Wifi stunts plant growth?

madurobob

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madurobob
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This is all over Facebook among my friends right now. It seems somewhat plausible, but sells like BS given the breathless way its being reported.

Can WiFi Signals Stunt Plant Growth?

A group of 9th grade students in Denmark sowed seeds in several trays and placed some trays in a room with no router and some in a room with to routers. The seeds in the router room for the sot part failed to germinate.

The article linked above is one of the very few I could find that included this caveat:
...will probably be repeating the experiment in controlled, professional, scientific environments,” said Horsevad. “One would therefore generally be advised to await the results of his experiments before basing any important decisions on the outcome of the girls’ experiment.”
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Surely this isn't the first time this has been tested. We've had radio signals of various frequencies around us for a long time. What controls do you think were missed in the girls test?

My first reaction: why not put them in the same room, right next to each other, with one set inside a simple faraday cage?
 
Different seed packets, different watering regimes, light, temperature and other things could affect the outcome.

But it's a very simple experiment to get right, so pro results shouldn't take long.

I predict "no difference" and that the schoolkids messed up somehow.
 
This kind of thing has indeed been being measured and studied for ages. Some of it with plants... if you include the power line debate which is where all this electric fields cause cancer/headaches/unhappy plants thing began it's been being studied since the early 60s with a heck of a lot of research money thrown at it. Then there were mobile phones of course...

The only health impact coming from non-ionizing radiation that I'm aware of seems to be a weak correlation with childhood leukaemia. Whether that is an artifact, or real, I don't know.
 
By the way. Do they give any indication as to why they think it is the wifi that is at fault. They stuck the seeds next to two routers, yes? Won't that have an impact on temperature, huimidity, airflow etc...? Maybe the routers just dried out the seeds?
 
Incidentally, Olle Johanssen isn't just some random scientist. He's been involved in this for decades. He get's mentioned as being inveloved in the decision to recognize electrosensitivity as a disability in sweden.
 
shuttlt said:
This kind of thing has indeed been being measured and studied for ages. Some of it with plants... if you include the power line debate which is where all this electric fields cause cancer/headaches/unhappy plants thing began it's been being studied since the early 60s with a heck of a lot of research money thrown at it. Then there were mobile phones of course...

The only health impact coming from non-ionizing radiation that I'm aware of seems to be a weak correlation with childhood leukaemia. Whether that is an artifact, or real, I don't know.
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Childhood leukemia is that it is 5 cases per 100.000 a rare disease. Count that high power line usually are not going thru very dense populated area when aerial, or are buried middle of the street, and you get actually quite low population going thru. So a difference of 1 case may give huge increase in rate. So at the moment it is more a "we don't know".
 
This (slightly amateurish) study looked at microwaving of seeds, water and soil on germination rate etc.

They did find that microwaving seeds dropped the germination rate from very high (15s exposure) to zero (4 mins exposure), but the seeds were actually placed in a microwave oven. Basically, it seems, they sterilised the seeds with the heat of the microwave with the longer exposure.
 
shuttlt said:
By the way. Do they give any indication as to why they think it is the wifi that is at fault. They stuck the seeds next to two routers, yes? Won't that have an impact on temperature, huimidity, airflow etc...? Maybe the routers just dried out the seeds?
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Right - thats why I would have put the in the same room and protected one with a faraday cage. Too many variables from possible environmental differences in the two rooms.

shuttlt said:
Incidentally, Olle Johanssen isn't just some random scientist. He's been involved in this for decades. He get's mentioned as being inveloved in the decision to recognize electrosensitivity as a disability in sweden.
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Interesting. I wonder if he had any hand in suggesting the experiment to the school teacher?
 
Aepervius said:
Childhood leukemia is that it is 5 cases per 100.000 a rare disease. Count that high power line usually are not going thru very dense populated area when aerial, or are buried middle of the street, and you get actually quite low population going thru. So a difference of 1 case may give huge increase in rate. So at the moment it is more a "we don't know".
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Absolutely any effect is small and may very well not be real. My recollection was that that was the most solid out of any of the claims and has been around for long enough that there are quite a few decent studies of it.
 
GlennB said:
Different seed packets, different watering regimes, light, temperature and other things could affect the outcome.

But it's a very simple experiment to get right, so pro results shouldn't take long.

I predict "no difference" and that the schoolkids messed up somehow.
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This
 
This pisses me off to no end. A science experiment should follow the scientific method.

Step one, formulation of a question. They seem like they actually got this, "Does WiFi radiation effect plant growth".

Step two, hypothesis. Don't see this one anywhere.

Step three, prediction. Don't see this one anywhere either, but I'm going to assume they predicted that the radiation would be bad.

Step four, testing/experiment. They of course fail miserably when it comes to scientific controls here, the most blatant I think being that of blinding. And of course the experiment was not designed very well as two WiFi routers not doing any work will only emit radiation in short bursts separated by long intervals. Plus there are probably differences in the rooms, etc.

