Bioelectromagnetics

[Pragmatist]

To Prag: Thank you for your continued efforts to make me see the light (small joke here). It seems the nub of the issue is that you argue that weak ELF electric fields cannot possibly penetrate the Faraday cage of the body, and have asked me to produce evidence of this. By contrast I am arguing that externally originating ELF electric fields (e.g. 50 or 60Hz, 20V/m) do have important adverse health effects. I take the point well that in vitro effects are not sufficient to make my argument stand up, because they do not occur within this Faraday cage, and that I need to produce in vivo results in order to try to convince you.

Arguably this means exposing an organism - let us start with a whole live animal, (though we recognise that any effects found may not also apply to humans) to the field strength of interest. We also have to beware of possible confounders, such as magnetic fields, chemicals, restraint stress, etc.

Well there are a vast number of such experiments. Probably the most obvious are those placing small animals under powerlines and examining their brains for anomalies, such as the series conducted by Hans Arne Hannsen in the early 1980s. I have mentioned those reviewed by Morris Kendall et al (1989). Before then were the studies by Suzanne Bawin and Ross Adey on live cat brains, though these were mainly (but not all) at RF frequencies which famously reported calcium efflux. (I am regarding that effect as adverse in view of the vital role of that cation in immunocompetence). Would you feel that this approach is going to be persuasive?

To be honest I don't think so, because as you point out, there are so many possible confounders and we could never rule them out. What is actually needed is some experimental method that will automatically bypass as many confounders as possible. Actually, I just had an interesting idea. Have you ever looked into data from people with electrical implants like pacemakers? The people who make pacemakers (or other powered implants) must have data on their external field strengths. You could then look to see if there was any correlation between use of such a device and any of your assumed effects.

In other tests, I think the first thing you need to establish is some reliable and REPRODUCIBLE effect of electric fields on organisms (in vitro will do). The point being that this will give you something realistic to test for. The problem with the effects reported by Adey etc., is that they are largely not reproducible.

What would be ideal is some kind of self contained E field logging device that you could encapsulate and swallow - I've heard there are logging devices of this type available. The idea would be to measure real internal field strengths for various exposures over a 24 hour period.

 

[Pragmatist]

Not sure if that post got through either. apologies if this is a duplicate.

There seems to be some kind of tech problem with my posts tonight. I thought I had lost the one above but it is there is seems after all.

It's not you, the forum itself is playing up since yesterday, I'm having problems too. I think some woo woo has put a hex on it!

Hans said:

"Roger Coghill, and other interested parties, I have an offer for you:

In a separate thread, I am willing to explain from rock bottom how electrical fields work. You can ask questions, and I will answer them. Perhaps Pragmatist and others will assist me and provide second opinins.

I have only one condition: The tread should be entirely dedicated to the purpose of explaining electromagnetic subjects. No discussion of other agendas.

If you agree, I will ask the moderators to assist in keeping the thread free of derailings".

Hans, I would like to ask you some questions about an issue which is intriguing me. It is at this time a complete speculation, but could shape some experiments in my lab if you think there is anything in the notion.

I cannot avoid noticing the apparent similarity between the DNA macromolecule and a parallel resonant circuit. In the simplest form of a parallel circuit (of the kind you know about) one finds several components: an inductor, a resistor and a capacitor all in parallel. If the reactances of the capacitor and the inductor are equal then the currents are also equal and opposite, and this subtraction of currents means that the only current that flows is in the resistor. The resonant frequency is that at which the parallel impedance is simply R, and since

f= 1/2pi .sq rt( LC)

this gives the resonant frequency.

<snip>. Roger, Hans has made a VERY generous offer, and I would be prepared to help too. But please LISTEN to what we are saying. You are trying to run before you can walk. What you are saying is nonsense. If you understood basic electrical principles you would understand WHY it is nonsense. As I have said several times, there is no shame in being ignorant of these areas (or any other area) but PLEASE try to learn the basics first, if you don't make an effort to understand the basic principles you will never get anywhere.

