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by cogman10 1338 days ago
> But it's also ridiculous to brush off all non-ionizing radiation as harmless.

I disagree. There's more than enough empirical data that shows non-ionizing radiation is safe. Consider, for example, how many people work at or live near MW emitters (like radio stations).

You don't find that populations around those emitters have higher incidents of health problems.

But further, we aren't finding an increase in tumors/cancers in places where people very commonly store their non-ionizing radiation devices (pants pockets).

Taken one step further, when you step out into the sunlight, you are being exposed to several watts worth at several frequencies of ionizing (UV) and non-ionizing radiation. Orders of magnitudes more than you'd see from any device. Yet, what we see is that people that work out in the sun most commonly experience skin cancer/damage and nothing else.

The fear over non-ionizing radiation comes from ignorance and nothing more.

To your bug example, yes, if you concentrate non-ionizing radiation up to 100W+ at a single point, it'll burn that point. But that's a strawman of the situation. No wireless tech is doing that in the slightest.

1 comments

Is it possible for non-ionizing radiation to impact the rate of chemical reactions?
Yes.

But that's not as scary as it sounds. Chemical reactions speed up and slow down based on temperature. In other words, getting under a blanket or walking in the cold are impacting the rate of chemical reactions in your body.

Non ionizing radiation (such as infrared) can heat you up impacting chemical reactions. However, it's impacting you less than the impact of the lightbulb in your room (which throws off anywhere from 10 to 100W of non-ionizing radiation).

I apologize, I should have been more specific. My question was specifically about non-heat related effects