Step five, analysis. Oi, this is the one that is driving me the most insane. The only analysis they have is a picture of a tray in the control group that grew well, and a tray in the test group that didn't. What about the other 10 trays? Also, they are claiming that some seeds mutated? Really? How was that determined?

Gah, they even won an award for this? Scientific method is something that should be picked up well before year 9.

Hooray, I found their documents (but I can't read them):

http://www.dr.dk/NR/rdonlyres/07564...else_af_nontermiske_effekter_af_mobilstra.pdf

http://www.dr.dk/NR/rdonlyres/07564...DAF2B8E1E1/5134835/Finaleposter24apr2013.pdf

The photos are on the second document, the heading is "Top: Cress exposed to microwave radiation. Bottom: Control group, the same growth conditions as test plants without microwave radiation."

Something funky is going on in the news articles, because while the photos of the "non-exposed" cress looks healthier in the linked pdf, the stark difference shown in news photos isn't there.

The most frustrating thing about all this, is that if they were actually empowered with the scientific method, they could test if sleeping near a cell phone effected their ability to concentrate.
 
RussDill said:
Gah, they even won an award for this? Scientific method is something that should be picked up well before year 9.
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Yes, on some level I want to give them a pass because they are school girls. But by grade 9 they should know better. Then again, part of the broader scientific process is peer review. As others, I trust when scientists repeat the experiment with proper controls they'll find no material difference. The girls will be shown to have made fundamental mistakes. That should be a great learning experience for them and a proper introduction to real science.


RussDill said:
Something funky is going on in the news articles, because while the photos of the "non-exposed" cress looks healthier in the linked pdf, the stark difference shown in news photos isn't there.
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Yeah, I noticed that in the links you posted. Surely some reporter doctored the images for better effect. Its sad, but not unexpected.
 
Did they really try to grow something in a server room? Because there are so many things wrong with a server room that wifi radiation is the least of your worries. Just the noise vibration alone can make some people feel ill and then you have the temperature, too cold if done correctly and too hot if there's a problem. Add in lack of light, dry air and unusual airflow and you've got a horrible place for a little plant to try to grow.
 
Weak Kitten said:
Did they really try to grow something in a server room? Because there are so many things wrong with a server room that wifi radiation is the least of your worries. Just the noise vibration alone can make some people feel ill and then you have the temperature, too cold if done correctly and too hot if there's a problem. Add in lack of light, dry air and unusual airflow and you've got a horrible place for a little plant to try to grow.
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No, whatever gave you that idea? Apparently the two batches of seeds were set on the window sill in different but similar class rooms with windows facing the same direction (south). In one of them three computers and two wifi transmitters were placed in proximity of the seeds. The computers were used to create constant wifi traffic between the routers.

The seeds were from 12 different batches, mixed together so they all should have the same growth potential. They were watered at the same time with identical amounts of water. The temperature in the two rooms was kept the same by an electronic regulator.

Seriously, folks. Read the report before condemning it. Sure, the controls could have been better, and there should have been blinding applied, but the experiment was not set up as badly as people here want to think.
 
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svenax said:
Seriously, folks. Read the report before condemning it. Sure, the controls could have been better, and there should have been blinding applied, but the experiment was not set up as badly as people here want to think.
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Its, um, in Dutch. I can read the letters and sound out the words phonetically, buts its still gibberish to me.

While they tried to control temps, I very much doubt they controlled humidity with two routers and two PCs running 24/7. I also doubt they controlled temps as well as they think they did. Or air circulation.

Honestly, why they thought they had to put the samples in completely separate rooms is beyond me. It introduces too many variables they cannot control.
 
madurobob said:
Its, um, in Dutch. I can read the letters and sound out the words phonetically, buts its still gibberish to me.
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OK, so you have lots of ideas on what the girls did wrong, while having no idea what their report actually says? Brilliant skepticism that.

madurobob said:
While they tried to control temps, I very much doubt they controlled humidity with two routers and two PCs running 24/7. I also doubt they controlled temps as well as they think they did. Or air circulation.
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This is probably true, however the air volume in a typical class room is large enough for it to be only very slightly affected by the equipment used.

madurobob said:
Honestly, why they thought they had to put the samples in completely separate rooms is beyond me. It introduces too many variables they cannot control.
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Because they wanted to avoid stray radiation from the experiment affecting the control and would/could not build suitable shielding?
 
FWIW here is a picture of my parlour palm which lives near our wireless router. As you can see it's a pretty pathetic specimen.



Although its failure to thrive could be related to its proximity to the router, I feel it's more likely that it's because I don't water it as often as I could and because my cat likes to om-nom it (before barfing up the pieces on my office carpet).
 
Madalch said:
I'm pretty sure that's Danish.
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Oops, yes. Common mistake for we rubes in NC. I'm still confused that Holland is two provinces within Holland that is also the European portion of The Netherlands. Denmark just gets lumped in by virtue of proximity.

This all reminds me of a lively philosophical discussion with my then 12 year old several years ago: "Dad, who owns Greenland?"
 
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