That healthy glow

You may recall that a few days ago, I posted about a company that sells beanies and boxer briefs designed to protect you from the supposed ill effects of 5G, and electromagnetic fields in general.  The upshot of my post was that the low-level EMFs we're exposed to in the ordinary course of things have never been shown to cause harm, so at best such purchases are a waste of money that could be more productively used for other purposes, which in my opinion includes using it to start a campfire.

I choose the words "at best" deliberately, because in one of those weird synchronicities that happen sometimes, I ran into an article just yesterday on the BBC News that said there's another reason to avoid these products.  You ready?

It's because some of them are...

... wait for it...

... radioactive.

My reaction upon reading this was, and I quote:

BA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *gasp, pant, wheeze* HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

I mean, you can't make this stuff up.  The Dutch Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection found that nine products from a company called EnergyArmor -- all of which allegedly protect you from the dangers of 5G and electromagnetic radiation -- themselves give off enough ionizing radiation that the agency recommended owners stop wearing them immediately, put them aside (preferably in the original packaging and away from close proximity to people and pets), and call the company to ask for a refund.  

This includes the amusingly-named Quantum Pendant™, which you can tell is extremely quantum because it says "Quantum Pendant" about eighty times on the box.

Why this pendant is any more quantum than anything else, given that all matter -- including dogs, avocados, umbrellas, cow shit, and Mitch McConnell -- is made up of the same set of subatomic particles that obey the same rules of quantum physics, is never explained.  My guess is they have no idea themselves.  The original claim ("low-level EMFs are harmful") has nothing to do with science, and as I've remarked before, it's very hard to logic your way out of a belief you didn't logic your way into.

Also, in this case, the fact that lots of gullible people are willing to hand over their hard-earned cash for this nonsense is a hell of an incentive to make it sound sophisticated.

So the purported health benefits of anti-5G-wear is offset fairly dramatically by the (real) hazard of wearing something radioactive against your skin.  Sad to say, but we appear as a species not to have progressed very far from when Marie and Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity, and found that radium salts glowed in the dark, from which people immediately concluded that these were soothing healing rays that could be used to treat damn near everything, and this includes a guy who (I am not making this up) fixed a radium-infused gizmo onto a jock strap, presumably to jazz up his sex life.

Didn't work.  Poor slob died of bladder cancer.

That, of course, was over a hundred years ago, and science has learned a lot since then.  Unfortunately -- and this is the sad part -- people in general apparently haven't.  There are still folks who prefer to believe foolishness over evidence-based research.  As my dad used to say, you can fix ignorant, but you can't fix stupid.

But the timing of the product recall in the Netherlands was just too wonderful not to comment upon.  And maybe this will wake a few people up.  I'm not really holding out that much hope, though.  The 5G-blocking-stuff manufacturers will probably just put the Dutch Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection on their (long) list of groups that are in on the conspiracy, joining the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control, and the National Institute of Health.  I'm probably in there somewhere, too, most likely on their "shill" list.  Which, by the way. makes me wonder where the hell my Shill Check™ is.  You'd think that all of my scorn would earn me something.

Maybe it was delayed in the mail.  The Post Office is probably on to the conspiracy and is preventing us shills from getting paid.  You know how it goes.

****************************************

I remember when I first learned about the tragedy of how much classical literature has been lost.  Take, for example, Sophocles, which anyone who's taken a college lit class probably knows because of his plays Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Oedipus at Colonus.  He was the author of at least 120 plays, of which only seven have survived.  While we consider him to be one of the most brilliant ancient Greek playwrights, we don't even have ten percent of the literature he wrote.  As Carl Sagan put it, it's as if all we had of Shakespeare was Timon of Athens, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Cymbeline, and were judging his talent based upon that.

The same is true of just about every classical Greek and Roman writer.  Little to nothing of their work survives; some are only known because of references to their writing in other authors.  Some of what we do have was saved by fortunate chance; this is the subject of Stephen Greenblatt's wonderful book The Swerve, which is about how a fifteenth-century book collector, Poggio Bracciolini, discovered in a monastic library what might well have been the sole remaining copy of Lucretius's masterwork De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), which was one of the first pieces of writing to take seriously Democritus's idea that all matter is made of atoms.

