Slashdot Log In
UK Schools Bans WiFi Due To Health Concerns
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Nov 24, 2006 08:39 PM
from the no-bad-teeth-jokes dept.
from the no-bad-teeth-jokes dept.
Mantrid42 writes "Schools in the UK are getting rid of their WiFi network, citing health concerns from parents and teachers. The wireless emanations, parents fear, may be the root cause of a host of problems from simple fatigue to the possibility of cancer. A few scientists think younger humans may be more vulnerable to the transmissions, because of thinner skulls. From the article: "Vivienne Baron, who is bringing up Sebastian, her ten-year-old grandson, said: 'I did not want Sebastian exposed to a wireless computer network at school. No real evidence has been produced to prove that this new technology is safe in the long term. Until it is, I think we should take a precautionary approach and use cabled systems.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Come on.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Come on.... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Come on.... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Come on.... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Come on.... (Score:5, Funny)
Please everyone start using "Young Sebastion" to describe our vulnerable children.
Parent
Re:Come on.... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Come on.... (Score:5, Funny)
Large values of 1
Small values of 0
Prime Numbers
Et cetera
/Learn Math, Prevent Cancer
Parent
Re:Come on.... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry, you did ask.
Parent
Shielded Twisted (Score:4, Funny)
That's okay, I'm not using Aethernet, I'm using Tolkien Ring.
(Yah, I know, but is that really any worse than some of ther other jokes in this thread?)
Parent
ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry, but we're not talking about kryptonite or magical dark matter here.. these are devices operating with known technology in a known spectrum-- and let me add, not the only devices in this spectrum. WiFi isn't the only technology to operate at 2.4ghz (and I think some of the standards.. 802.11a? operate at 5.8ghz) -- are these parents seking to ban microwaves and cordless telephones? Even cellphones (and I'm sure many of them at least use cellular phones around their kids, iand some no doubt actually provide their kids with mobile phones) operate on similar 900mhz / 1800mhz / etc frequencies.
Someone with more of a science background, please reply (and correct me if necessary), but whether or not wireless internet has been studied over the "long term" have not several other devices that operate in the same (or very close) sprectrums? How is this anything but FUD?
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say they should stay indoors but then they are still susceptible to all those cosmic rays!
Obviously, the only solution is to move everybody to New Zion right above the Earth's core.
Give me a break, this kind of thinking is why 3 year olds die from food posioning every year because its a political impossibility to get irradiated meat on shelves sans a gigantic radiation symbol.
Its ill-informed knee-jerk thinking of the most insipid kind.
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Tommy Boy (Score:4, Insightful)
That will never work. It depends on people being able to think for themselves. To paraphrase Dan Akroyd as Ray Zalinsky in the movie Tommy Boy: What the average person doesn't know is what makes them an average person. Look at how many people buy lottery tickets every day.
(Yes, I know the article is about a school in the UK while the original quote was about the American public. Hence "paraphrase". Same principle still applies.)
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with labeling irradiated food with a radura (sp?) is that that symbol is more often used to denote dangerous radiation, in the same way that the similar biohazard symbol is used for biomedical waste. Personally, I don't see any need to label irradiated food in any special way at all.
SirWired
Parent
Fundamental (Score:4, Insightful)
No matter how many studies one has that fail to detect a hazard, there is always a chance that the hazard was too subtle to be statistically detectable, or was of a type of hazard that wasn't investigated (e.g., hearing loss or arthritis).
It's the old saying - you can't prove a negative. Actually, you can't prove anything in science. You can only present evidence.
Parent
Re:Fundamental (Score:4, Funny)
So *that's* why my arthritis and hearing loss get worse every time I search the internet for information on arthritis and hearing loss...
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Funny)
From a teacher:
Funny, I had the same reaction. But I don't recall there being wifi in my classrooms.
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no evidence to support the parents beliefs that withstands scrutiny, despite 35 years of research. (there does seem to be a statistically insignificant negative corralation between cell phone use and brain cancers, but nothing that is not accounted for by socioeconomic variables.)
