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by Severian
3203 days ago
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I hate these idiots. I got into an argument with one who was concerned with the RF from their smart electric meter. I tried to explain the difference between ionizing radiation and non-ionizing, DNA 'damage', and such. No such luck getting through to them even when presented with scientific fact. I usually tell them they should be more concerned with sun exposure than anything, if they are worried about DNA damage. It's like they want a handy excuse for feeling like crap. Superstitious magical thinking. 300 years ago they'd be blaming a witch for their problems. I always think of the character Chuck from Better Call Saul whenever I run into someone like this. |
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One is by heating of tissue caused by absorption of EM radiation. This one can probably be safely ignored in almost all normal situations.
Another is by inducing currents and fields in parts of the organism which could disrupt normal operation.
For example, DNA is conductive, and its shape makes it act like a fractal antenna which is good at allowing a wide range of EM radiation to induce currents in it [1].
Damage and errors in the DNA can change the conductivity, and there are some researchers who think that the cell may use this as part of the mechanism that detects and deals with such damage. Induced currents from an external EM wave could cause such a mechanism to miss some damage, and so fail to detect and kill a cell that normally would have been eliminated.
Here's an article that talks briefly about some of this [2].
As far as I know it is still just speculation that the cell uses changes in conduction to detect damage. It's a plausible mechanism, but that doesn't mean it is the only possible mechanism or the one nature actually uses.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21457072
[2] https://www.caltech.edu/news/caltech-chemist-jacqueline-bart...