A complex molecule like DNA would have inductance, capacitance and resistance in EVERY conceivable sub element. You cannot possibly take a complex structure like this and say it has similarity to a single mode lumped circuit. Do you know what a single mode lumped circuit IS? I suspect you don't, but again this is fundamental. A molecule like DNA will have electrical resonances - probably THOUSANDS of them, but they will be DISTRIBUTED resonances, not lumped circuits. You are talking about what is effectively a transmission line (look up what engineers mean by that term) with shorted stubs and complex impedance bridges. It is unlikely in the extreme that you could ever possibly calculate those resonances, even if all the electrical properties of the components were known.

To Prag: You said there were also many negative studies re static magnetic field effects. I have looked at these too, but in all cases there were very good reasons why: e.g. low applied field strength. short duration of exposure, few subjects in the trial. If you like I can take you through these studies, or perhaps you have specific ones in mind?

It's O.K. I don't want to go through magnet studies. I was simply making the point that the matter is not clear cut. For any evidence FOR, there is evidence AGAINST as well. The existing studies don't really prove anything - which seems to be the whole problem with "bioelectromagnetics", the people who are designing all these studies don't seem to have the required expertise in ALL the areas required.

 

[cogreslab]

Prag said:

"It is unlikely in the extreme that you could ever possibly calculate those resonances, even if all the electrical properties of the components were known".

Yes, there must be thousands of such "components" in DNA and the circuits they give rise to are obviously not simple. There seems to be only a few types of components involved, however:

The alternating phosphates and sugars along each strand are all similar. (I speculate whether these phosphates have some sort of diode effect to ensure the electrons only travel in one direction, since the sugars are I think more straghtforwardly conductive?). Then there are the two kinds of base pairs C-G and A-T , which can be placed either way around across the phosphate sugar strands. The base pairs are separated only by a few hydrogen bonds (two for the T-A, and three for the C-G "components"). I am sure you know all this but I am asking for us to look at these as electronic components rather than biochemical structures. Say, for example the T-A base pair served as an inductor and the C- G base pair as a capacitor (or vice versa!), and we restrict our "circuit" to a single gene, then could one then begin to defend the speculation with some calculations? I still would need to define the resistors anatomically, I know, but there seems no harm in looking at DNA in this manner, given other biological examples of "circuitry" such as flagellate motors). The reason for doing so is to try to solve the mystery of how DNA opens at precisely the right place to permit gene expression. The transcription factors by themselves do not explain this, because of the magnesium ion problem.

I do not know what a single mode thingy is, or at last i do not recognise the description. By transmission line I am used to the definition of an electricity conducting system above 132kV (as opposed to a distribution line which is below that, a legal distinction only, since their responsibility lies with local rather than national companies) but you possibly have some other definition.

As for the ingested e-field miniprobe, I also thought of that idea, but have not yet found such a device. I did however stick the sealed electric field probe into my mouth and it read 400V/m , but I do not trust that measurement!

Dr Scholes from UCL was at Istanbul talking about 1.5kV/m fields in the brain if I remember correctly. Also reported there was a study which may satisfy your conditions (Guler, Seyhan et al., Gazi Univ Turkey): Electric potentials were applied to two copper plates mounted on a wooden box containing a guinea pig ("GP") (180 animals in the trial). Potentials applied ranged between 1.9kV/m and 0.3kV/m, 8 hours/day, for 3 days. 20 GPs kept as controls in the same conditions without exposure.

Only one animal was in each cage on grounds of stress reduction (not sure this is a valid argument, since they might be stressed by solitude!) but the results showed significant increases in superoxide dismutase and malondialdehyde. These are indicative of increased free radical activity as a result of the exposure.

My speculative interpretation of these results is that either there was an adverse effect on metabolism since the e-field acted to depolaraise the inner mitochondrial membrane thereby inhibiting or disrupting the efficient scavenging of terminal electrons, or that the e-field by itself was responsible for the excess free electrons through effects on radical pair formation. But that is not the issue, the effects seem to indicate that the electric field created between the two plates was penetrating the Faraday cage of the animals' skin. Could you comment on this study, which is typical of many others?