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Informative)
sub-thermal interactions
What's one of them then?
Any interaction for which all of the molecules rotate in the same direction is not a thermal interaction
Why not - rotational energy *is* themal energy.
the thermodynamic limit
How is the thermodynamic limit relevant?
you can't even use the language of "heat" to describe the interaction at this scale
I can use the language of heat to describe interactions from the level of individual particles to the level of supermassive black holes, what scale is this at?
lipid bilayers are polar molecules which are aligned
Actually close to true - they are *roughly* aligned.
the effects of such rotations on the function of lipid bilayers is very poorly understood
At this level of heating it's quite well understood - there is zero effect.
It seems quite naive for the people in this forum to be dismissing the concerns of those parents as uneducated and unscientific
No it's the parents who are naive and their concerns *are* uneducated and unscientific.
There are serious unanswered scientific questions about the interactions and effects
There are serious unanswered scientific questions about almost everything.
you can't just wish or scoff them away
I wouldn't try to scoff away a serious unanswered scientific question - perhaps you can find one.
You try to sound like somebody using a scientific approach to the problem, but you just use "scientific " words in meaningless combinations.
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably, but there's a simple way to find out, secretly turn off the network. If he makes the same complaints then you know it's not the wireless network.
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, if the man was getting sick, then he was getting sick. It's not an overreaction to want to get better, so if removing the network from his classroom made him not sick, then good for him. It wouldn't be very helpful to just tell him to suck it up.
It might be nice if someone in the area would contact him about setting up a controlled experiment where a router he is exposed to for a full day is turned on and off at random without his knowledge, and each day he records how he feels. If this were done for 10-20 days, the result would probably be pretty clear one way or the other.
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, the idea that 2.45Ghz is the resonant frequency of water (or fats or sugars), and that 2.45Ghz was chosen because it was particularly effective at heating water is a complete myth. This frequency was chosen because it penetrates into food well enough that it can cook the interior of meats reasonably well, and yet it oscillates molecule dipoles fast enough to make heating, well, fast. This frequency is a compromise between a) heating evenly b) heating effectively and quickly
Huge industrial microwaves used for various purposes operate from the low 400Mhz range to 2.5Ghz (corresponding wavelengths between ~24-4 inches), and they can be doing anything from drying lumber to baking saltine crackers, and yet they're doing the same basic job--heating water. The advantage is that lower frequencies penetrate much better, and that magnetrons operating at low frequency are easier to build to put out MUCH higher powers, and industrial magnetrons can put out as much as 100KW per unit.
I'll concede that sitting in front of a household microwave might be bad for you. I'm not particularly willing to test it out. Nor am I particularly willing to sprawl my naked body out on the desert sand for a comparable length of time*.
*Hint: average total body surface area for an adult male is about 2m^2, solar power density near the equator at sea level is around 400W/M^2, average microwave output is about 1000W. Do the math.
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Idiocy (Score:5, Funny)
ID-10-T Error (Score:3, Insightful)
there is no *evidence* that these devices CAUSE problems...
Re:ID-10-T Error (Score:5, Interesting)
Nobody sent a technician to check his station. This did not settle the complaints and the FCC was called out due to the number of complaints. The FCC sent him a letter in response to the complaints and they required of him to have his transmitter certified by the manufacture.
He wrote back and stated the transmitter was lost in shipping and he was waiting for the insurance to settle so he could purchase a replacement.
Meanwhile he documented and filed all the complaints as existing conditions to the new location prior to beginning operation.
Parent
I fear little Sebastian... (Score:5, Funny)
wanna bet ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Trouble (Score:4, Funny)
I think they should turn up the signal strength... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Stowe School, the Buckinghamshire public school, also removed part of its wireless network after a teacher became ill. Michael Bevington, a classics teacher for 28 years at the school, said that he had such a violent reaction to the network that he was too ill to teach.
"I felt a steadily widening range of unpleasant effects whenever I was in the classroom," he said. "First came a thick headache, then pains throughout the body, sudden flushes, pressure behind the eyes, sudden skin pains and burning sensations, along with bouts of nausea. Over the weekend, away from the classroom, I felt completely normal.""
Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
...use cabled systems. (Score:4, Funny)
I don't get it, are we not bombarded with radio waves. AM/FM Radio, cell phones, cordless phones. Natural occurring radio waves? I though it was just something in the environment we learned to harness.
skeptical (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not nuts. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the HVAC. Classic infrasound symptoms.
He's not nuts at least.
Wireless is minimal (Score:5, Informative)
Wireless is minimal compared to everything else. We live in an electromagnetic world, with electromagnetic waves everywhere.
802.11-b/g operate on the same frequency as microwaves (i.e. in the microwave spectrum); a microwave is shielded by physical means (no, no magical force fields when you power it up), and if you toss a laptop inside (don't turn the microwave on!) you can still connect to it over wifi with good signal. The shielding lets more through than wifi.
We have TV stations and radio stations broadcasting electromagnetic signals everywhere. There's electromagnetic waves from these and the earth's magnetic field all through the air. There's even electromagnetic radiation from space penetrating the atmosphere, although in very very tiny quantities; without the atmosphere, direct exposure to the level of electromagnetism out there would cook you, kind of like direct exposure to the 1200 watt microwave in the kitchen...
Many cordless phones operate on the 2.4GHz range (some in the 5.0GHz range to avoid colliding with 802.11-a/b/g Wifi) and are everywhere. Cell phones operate in that range too. The police band, tower-to-air radio, and Ham radio wade around high frequency EM as well. Aside from simple cordless phones, these are all a lot stronger than a Wifi AP.
Any device with electricity running through it produces an electromagnetic field in some abstract frequency. You get 60Hz EMI coming out of power lines and power cables; once it hits a transformer you might get more, such as the 15MHz that comes out of a flyback transformer in a TV. You won't get the gigahertz range or anything, but you'll get some sort of electromagnetic field just the same.
You can't escape it. You can hide under a rock 500 meters in the ground but you'll still have enough of the earth's magnetic field to use a compass. What kind of idiot thinks Wifi is magically special?
FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not a concern of pretty much all UK schools, their pupils or their parents.
The reason behind the story is simply that newspapers sell papers based on how sensational the issues are. If they could convince people to believe parents won't sending their children to school because of fears of radioactive textbooks, they would print that also.
quite troubling (Score:5, Interesting)
the real issue here is NOT health - it is being driven by the idea that young minds have access to a world of ideas not under control from those in power. the Internet has a global set of ideas - empowering, liberating, libralizing, and educating ideasl this is quite contrary to the mentality in most lower schools which are follow the rules, learn/do what you're told, and tow the line.
the idea that kids the age of 8 or 9 or 10 (ish) are educated and empowered is deathly frightening to small minded parents, who are so childish themselves they can't deal with strong people. So instead, they cite some completely absurd health scare to keep kids from easy, broad access to online content.
it is sadly ironic that by applying an argument to protect their health, they will actually harm these children by limiting their access to the Internet
A bit excessive, don't you think? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Acute symptoms (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately, us stoopid Brits do understand enough statistics to know that drawing conclusions about the whole population from a sample of one is unlikely to give reliable results. :-)
Parent
Re:wow (Score:4, Insightful)
"However with church attendance on the decline and only 7% of Christians in the UK attending church, the figure seems remarkably high."
So I'm going to say that based on your stat and this one, a significant (majority?) of people in the UK are culturally christian, but not epistemologically christian...
Parent
Re:wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah I noticed that too. Whenever there's some dick tailgating behind me chances are good that they'll have some Born Again insignia or We Support Our Troops magnets.
With the Born Agains, I guess they are just too focused on their eternal reward in heaven to give a fuck about some plain day-to-day courtesy on Earth.
Parent
Re:hospitals (Score:5, Funny)
hospitals have wireless networks
people die in hospitals, these wireless network tubes must be dangerous things! won't anyone think of the children?
Parent
Re:Environmentalists gone mad and spreading fud ag (Score:3, Insightful)