Wi-Fi Unsafe for School?

[aduidarnenye]

A school board in Ontario is cutting out Wi-Fi because they believe that it hurts the health of kids. I thought that was a bit silly since most businesses, like malls and restaurants, have free Wi-Fi now. Also, don't most homes have wireless modems too, essentially the same thing, right?

I thought the part about the children not being able to concentrate and have headaches during the week that disappear on the weekends to be funny. Of course they do, they are going to school.

I thought the whole thing was dumb actually.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/201...safety-101019/

A Meaford, Ont. public school is the first in the nation to shut down wireless Internet in classrooms amidst a growing debate over the effects of wireless emissions on children.

Parents of students at St. Vincent Euphrasia elementary school voted "overwhelmingly" to cut off the Wi-Fi, according to a statement released by the school's parent council Monday.

"Parents voted to protect their children's health and plug the computers back in with hardwires," council member Andrew Couper said in the statement.

Wi-Fi "is something every school council across Canada should be questioning," Couper said.

St. Vincent Euphrasia is one of a handful of schools to look into a Wi-Fi ban in recent months over fears it's making students sick.

A group of Ontario parents dubbed the Simcoe County Safe School Committee believes Wi-Fi transmitters in schools may be responsible for a host of symptoms their kids show -- from headaches to an inability to concentrate -- all of which disappear on weekends.

They first spoke out against school Wi-Fi this summer, prompting government officials to weigh the effects of wireless technology on children.

Ontario Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky said in August the matter is in Ottawa's hands.

Meanwhile, Dr. Arlene King, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, said that Wi-Fi poses no threat to children in schools.

King said it's understandable that people are confused by the debate over the safety of Wi-Fi transmitters in schools, given the sometimes conflicting evidence.

However, King said people need to look at the weight of the literature on the topic, especially from authorities like the World Health Organization, which says exposure to Wi-Fi is safe.

Health Canada says there is "no convincing scientific evidence" that Wi-Fi in schools is dangerous to children.

[kuronosan]

Of course there's no convincing evidence. It's a biased, zero-correlation study.

[Acturus]

A group of Ontario parents dubbed the Simcoe County Safe School Committee believes Wi-Fi transmitters in schools may be responsible for a host of symptoms their kids show -- from headaches to an inability to concentrate -- all of which disappear on weekends.

Gosh, headaches and an inability to concentrate. Symptoms that all disappear on weekends. How interesting and scientifically supportive.

[Mizango]

Of course there's no convincing evidence. It's a biased, zero-correlation study.

Right on.

[Takedown3]

this deserves a double face palm

http://lonewolfsden.net/wp-content/u...card_riker.jpg

[Elesirdur]

In other news, School Board run by parents with poor grasp of the empirical method.

[Eratosthenes]

Most of these students probably have wifi at home. Inability to concentrate and headaches sounds like not enough sleep and crappy breakfasts to me, exactly the sort of things that are less likely to happen on weekends.

[Izzy]

http://myiq2xu.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/ali2.jpg
Better safe than sorry imo.

[Stiker]

I'm not sure what's more sad: the fact this is actually happening or the fact that I'm really not surprised anymore about such things.

[Surealistic]

not trying to advocate this schools reasoning, but

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...-to-Wi-Fi.html

sucks to be him lol

[Mizango]

I'm not sure what's more sad: the fact this is actually happening or the fact that I'm really not surprised anymore about such things.

Definitely know what you mean here.

[Eggroll]

Everyone knows wi-fi scrambles your brain, it's just common sense.

[Yabby]

not trying to advocate this schools reasoning, but

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...-to-Wi-Fi.html

sucks to be him lol

If he truly thinks that the waves will hurt him, they will. Lawl

[archibaldcrane]

Gosh, headaches and an inability to concentrate. Symptoms that all disappear on weekends. How interesting and scientifically supportive.

Haha - what, they don't have wi-fi at home?

Losers.

[Kaisha]

First the prostitution shit, and now idiots in the school board thinking wifi gives teh cancer/aids, wtf Ontario, disappoint me further and I'll move over to Nova Scotia.