 

[cogreslab]

I forgot to mention that astonishingly the abstract does not say if the fields in the Turkish study were AC or DC, but in another poster they used AC 50Hz.

 

[cogreslab]

Just testing to see if this image can be seen by the forum, since I will need this facility from here on.

 

[cogreslab]

First I compare the similarity of a typical cellphone RF/MW antenna (see above, courtesy of NRPB) to the sialic acid residues on plasma membrane surface sialic acid residues on glycoproteins (coutessy of Alberts Bray et al., 1993 3rd edn).

Seems we can now be in business with images and scans so I will post Kato's circularly polarised equations this way shortly.

 

[cogreslab]

Just testing if the Forum is working again.

 

[cogreslab]

Forum seems OK again.

I would just mention that the Times Higher Ed. publishwed a letter from me correcting the facts in the article posted somewhere above about scientists who go to the media before publishing in the peer reviewed literature, (which gave me as an example).

 

[cogreslab]

Forum seems OK again.

I would just mention that the Times Higher Ed. published a letter from me correcting the facts in the article posted somewhere above about scientists who go to the media before publishing in the peer reviewed literature, (which gave me as an example).

 

[cogreslab]

Prag said recently:

"which seems to be the whole problem with "bioelectromagnetics", the people who are designing all these studies don't seem to have the required expertise in ALL the areas required".



I tend to agree, with a few caveats. Nowadays these expts are likely to be done by groups with elements of their own expertise combined: our physical chemist knows a good deal about Raman spectroscopy (double first at London) but has no idea how to isolate lymphocytes, and our biochemist can explain which are the active groups in a molecule etc, but has no clue about physics, while our physicists have no idea about oxidative phosphorylation or metabolic pathways. Together we try to cover the field, and this is typical of other colleague labs I know of. I have not called on my colleagues on this thread, or I probably would not have been allowed to be so loose in my statements, but It's a good if rough way to learn about areas which I have poor personal extertise in. This does not invalidate the lab's work as a whole, though: our published papers reflect the team effort, (though we usually go outside for the statistical testing as a matter of rigour).

The caveats are that sometimes those designing the experiments very well know their chosen protocol is going to find nothing: one technique is to choose a level of field strength never seen in the average environment (see John Tattersall's recent work with calcium efflux from hippocampal slices for the former DERA as an example), or the more general point i have been making - the deliberate choice of the magnetic component when the electric component is a more effective bio-effector - . Or for example the new study funded by Hydro Quebec on pregnant heifers under 10kV/m powerlines: they reported this as a lack of effect on hormones, but buried in the text is the admission that there was a noticeable effect on melatonin levels. No doubt the media if they ever report it will say it is a negative study when it is not.

 

[Prester John]

First I compare the similarity of a typical cellphone RF/MW antenna (see above, courtesy of NRPB) to the sialic acid residues on plasma membrane surface sialic acid residues on glycoproteins (coutessy of Alberts Bray et al., 1993 3rd edn).

This is starting to remind me of a thread at Bad Astronomy where some loon was trying to suggest that ancient temples were giant computer cicuit diagrams.

 

[Prester John]

Cogreslab said:

In the DNA helix the electron flows are opposite in direction along each strand. The purine and pirimidine bases seem to be similar to resistors and capacitors in nature. At specific resonant frequencies this could be how the h-bonds are broken when gene expression is required. Though there are enzymes performing this task, they do not work unless magnesium ions are present, which may support the speculation.

Perhaps you could provide some literature evidence to back up the magnesium ion statement. Have you examined the structure of the polymerases?

The weakest bonds are where you have sequences CTCT. If one strips these out there is no stress response to ELF electric fields. If you re-insert them into DNA elsewhere the effect is seen again.

Reference for this as well please.



I took a look at a molecule's DNA sequence (Beta-globin) shown in Alberts Bray (p532 in Ed 2) and found these were only in the introns, not the exons. It could be that the resonant effect needed to open DNA operates via a mechanism of this kind. Any comments?

