luckyguy

What do stingrays have to do with it? Are they any more dangerous or is that just pandering?

Somebody stick a gerbel on top of a wifi router. We need to know and that will be much more effective than germination studies.

unixfreak

I think the stingray reference is merely pointing out that cell towers can be more widespread, hence you'll have multiple cell towers covering a small area, and ending up with a more concentrated dose (i'm unsure about that however). The point is that radiation emitted by microwave, might be damaging on the cellular level which these studies claim that it is. The simpler the lifeform (eg; cress) the more effect microwave radiation has at damaging the cells. For instance, prolonged use of microwave radiation could be causing a myriad of illnesses in the long term, cancer being the obvious one to point at. This is the main claim to the dangers of microwave radiation.

Sticking a gerbel on top of a wifi hotspot won't do much for the gerbel. I would assume the affects would be seen within a generation or two, such as mutations in dna. With a lifeform such as cress, there are less cells in terms of mass, so it's likely more cells will die IF microwave radiation is a factor towards the lack of germination.

luckyguy

Microwaves are not going to mutate dna. They don't have enough energy to break any bond in the dna strand. Energy is quantized. One quanta of microwave will not have a chemical effect.

I think a better way of thinking about it is that microwave has a thermal effect on the outer skin of an organism (which is a valid concern) and cress has less volume to surface.

If there is a negative effect it should be seen in one generation. It may in fact be dangerous for it. That's why I'm saying do it. Let's find out.