[archibaldcrane]

Yeah man, Nova Scotia is way better!

Spoiler: show

no one cares about canada

[Acturus]

Haha - what, they don't have wi-fi at home?

Losers.

It's Canada. Lots of caribu, no home-based wi-fi.

[Weeks]

not trying to advocate this schools reasoning, but

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...-to-Wi-Fi.html

sucks to be him lol

Yeah, it always sucks when you suffer from imaginary ailments. Bet he's got fibromyalgia too.

[Max™]

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...01/ast19jan_1/

If humans had radio antennas instead of ears, we would hear a remarkable symphony of strange noises coming from our own planet. Scientists call them "tweeks," "whistlers" and "sferics." They sound like background music from a flamboyant science fiction film, but this is not science fiction. Earth's natural radio emissions are real and, although we're mostly unaware of them, they are around us all the time.
"Everyone's terrestrial environment almost literally sings with radio waves at audio frequencies," says Dennis Gallagher, a space physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). "Our ears can't detect radio waves directly, but we can convert them to sound waves with the aid of a very low frequency (VLF) radio receiver."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...icle665419.ece

“When we have conducted measurements in schools, typical exposures from wi-fi are around 20 millionths of the international guideline levels of exposure to radiation. As a comparison, a child on a mobile phone receives up to 50 per cent of guideline levels. So a year sitting in a classroom near a wireless network is roughly equivalent to 20 minutes on a mobile. If wi-fi should be taken out of schools, then the mobile phone network should be shut down, too — and FM radio and TV, as the strength of their signals is similar to that from wi-fi in classrooms.”

http://scienceblogs.com/builtonfacts..._radiation.php

So what kind of energies are we looking at in WiFi signals? WiFi operates in the 2.4 GHz frequency range, the same as a microwave oven. The wavelength of that light is about 12.5 centimeters, which is about 125 million nanometers. Each photon therefore carries almost exactly 1/100,000 of an electron volt worth of energy. This is nowhere near the ~1+ energies involved in electron energy levels, and so this kind of radiation can't damage DNA. The energy just isn't there. Furthermore, because of the quantum nature of electron energy levels, you can't just stack 100,000 microwave photons to cause a 1 eV transision. You have to actually have a 1 eV photon. (Technically there is such a thing as a multiphoton transition, but it's a strongly nonlinear process with a probability that's already very low for 2 photon transitions and exponentially worse as the number increases. 100,000 is out of the question.)

But if microwave photons can't damage DNA, how can they cook food and boil water in your microwave oven? The answer is simple: the energy they have is plenty enough to excite the much less energetic rotational and vibrational states of the molecules. This motion produces heat. Heat is just heat though, there's nothing special about heat produced by a microwave any more than there is by an electric heating element or a heat lamp or a seat warmer. And the total power output by a WiFi transmitter is many orders of magnitude less than a microwave oven - 1 watt tends to be an upper limit for home and business transmitters, while any person standing around would only absorb a tiny fraction of that tiny fraction. The temperature increase from absorbing WiFi signals is not measurable, and mathematically speaking is itself dwarfed by other radio/microwave sources such as cell phones and (depending on your location) broadcast radio and TV.
WiFi just isn't going to hurt you, your DNA, your crops or their DNA, or anything else other than the attention spans of college students when WiFi lets them spend class on Facebook.

Spoiler alert: these kids are full of shit, and the "electro-sensitivity sufferers" are convincing themselves they are being made sick by it. If they can't prove the shit in a double blind study, it is fake.

Now, I do actually register something when a large TV set is turned on, it's almost like a sound, a really high pitched squeal, but I've never heard of people suffering from having TV sets turned on near them, much less suffering from the BATH of EM wavelengths we wander around through obliviously every day.

None of these twits seem to complain about the microwave oven, but I bet they have one.

[Cesaria]

Most schools I work in have spent tonnes of cash wifing up the school and buying sets of laptops to connect to the network - which never bloody works!