I think that you may need more than Brays to contend that CTCT sequences only occur in introns.

I'm not gonna pretend i know a whole lot about transciption initiation, but see here:

http://www.accessexcellence.org/AB/GG/RNA_trans.html

In order to begin transcription, RNA polymerase requires a number of general transcription factors (called TFIIA, TFIIB, and so on). (A) The promoter contains a DNA sequence called the TATA box, which is located 25 nucleotides away from the site where transcription is initiated. (B) The TATA box is recognized and bound by transcription factor TFIID, which then enables the adjacent binding of TFIIB

Note its a TATA box 25 nucleotides upstream of the transciption site. Not a whole lot of CTCT mentioned there.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Hi! Had a few days off. DNA as a resonant circuit? Roger, you are sounding increasingly as Kumar. Just grabbing at whatever straw that seems to float by. This is thoroughly UNINTERESTING. I for one am not going to be caught up with another poster who shoots silly ideas into the air and see if they orbit. I'm not going to run around debunking yet another idiot's inane ideas based on total lack of basic understanding of the subject at hand.

Form a coherent theory that is supported by textbook knowledge, and we can talk. Otherwise, head for my ignore list.

My offer for basic training still stands, but YOU, Roger have to say "Yes, I want to follow that thread." I am normally paid (quite well) to teach. I am certainly not going to do it for free unless you are prepeared to study.

Hans
Hans

 

[cogreslab]

To Hans: First yes, please set up the thread you suggest. I am very grateful and the first to acknowledge I do not have any good knowledge of electrical engineering except what I have gleaned from textbooks and articles, with no way of knowing their competence or validity: you saw already one example where I correctly quoted (in my ignorance) from a radio engineering textbook which was I understand out of date and wrong.

As a naive student I am likely to to ask some simple questions as a way of learning.

Re the resonant circuit speculation. Here we have a set of facts we cannot explain (how does DNA open up?) so surely in the scientific method one collects the facts together such as they are and tries to make sense of these with a number of speculations leading to a set of testable hypotheses. That is all I was doing, and it was a little unfair to say it is yet another attempt to deflect from the issue.

We have a second set of facts I cannot explain (aka the kettle lead question). We know from Oersted and Faraday that a changing electric field should create an alternating magnetic field even without load being involved. So why do my traceable instruments not show this magnetic field, except only when the circuit is under load?

Speculation 1: The wires are clearly close together in the kettle lead, so maybe the magnetic field is cancelling itself out, whereas the electric field does not? But I recall that Feynman states that both magnetic and electric fields are superpositive.

Speculation 2: there are other physical factors we have not taken into account in operation.

Speculation 3: Feynman was wrong and magnetic fields are not superpositive.

Specualtion 4: my two instruments (one analogue, one digital) though in broad agreement, are crap.

Maybe you have a suggestion here?

 

[cogreslab]

To PJ:

I think the magnesium ion involvement in transcription factors came from Jim Watson's new book DNA: the secret of life, but I will check. A good read, btw.

The CTCT work is from Columbia where Reba Goodman and Martin Blank (a Prof of Physiology there) have been looking at stress factors (hsp70) for some years. It was presented at BEMS Washington meeting, but there are also several published papers, which I will find and cite for you.

Yes, the check I did on one small protein may not apply universally. No one else has commented on this possibility, but I am driving upto the Boston meeting (Gordon Res Conf) from NY next week with Martin Blank - he kindly offered me a lift - and will pick his brains.

 

[cogreslab]

Is This The First Police Death From TETRA?

On 11th July Dr Graham Blackwell was advised of a police officer who had very recently died of cancer of the oesophagus - throat cancer. This officer was in his thirties, an active sportsman with a healthy diet. He didn’t smoke or drink and had none of the preconditions for this sort of cancer.

This information was given to Graham Blackwell of Starweave by his brother, who also told him that another officer in the same Midlands force also has a tumour in exactly the same location - directly underneath where the Airwave handset is mounted.

