night don't get enough sleep? Shocker!

 

[andy06shake]

It was my understanding that Wi-Fi signals propagate just about everywhere these days. Trees still grow around where there transmitter towers/mobile masts are located so I have to question these peoples findings. Looking at the petri dishes my bet is that heat killed that crest.

 

[Forg0t2]

The funniest part of this article for me was, "Five students came to the realization that sleeping near their cell phones at night caused them to have problems concentrating during school the next day."

Teenage girls with easy access to their phones all night don't get enough sleep? Shocker!

Maybe thats why the plants in the first room died. They went online for too long....

 

[cliffordcooley]

Maybe thats why the plants in the first room died. They went online for too long....

Finally some evidence that gaming is unhealthy. "Plants vs Zombies" Now if we can find evidence of Zombies, we can put an end to all doubt. LOL

 

[OliTheG]

- We don't know about THE LIGHT CONDITIONS IN EACH ROOM. Artificial light =/= Sunlight. Plants won't grow under light bulbs!

LOL Plants will most certainly grow under light bulbs... not sure where you get your information from.....

Urgh, read it in context please.

A plant will sprout under ARTIFICIAL light (not sunlight bulbs), but not grow (or at the very least have massively stunted growth) any further.

The light bulb doesn't cancel out natural sunlight in the room. The natural sunlight is needed for photosynthesis, the main way in which energy for storage is used during the hours of daylight. The reverse process then occurs in the absence of sunlight; aerobic respiration.

Here is an experiment. Get some fully grown plants, and stick them in a dark room WITH NO WINDOWS. ABSOLUTELY NO WINDOWS. Then turn on a light. Most of the plants will die, and none will grow towards the light.

 

[mikeusru]

Please Techspot, you are better than this.

Seriously guys.... I thing it's important for high schoolers to learn about research, but results from a study like this don't belong in a tech blog. You're not FOX news.

 

[Guest]

This is knee jerk pseudoscience, at best.

 

[mailpup]

Get some fully grown plants, and stick them in a dark room WITH NO WINDOWS. ABSOLUTELY NO WINDOWS. Then turn on a light.

I think you just described an urban indoor marijuana farm.

BTW, please stop shouting.

 

[psycros]

There's something called science. Non-ionizing radiation is non-ionizing. I doubt these kids have upended years of data saying the opposite, that there's zero impact.

This is in the same category as vaccines and GMO food. Vast amounts of public paranoia, based on no solid science.

You mean besides a few major EU studies that led to a complete ban on GMO foods. Or the common knowledge that drug companies are add completely unrelated compounds like vitamins and anti-seizure meds into vaccines, and the government ignores petitions with half a million signatures to look into it. As for the subject at hand, there are several hundred Americans with rare cancers who live near high-tension power lines who would like a word with you. But keep drinking that Kool-Aid, kid - I'm sure its reeeeal good for ya.

 

[Natefunk]

There's something called science. Non-ionizing radiation is non-ionizing. I doubt these kids have upended years of data saying the opposite, that there's zero impact.

This is in the same category as vaccines and GMO food. Vast amounts of public paranoia, based on no solid science.

Sadly this is not true. It may be non ionizing but it does affect plants. I have tested this extensively with high power microwave transmitters. Most of you are correct that the low power of routers affecting you is BS. Cell phones actually affecting you is even more BS made up by kids who were probably up all night using their cell phones and this was a convenient excuse.
There is some truth though to the radiation being harmful but only within a certain radius of extremely high levels.
I am a computer and wireless technician and have seen in every case where a tree is in line of sight of a powerful signal passing through it, it will always be dead within a year. This is because live greens actually block and disrupt radio signals. If you are trying to get a low power (below 1 watt) signal through live trees it won't go.
So the signal does affect plants and the plants can affect the signal. Human chemistry however is vastly different and non ionizing radiation has no effect on us unless it is at cook you power levels.
Ask any tech with even just a few years of experience in wireless network deployment and configuration and they will tell you the same thing.
There are definitely other factors involved but there is still a correlation however mild it might be.

 

[Guest]

Besides the variables already mentioned above such as sunlight, temperature, ect there could even be the type of plant or possibly even the structure of the plant/seed to consider.

There are so many variables in this experiment that, to me, all they have is a plate with plants that grew and seeds that did not.

Wtf techspot?

 

[gunste24]

These students will go further than their mates. Thinking with imagination and outside the box, designing an interesting experiment. They had a control and the conclusion sounds scientifically sound and logical.
The naysayers will be the mobile phone companies who nothing like facts to interfere with their marketing efforts.

 

[Tanstar]

These students will go further than their mates. Thinking with imagination and outside the box, designing an interesting experiment. They had a control and the conclusion sounds scientifically sound and logical.
The naysayers will be the mobile phone companies who nothing like facts to interfere with their marketing efforts.

The naysayers will be anyone who understands that this study was done by high school kids. Was it a good variation on the old "this plant got classical music and this one didn't"? Sure. Was it an actual science story that belonged on TechSpot? Hell no.

 

[ravisunny2]

And, smoking does not kill.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

And, smoking does not kill.

Not unless you do it for a really really long time, right? So, it must be safe. *cough,cough*

 

[Guest]

To all the sneering "skeptic" types here....
did you know that buried in the user docs in the Iphone it warns you not to hold the thing closer than 10 mm from your skin?

Regarding vaccines: numerous books packed with documentation have demonstrated the long and sordid history of government and "scientific" lies. "The Virus and the Vaccine" for instance. Both polio vaccines had bad batches that caused polio. Look up the tale of Bernice Eddy if you really think you can trust these institutions. Excellent summary at http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/02/002bookchin.htm

The links to the USDA site is are a laugh. Obama put a shill for Monsanto in charge of evaluating GMO safety. Then they stuck the Monsanto protection liability clause into a bill (HR 933 Section 735) and the presstitutes in the media ignored it. Herbicide-tolerant "superweeds" are already a serious problem for the farmers conned into using ever-greater quantities of the "Round-Up" product; it's working out great for Monsanto though.

I'm tired of these egomaniacs brandishing "science" at anybody who questions their reckless behavior. Science is just as corrupt as the banksters or the manufacturers who kept dangerous products on the market. Scientists murdered the nuclear downwinders and many military veterans exposed to radiation in what looks an awful lot like a mad scientist experiment. Check out the excellent but mostly ignored book "The Plutonium Files". They used mentally retarded children too. Why shouldn't I view "scientific ethics' as an oxymoron?

I'm in California where the taxpayers just subsidized a $3 Billion boondoggle called the CMRI. We were promised the wonders of embryonic stem cells; though actual "skeptics" who questioned this were thrown in the same box as people opposing embryonics on religious grounds. What did we get? Zip. But the 33-member panel made out well lavishing grants and contracts on themselves and all their friends. Meanwhile an independent MD in Portugal (Dr. Carlos Lima) restored sensation and movement in spinal cord injuries--but using adult stem cells (from olfactory tissue). Aside from a feature in 2004 on the PBS series "Innovation" there appears to have been a complete media black-out of Dr. Lima's work. I would thought it worthy of a Nobel Prize.