The Swerve looks at the history of Lucretius's work (and its origin in the philosophy of Epicurus) and the monastic tradition that allowed it to survive, as well as Poggio's own life and times and how his discovery altered the course of our pursuit of natural history.  (This is the "swerve" referenced in the title.)  It's a fascinating read for anyone who enjoys history or science (or the history of science).  His writing is clear, lucid, and quick-paced, about as far from the stereotype of historical writing being dry and boring as you could get.  You definitely need to put this one on your to-read list.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Beanie protection

Worried about aliens and/or the Illuminati and/or Bill Gates beaming secret subconscious orders directly into your brain?  Want to protect yourself from evil external influences?  Tired of running down to the supermarket every other day to buy a new roll of Reynolds Wrap?

Have I got a product for you.

I was gonna add, "Do you have no idea how electronic technology works?" but then I decided that (1) it was redundant because "no idea about technology" probably overlaps pretty completely with people who answered "yes" to the preceding three questions, and (2) I'm no electrical engineer myself.  But I do know enough to feel relatively confident that no one is trying to 5G my brainwaves or whatnot every time I turn on my phone.

Now, I'm not saying that the tech corporations aren't trying to hack your preferences in non-woo-woo ways.  It's no big secret that all you have to do is to search once for something online, and you will immediately be crushed to death under a million advertisements for the product on every social media platform known.  Sometimes, just saying it is enough; if your phone is on (or, for that matter, Alexa, EchoDot, or Siri), you can assume you're being listened to.  It's not by the Illuminati, though.  Trust me, the Illuminati don't give a flying rat's ass what you are fixing for lunch.  Advertisers, though, do; they care deeply.  In an incident I swear I am not making up, my wife and I were in the car laughing about people who dress their dogs up for Halloween, and I commented that with our dog's long legs and lanky frame, we should get her a Star Wars AT-AT Walker costume.  When I got home, I turned on my computer, got onto Facebook, and...

... the first thing I saw was an advertisement for AT-AT costumes for dogs.

So if they're listening in, it's not to turn you into a mindless automaton, it's to get you to pull out your wallet and order useless shit online.

Which, now that I come to think of it, aren't all that different.

I've also seen claims suggesting that humans are way more perceptive about subliminal messages than they actually are.  A guy on Twitter wrote a sinister post pointing out that the letters in "delta omicron" (the names of two of the COVID-19 variants) can be rearranged to spell "media control," and how that was highly significant.  Because using Greek letter names isn't something scientists do all the time, or anything.  I responded that you could also rearrange "delta omicron" to spell "cilantro mode," "doom clarinet," "erotic almond," and "retail condom," so what's your point?

He responded by blocking me.  You can't win.

In any case, my point is that even if they were able to beam subconscious commands directly into your cerebral cortex (which they can't), they don't need to.  We do the big corporations' bidding just fine as it is.  But in case you're still worried, and even after buying a ridiculous costume for your dog you still have more money than sense, allow me to direct your attention to a site where you can buy...

... an electromagnetic-field-blocking beanie.

[Image is in the Public Domain courtesy of photographer Andrew Neel]

The site describes the beanie as follows:

WaveStopper™ uses a proprietary concept that includes a tight mesh of SilverFlex™ fibers carefully woven to create an electromagnetic shield.  The conductivity of SilverFlex™ mesh cancels out the magnetic field of EMFs and as a result reflects the radiation outside the garment.  WaveStopper™ is tested in military-grade laboratories and certified to be blocking over 99% of EMFs including cellphone, 4G, 5G WiFi, and Bluetooth radiation.

In case the guys in my readership think that you're also getting commands beamed directly into your testicles, they also sell Faraday Cage Boxer Briefs.  You probably know that a Faraday cage is a mesh of conductive material that shields what is inside it from electromagnetic fields; they're used routinely to protect electronic equipment from powerful EMFs nearby.  As far as the low-level EMFs we're exposed to daily, the current research strongly supports the fact that they have no harmful health effects.  The World Health Organization has the following to say:

In the area of biological effects and medical applications of non-ionizing radiation approximately 25,000 articles have been published over the past 30 years.  Despite the feeling of some people that more research needs to be done, scientific knowledge in this area is now more extensive than for most chemicals.  Based on a recent in-depth review of the scientific literature, the WHO concluded that current evidence does not confirm the existence of any health consequences from exposure to low-level electromagnetic fields.

The upshot of it is that you don't have to worry about Faraday-caging your junk unless you're considering placing it inside a microwave oven and turning it on.