The deceased officer’s brother, who has authorised him to make this known, also said:


“If people want to know how it feels to have your brother die in your arms, fighting for 48 hours for every breath, then I’ll tell them - he was a person of great courage and integrity - it was a death you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.”

This is exactly the type of condition that was predicted by Barrie Trower in his Report for the Police Federation two years ago. It also corresponds very closely with an incidence of cancer suffered by a Crime Scene Investigator with another force who was using TETRA .


"Heartfelt condolences go out to this officer’s family from all who are committed to preventing such occurrences. By agreeing that his story may be told, his family have ensured that through his death many other officers may be saved from a similar fate. The facts speak for themselves, they cannot be silenced" said Blackwell.

It’s likely that colleagues of these two officers will be asking some pretty searching questions of their superiors, questions to which every serving police officer deserves answers.

These could include the following:


1) In the light of the Stewart Report (IEGMP, 2000) recommending avoidance of amplitude modulation around 16 Hz, based on research evidence of biological effects at levels too low to cause heating, why are police officers throughout the UK being obliged to use equipment that pulses at 17.6 Hz? How can ‘safety guidelines’ based only on short-term heating effects be used to justify this policy?


2) Why did the Minister for Policing say in a Commons Debate on Tetra, July 10th 2003, with reference specifically to the above research studies:


"The experiments were carried out in the 1970s and it has since been virtually impossible to replicate them."


when the fact is that the Report listed four studies in the eighties and one in the nineties confirming this effect? Also the NRPB Report on TETRA (2001) listed just one further study - another successful replication in 1999, just five years ago, giving a two-to-one majority (8-4) of studies in those two reports showing this effect.


3) Why did the Home Office's own claimed 'attempt to replicate' this effect in the Government's own laboratories at DSTL Porton Down specifically not test at the power levels at which this effect was observed in previous research? Why also did this Home Office study not take into consideration two other factors which previous researchers had explicitly indicated as highly significant - i.e. background static magnetic field (possibly affected by e.g. steel lab benches) and temperature?


How can the Home Office claim this was a true 'replication attempt'?


4) Given the clear need for the Police to have a secure, reliable and safe state-of-the-art communications system, why did the Home Office place an order for Airwave without consideration of other less potentially harmful systems, such as TETRAPOL?


Lastly, a word on that question mark in the heading. To Blackwell, it’s not a question of whether this death was caused by a TETRA handset - for him that’s not in doubt.


No, the question is whether this is in fact the first such death. It’s well known that the authorities have pulled a veil of silence over this whole issue, making it very difficult for officers to speak out about it. By doing this they are, of course, simply encouraging everyone to assume the worst (and my bet is that everyone won’t be far wrong). It’s certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility that there have been other deaths elsewhere that have been ’hushed up’.


I recall a number of mysterious deaths among radar scientists at Malvern some years ago. The local media refused to publicise it, so is not a "scaremongery" issue.

I am conscious the quote above is not a scientific peice of evidence, but it does underline the seriousness of this thread and the need to get the science right.

 

[Prester John]

To PJ:

I think the magnesium ion involvement in transcription factors came from Jim Watson's new book DNA: the secret of life, but I will check. A good read, btw.

The CTCT work is from Columbia where Reba Goodman and Martin Blank (a Prof of Physiology there) have been looking at stress factors (hsp70) for some years. It was presented at BEMS Washington meeting, but there are also several published papers, which I will find and cite for you.

Yes, the check I did on one small protein may not apply universally. No one else has commented on this possibility, but I am driving upto the Boston meeting (Gordon Res Conf) from NY next week with Martin Blank - he kindly offered me a lift - and will pick his brains.

Ok i'll wait, but you didn't answer any of the questions i asked, nor did you address the last point i made.

 

[MRC_Hans]

To Hans: First yes, please set up the thread you suggest. I am very grateful and the first to acknowledge I do not have any good knowledge of electrical engineering except what I have gleaned from textbooks and articles, with no way of knowing their competence or validity: you saw already one example where I correctly quoted (in my ignorance) from a radio engineering textbook which was I understand out of date and wrong.

