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Something similar happened in more modern times with a cell tower, although it's over a decade ago now: https://gizmodo.com/locals-complain-of-radio-tower-illness-t...

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Various double-blind studies involving cell-towers also show no effect. Of folks claiming some kind of electromagnetic hypersensitivity, the greatest sensitivity seems to be whether they can see if a power-light is on or not.

Some may have real symptoms, but the cause is something else inside or outside them.

And power lines. I seem to recall reading that some of the health problems may have come from Agent Orange, which was used to clear the power corridor in the 50s

For the longest time I believed that cell tower radiation’s negative impact on living organisms is strictly pseudoscience.

Turns out, back in 2016 a German study[0] has found damage to trees near the towers—starting on the side of the tree facing the tower, then spreading to the entire tree.

This study, of course, does not show whether that measurably harms humans, but I stopped thinking those fears and complaints are completely unfounded.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27552133/

The study's author is a well-known esoteric loonie. You are better of not trusting that study. Context in German: https://www.psiram.com/de/index.php/Cornelia_Waldmann-Selsam

Interesting, thanks for context. Then, was this particular paper not peer reviewed or did it use suspect methodology?

PubMed is highly problematic in that regard. It means basically nothing in terms of quality or quantity of peer review, but the "nih.gov" part of the URL automatically lends an air of real authority to any link that contains it.

I don't know what you have to do to get a link on PubMed, but it definitely isn't much.

This is interesting (and unfortunate). It boggles my mind how academia makes it possible to publish (and not have to retract) a paper based around facts that are simply made up[0], while some bright and capable people I know don’t have ways to publish (unless, I suppose, they pay to some lesser pay-to-play journals) because they did not choose to be in academia.

[0] Although I have not seen anyone in this thread tell me that this paper is false—it was mostly appeal to author’s preexisting reputation—I’m taking it at face value.

Peer review doesn't guarantee much of anything, unfortunately.

There is a dedicated group of people who believe any electromagnetic emission is affecting them negatively. Searching on "electromagnetic free zones" is quite the rabbit hole. And there's way more to them than the "5G is mind control forced on us by the Illuminati for the New World Order" crowd.

They definitely should not own one of these then: https://somasynths.com/ether/. But it is lots of fun for me.

What's funny is that you can make a defensible argument that COVID caused 5G.

(Basically, everyone was even more chronically online during the lockdowns, so there was extra money to be made and extra urgency in rolling out telecommunications infrastructure.)

I met a new age architecture consultant (not an actual architect) back in the 90s that was convinced his bag of Epsom salts and a copper spring was protecting him from the cancer causing electromagnetic fields produced by house wiring.

The Parkes radio telescope had issues with fast radio bursts that they couldn't attribute to what they were tracking. Turned out to be a microwave oven in a nearby building where the door was opened before it had stopped.

While I wouldn't subscribe to standing in front will cook you idea, opening the door prematurely does give off radiation. Standing in front of a microwave beam dish may be a different story - knew an ex-Telecom tech who told a possibly tall tale of cooking chicken.

https://theconversation.com/how-we-found-the-source-of-the-m...

The Telecom guy might have been pulling your leg, but microwave dishes are known to be dangerous if you're in the wrong spot in front of them. (The traditional story is that Percy Spencer noticed a chocolate bar in his pocket get melted by the radar set he was working on. However, the effect had been demonstrated at least a decade earlier.)

Parkes radio telescope has a 200'+ dish designed to detect infinitesimal traces of radiation from across the universe. I'd be wildly disappointed if it couldn't detect a microwave in the next building.

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