Like I said before, it's not that I am unaware that big corporations are constantly finding new ways to hack your preferences for their own purposes (as are political parties; witness the Cambridge Analytica scandal).  It's just that they're not doing it by 5G-ing your brain.  We give them our information all the time, voluntarily and often without a second thought.  Besides doing Google searches for stuff, we get suckered every day by ploys like the seemingly silly and lighthearted posts that pop up regularly on Facebook and Twitter.  "Your rock band name is the color of your underwear + the last thing you ate for a snack."  "If you reversed the digits of your age, how old would you be?"  "What was the #1 hit song when you were twelve years old?"  "Your stripper name is your grandma's first name + the street you grew up on."  Some of these are clearly fishing for information that is commonly used on security questions; but even the more innocuous ones are trying to find out your demographics, your preferences, and your habits.  Let me put this bluntly: you should never answer questions like these.  Ever.  Maybe some of them are just goofy posts from people wanting to bump up their interaction rate on Twitter, but enough of them are sketchy that you should avoid them all.  Even answering them "I'm not answering this because it's trying to do data mining" just clues in the originator that they have someone who will take the time to answer... and as a result, you'll see more and more such posts.

But about the high-tech fabric to protect your brain and/or balls, my advice is: save your money.  We have much, much bigger things to worry about.  And if you're still concerned about media control (or, for that matter, doom clarinets and erotic almonds), I have a suggestion:

Close the damn social media, shut off your computer and your phone, and go for a long walk.  That'll clear your mind nicely, even without a protective EMF-repelling beanie.

*****************************************

I've mentioned before how fascinated I am with the parts of history that still are largely mysterious -- the top of the list being the European Dark Ages, between the fall of Rome and the re-consolidation of central government under people like Charlemagne and Alfred the Great.  Not all that much was being written down in the interim, and much of the history we have comes from much later (such as History of the Kings of Britain, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, chronicling the events of the fourth through the eighth centuries C.E. -- but written in the twelfth century).

"Dark Ages," though, may be an unfair appellation, according to the new book Matthew Gabriele and David Perry called The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe.  Gabriele and Perry look at what is known of those years, and their contention is that it wasn't the savage, ignorant hotbed of backwards superstition many of us picture, but a rich and complex world, including the majesty of Byzantium, the beauty and scientific advancements of Moorish Spain, and the artistic genius of the master illuminators found in just about every Christian abbey in Europe.

It's an interesting perspective.  It certainly doesn't settle all the questions; we're still relying on a paucity of actual records, and the ones we have (Geoffrey's work being a case in point) sometimes being as full of legends, myths, and folk tales as they are of actual history.  But The Bright Ages goes a long way toward dispelling the sense that medieval Europe was seven hundred years of nothing but human misery.  It's a fascinating look at humanity's distant, and shadowed, past.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Girding your loins

In the latest from the False Sense Of Security department, we have guys' underwear that contains a mesh of tiny silver threads to protect their naughty bits from electromagnetic radiation.

It's not like this doesn't have precedent, I guess.  When you get a dental x-ray, the technician always drapes your torso with a lead apron to protect the rest of you from being irradiated.  The difference, of course, is that x-rays are high-energy ionizing radiation, while the radiation that Wireless Armour inventor Joseph Perkins is trying to protect us from is low-energy EM radiation in the radio and microwave regions of the spectrum, which has not been shown to cause ill health effects (at least not in the intensity that most of us are exposed to).

Perkins, who in his promotional over at IndieGoGo says he has a background in physics, states that there has been a 59% drop in sperm count in men exposed to the EM radiation from a standard laptop, a number I seriously question -- the studies I've seen haven't shown any such thing, although there is some indication that proximity of the testicles to a cellphone in call mode for an hour can cause a decrease in sperm motility.  A study in Norway of guys working near radio transmitter aerials did show that they had lower than expected fertility, but this is a level of radio wave exposure that most of us never see.  There doesn't seem to be any connection between using a laptop or cellphone in ordinary ways and a drop in sperm count, or even an overall lower fertility level.  I mean, think about it.  Given the ubiquity of laptops and cellphones and so on these days, if they were actually causing this kind of drop in fertility, we'd be seeing a pretty serious crash in the number of pregnancies in technological countries.

And I don't think that there's any evidence for that. People, even here in the tech-crazy industrialized world, still seem to be making babies just fine, regardless of what kind of underwear we guys prefer.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Jacklee; original photograph by Phillip from Miami, USA., BoxerShorts-20070901, CC BY-SA 2.0]

But that doesn't stop Perkins.  His silver-wire-mesh boxer briefs are critical to "keep your troops from getting fried," a phrase that I didn't make up and plays off of every guy's worst nightmare.  The underwear works on the principle of a "Faraday cage," a mesh of conducting wires that blocks electromagnetic radiation, as long as the holes through the mesh are smaller than the wavelength of the radiation.