OK, will do, but I'm on holiday, so wait a week or so.

As a naive student I am likely to to ask some simple questions as a way of learning.

Re the resonant circuit speculation. Here we have a set of facts we cannot explain (how does DNA open up?) so surely in the scientific method one collects the facts together such as they are and tries to make sense of these with a number of speculations leading to a set of testable hypotheses. That is all I was doing, and it was a little unfair to say it is yet another attempt to deflect from the issue.

Well, maybe it was not an ATTEMPT. But it was irrelevant nonsense. Irrelevant to the discussion of RF hazards. Try to calculate the resonance frequency of a DNA string, and you'll realize why.

We have a second set of facts I cannot explain (aka the kettle lead question). We know from Oersted and Faraday that a changing electric field should create an alternating magnetic field even without load being involved. So why do my traceable instruments not show this magnetic field, except only when the circuit is under load?

Because it is too weak for your instrument to measure in a simple set-up. You need to feed the cable through a balloon transformer and use an instrument with an amplifier. But believe you me, it's there.

Speculation 1: The wires are clearly close together in the kettle lead, so maybe the magnetic field is cancelling itself out, whereas the electric field does not? But I recall that Feynman states that both magnetic and electric fields are superpositive.

Speculation 2: there are other physical factors we have not taken into account in operation.

Speculation 3: Feynman was wrong and magnetic fields are not superpositive.

Specualtion 4: my two instruments (one analogue, one digital) though in broad agreement, are crap.

For this particular measurement, yes they're crap. Just like a weighing scale for trucks, no matter how excellent for its purpose, is crap for weighing mosquitos.

Maybe you have a suggestion here? [/B]

Re #3: Fields cancelling out and being superpositive are not opposite statements, quite the contrary. You know, +1 + -1 = 0.

Hans

 

[cogreslab]

I must have been unlucky in my attempts to post in the last few days, but all seems back on line now.

The quote from Martin Blank's site is below:

Electromagnetic (EM) fields have been used therapeutically for accelerated healing and pain control, but they have also been associated with adverse health effects. To understand these biological effects, we have been studying the interaction of low frequency EM fields with cells at both the cellular and molecular levels. Our studies with cells have shown that 60Hz EM fields induce stress genes and stress response proteins in cells. The stress response is a protective mechanism induced by many potentially harmful environmental stimuli and characterized by the synthesis of specific proteins that assist the renaturation and transport of other proteins. Our studies suggest that EM fields initiate the stress response by interacting with electrons moving within DNA. We have identified a 900 base pair segment associated with the response to EM fields, that when removed eliminates the response, and when transfected into a reporter construct, causes the construct to become EM field responsive. We have also investigated the mechanism of EM field interactions at the molecular level through effects on three reactions, electron transfer in cytochrome oxidase, ATP hydrolysis by the Na,K-ATPase, and the Belousov-Zhabotinski (BZ) reaction (the catalyzed oxidation of malonic acid). The BZ reaction is studied with ordinary reagents, so there is no problem of impurities as with biological preparations. All three reactions show:
EM accelerates the reaction rate, i.e., electron transfer rate
EM competes with the chemical force, so its effect varies inversely with the reaction rate thresholds for interaction are low, comparable to levels found by epidemiology effects vary with frequency, and there are different optima for the reactions studied: ATPase (60Hz), cytochrome oxidase (800Hz), BZ (250Hz)

The issue I understand you need refs for is the sentence:

"We have identified a 900 base pair segment associated with the response to EM fields, that when removed eliminates the response, and when transfected into a reporter construct, causes the construct to become EM field responsive".

He has actually published on this and I will get you the citation when I see him on Friday onwards, but will not probably have much web access until i get back from Boston on 31 July.

 

[cogreslab]

Thanks, Hans, and have a good vacation. I will be back from the Boston Gordon Research Conference around 31 July.