Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: nudephil on 28/01/2021 16:27:34
-
Brian asks:
An electromagnetic pulse can disable electrical devices. Without making physical contact (like a taser or lightning), are there similar ways the electrical system in a person can be disrupted by some form of external interference? For example, could some type of device scramble electrical activity in a person’s brain or nervous system?
-
If you set out to, you could cook your brain with a microwave or interfere with brain activity using TMS, but it's not the sort of thing that's likely to happen accidentally.
-
Yes, absolutely. Not only upset the electrical activity, but the chemical activity too. One shot of gamma can do it.
Or just a high voltage close by can do it. Your body is a bag of salt water. A close high voltage can spark your body.....if you provide a path.
-
In modern times, there are strong electrical fields all over the place. Would it be surprising if these affected our brains.
-
Would it be surprising if these affected our brains.
Yes.
Not least because our brains are, in effect, screened by our skull and skin.
More importantly, the experiment has been done billions of times.
There is no detectable effect.
-
Not sure how you would distinguish "rate" from "intensity". Even the morons at the Health & Safety Executive know they are the same.
We use magnetic impulses to stimulate cranial and peripheral nerves as part of neurological diagnosis and treatment for depression, and electroconvulsive therapy has been around for years. The odd thing is that, at least at the intensities and doses used clinically, the effect seems to be to reset or normalise brain function.
-
Nudephil in his OP, raised a concern which has not been answered by subsequent posters.
The concern is this: our brains are being subjected to electro-magnetic radiation on an absolutely unprecedented scale. Which has not been experienced before, in the entire history of human evolution.
No-one before the 20th century had constant, multiple-frequency radio-waves passing through their brains every day. This is an entirely new phenomenon. One which our brains were not designed to cope with.
Posters have dismissed this as unimportant. But are they right?
Mightn't these radio-waves be inducing changes in the activity of our brains.
Which makes us behave in increasingly peculiar ways?
-
Are you suggesting a physical damage effect, or a psychological effect? We can easily measure physical damage......but how to measure a change in thinking or behavior......and tying it to RF?
What about all the new chemicals now in the environment? And all the drugs from all our little personal problems ANSWERED from our pharmacy. Personality maintenance drugs.
We have been soaked in RF for about one hundred years. So, far.....no effects.....that's why we say it. If in the future we find damage, then we will quit saying it.
-
Are you suggesting a physical damage effect, or a psychological effect? We can easily measure physical damage......but how to measure a change in thinking or behavior......and tying it to RF?
What about all the new chemicals now in the environment? And all the drugs from all our little personal problems ANSWERED from our pharmacy. Personality maintenance drugs.
We have been soaked in RF for about one hundred years. So, far.....no effects.....that's why we say it. If in the future we find damage, then we will quit saying it.
Hayseed, thanks, when you say we've been soaked in RF for a hundred years, that's true. But perhaps you're slightly missing the point, if you don't mind me saying so.
The Radio Frequency waves that we were subjected to in the past, were Long and Medium waves.
Such waves don't interfere with our brains. They pass through without causing molecular effects.
But in recent times, the Radio Frequency waves have got shorter and shorter. They're becoming more like the waves in microwave ovens.
And these ovens, as you know, can cook meat. And as our brains are, essentially, made of meat, they can be cooked
by the microwaves.
At least, that's how I reason. Can you see any flaw in the reasoning?
-
They're becoming more like the waves in microwave ovens. And these ovens, as you know, can cook meat.
Can you see any flaw in the reasoning?
Yes.
You are describing the thermal effects of radiation.
- These are easily measured.
- Maximum exposure levels are set far below the level at which thermal effects damage tissue (especially the cornea, which has a poor blood supply to regulate its temperature)
- The highest exposure is from the phone held against your head, and these operate well below the maximum exposure levels.
- As the frequencies get higher, the depth to which the radiation can penetrate reduces.
- The radiation levels are far below what the Sun delivers to your skin - and the frequencies are far below the UV that the Sun delivers to your skin.
-
Can you see any flaw in the reasoning?
Yes.
The flaw is your failure to understand the importance of power.
You may feel that the battery in your phone doesn't last long
enough, but just think how quickly it would be exhausted if you used it to power the microwave oven.
-
And these ovens, as you know, can cook meat. And as our brains are, essentially, made of meat, they can be cooked by the microwaves.
Time was that you were told not to put your head in the gas oven. Nothing has changed.
-
And these ovens, as you know, can cook meat. And as our brains are, essentially, made of meat, they can be cooked by the microwaves.
Time was that you were told not to put your head in the gas oven. Nothing has changed.
That actually raises an interesting question; I have never seen a microwave oven which didn't have an interlock.
The interlock stops you switching the microwave on unless the door is closed.
Why didn't gas ovens do the same?
The answer to the obvious objection is "That's what the pilot light is for"
-
-
Why didn't gas ovens do the same?
Because in the bad old days people were presumed to have a spark of intelligence, and if you decided to top yourself, nobody would hold the manufacturer responsible for your deliberate misuse of the product. And it was nice to sit in the kitchen with the oven door open on a cold day. And the pilot light didn't always work, which accounted for a fair number of unplanned demolitions.
-
And these ovens, as you know, can cook meat. And as our brains are, essentially, made of meat, they can be cooked by the microwaves.
Time was that you were told not to put your head in the gas oven. Nothing has changed.
That was with town gas, these days you don't need to put your head in the oven with natural gas, just wait for the explosion.
There is a serious risk for people with pacemakers from areas that have heavily saturated magnetism.
https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/arrhythmia/prevention--treatment-of-arrhythmia/devices-that-may-interfere-with-icds-and-pacemakers
-
Why didn't gas ovens do the same?
Because in the bad old days people were presumed to have a spark of intelligence, and if you decided to top yourself, nobody would hold the manufacturer responsible for your deliberate misuse of the product. And it was nice to sit in the kitchen with the oven door open on a cold day. And the pilot light didn't always work, which accounted for a fair number of unplanned demolitions.
I accept your point about historic gas explosions. I used to live in north London in the 1960's. On quiet Sunday mornings there were widely-heard "crumps" and "bangs" from gas-boilers being lit in bathrooms where the pilot-light had gone out.
But isn't there an essential difference between "gas" and "microwaves". Which is this:
Gas isn't all over the place. Whereas microwave radiation is.
-
There's really no need to guess how, for example, the microwave radiation affects the body. It's all well documented.
Here are just a few documents you may searching the following subject in Google (couldn't post the direct links)
Biological Effects from Radiofrequency Radiation at Low-Intensity Exposure BioInitiativeReport-RF-Color-Charts.pdf
diabetes-electromagnetic-fields-the-evidence-213.html
Effects of electromagnetic fields exposure on the antioxidant defense system PMC6025786
The effect of a high frequency electromagnetic field in the microwave range on red blood cells PMC5589725