Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today's episode is a
Speaker 1: classic from our previous host, Christian Sager. This one tackles
Speaker 1: the question of whether WiFi signals are dangerous to we
Speaker 1: humans who live increasingly among them. But just so you
Speaker 1: don't panic spoiler alert, the answer is most likely nope,
Speaker 1: are you there, brain Stuff, It's me Christian Sager. Do
Speaker 1: you ever think about how, with wireless internet floating around us,
Speaker 1: that we're all just waiting through gigabytes of HTML, MP three's, JPEG's,
Speaker 1: first person shooters and entire podcasts like this one. Even
Speaker 1: if you don't have a router and you avoid the
Speaker 1: library and your local coffee shop, WiFi is everywhere, So
Speaker 1: your next question might be whether all that WiFi is
Speaker 1: safe or not? What is it? And how does it
Speaker 1: affect a human body. Well, first, the term WiFi means
Speaker 1: a wireless network, not wireless fidelity. That is a common misconception.
Speaker 1: These wireless networks translate data into radio signals and then
Speaker 1: transmit and receive those signals via antennas, so WiFi is
Speaker 1: made of radio waves. These are part of the broad
Speaker 1: range of frequencies that make up the electromagnetic spectrum. We
Speaker 1: know that some radiation on that spectrum, like gamma rays,
Speaker 1: X rays, or high frequency ultraviolet light, can be dangerous.
Speaker 1: These waves are known as ionizing radiation. There's so high
Speaker 1: an energy that they can break apart atoms and damage
Speaker 1: our DNA, but the non ionizing wavelengths are too low
Speaker 1: an energy to ionize atoms or molecules. Since radio waves
Speaker 1: Likewifi are non ionizing, they tend to be safe. The
Speaker 1: intensity of a WiFi signal is rather low. WiFi is
Speaker 1: most often transmitted at a frequency of two point four
Speaker 1: giga hurts, about the same as most microwave ovens. For comparison,
Speaker 1: a lightbulb amidst non ionizing radiation up to four hundred nanometers,
Speaker 1: which converts to hold on a second seven eighty one
Speaker 1: giga hurts. That makes lightbulbs over sixty two thousand times
Speaker 1: stronger than WiFi. Wireless network routers also broadcast further distances
Speaker 1: than microwave ovens, which is important because every time you
Speaker 1: double the distance of a radio wave, you only get
Speaker 1: a quarter of its energy. That is called the inverse
Speaker 1: square law of physics, which means Wifi's intensity drops off
Speaker 1: sharply the further you get from a device emitting it.
Speaker 1: If you're still wondering why microwave ovens cook food, but
Speaker 1: your WiFi router doesn't consider a microwave ovens walls, they're
Speaker 1: specifically designed to reflect microwave radiation in very particular directions.
Speaker 1: That creates interference between the waves. That results standing waves
Speaker 1: which oscillate in place in particular parts of the microwave.
Speaker 1: That's why sometimes your frozen dinner doesn't cook uniformly, especially
Speaker 1: without a turntable. Now, despite WiFi being broadcast at this
Speaker 1: safe frequency, there are some controversial health concerns associated with
Speaker 1: the radiation it emits, and while there is no definitive link,
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization also known as WHO, does recognize
Speaker 1: that some studies show preliminary connections between these types of
Speaker 1: radiation and human illness. They categorize it as a class
Speaker 1: to be carcinogen, something possibly carcinogenic in humans at given exposures.
Speaker 1: Cell phones in particular have been scrutinized. Some disputed studies
Speaker 1: have also argued that children are more at risk from
Speaker 1: devices that radiate radio waves or microwaves, or that electromagnetic
Speaker 1: radiation is a risk factor for cancer into one eleven,
Speaker 1: who also classified mobile phones as possibly carcinogenic, but to
Speaker 1: date there's still isn't strong evidence, especially because it's difficult
Speaker 1: to prove a link between long term tumor development and
Speaker 1: radio frequency exposure. Scientists continue to do research in this area,
Speaker 1: but your actual wireless Internet connection does not seem to
Speaker 1: be harmful, and if you're still concerned, your other option
Speaker 1: is to wrap yourself up in aluminum foil to keep
Speaker 1: a few of these frequencies at bay. No, really, I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding. Aluminum foil creates a Faraday cage which disrupts
Speaker 1: electromagnetic sixty. Today's episode was written by me and produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Clang. For more on this lots of other topics,
Speaker 1: visit our home planet, howstuff Works dot com and for
Speaker 1: more podcasts. For my heart radio is the heart radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.