So Perkins's Wireless Armour would work for radiation in the radio and microwave regions of the spectrum, as advertised.  The problem with the whole concept, though, is that the radiation that strikes our bodies under normal circumstances is of extremely low intensity -- according to Lorne Trottier, writing for The Skeptical Inquirer in 2009, "The photon energy of a cell phone EMF is more than 10 million times weaker than the lowest energy ionizing radiation."  Citing a great many controlled studies (and mentioning a few poorly-controlled ones), The Skeptic's Dictionary states, "(T)he likelihood that our cell phones, microwave ovens, computers, and other electronic devices (cause negative health effects) is minuscule."

There is, of course, the problem with laptops causing skin burns -- not from the EM radiation, but from the fact that the heat from the underside isn't dissipating well.  An article from the National Institute of Health warns against having a laptop against your skin for long periods of time with no heat insulation between it and you.  They describe "(a) 24-year-old man (who) presented with an asymptomatic reddish brown pigmentation on the thighs...  After an extensive work-up, burning caused by use of a laptop was observed...  Burning was induced in 3 days by using laptop for 4 h daily."

But silver mesh boxer briefs aren't going to protect you from heat.  Silver is quite a good heat conductor, so if anything, having silver threads in your underwear would make the problem worse.

That's not to say that Perkins's original claim is wrong, of course.  His Faraday-cage skivvies would protect you from the effect of high-intensity radio or microwave radiation, should you ever be exposed to such.  If you were, for example, standing in front of a high-output radio transmitter, and were wearing your Wireless Armour boxer briefs, your "troops would not fry."  The rest of your body, however, would heat up in the manner of last night's leftovers in the kitchen microwave, until you were piping hot on the inside.

Your junk, however, would remain nice and cool, if that's any consolation.

If you'd like, though, Perkins's IndieGoGo page has a place where you can contribute, and receive your very own pair of anti-EMR underwear.  The price varies between £14 (about $23) for a pair with mesh in the front only, and £24 (about $32) for "360º protection."  This seems steep, but remember that they do contain woven silver thread, so I guess they're not cheap to manufacture.

The whole thing strikes me as unnecessary, though, and I think I'll stick with my previous three-pairs-for-ten-dollars boxers from Target, and simply make a practice of avoiding high-output radio transmitters.

**********************************

This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is a fun book about math.

Bet that's a phrase you've hardly ever heard uttered.

Jordan Ellenberg's amazing How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking looks at how critical it is for people to have a basic understanding and appreciation for math -- and how misunderstandings can lead to profound errors in decision-making.  Ellenberg takes us on a fantastic trip through dozens of disparate realms -- baseball, crime and punishment, politics, psychology, artificial languages, and social media, to name a few -- and how in each, a comprehension of math leads you to a deeper understanding of the world.

As he puts it: math is "an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength."  Which is certainly something that is drastically needed lately.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Helping the hypersensitives

One thing I've never understood is the determination of some people to believe in counterfactual nonsense despite rigorous evidence to the contrary.

Let's take, for example, the news story that a friend and loyal reader of Skeptophilia found yesterday, wherein we learn that a couple in Worcester, Massachusetts is suing the private school their son attends because they claim that the wifi signal in the school is making him sick.

[image courtesy of photographer Marc Lostracco and the Wikimedia Commons]

The boy, they say, has "electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome," which makes him react badly to being exposed to electromagnetic fields.  He has developed headaches, nausea, and nosebleeds, they say, and the wifi is to blame.  School officials wouldn't do anything about it, so the parents sued.

There are just two problems with this claim.

Problem one is that earlier this year, possibly in an effort to forestall such nonsense, the school hired a company called Isotrope to do a complete assessment of the school with respect to the safety of its electronic equipment.  "Isotrope’s assessment was completed in January 2015 and found that the combined levels of access point emissions, broadcast radio and television signals, and other RFE emissions on campus 'were substantially less than 1/10,000th of the applicable safety limits (federal and state)," the school said in an official statement.

Problem two is more serious; that "electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome" apparently doesn't exist.

A 2006 study done by G. James Rubin et al. of King's College, London, called "Are Some People Sensitive to Mobile Phone Signals?", found that the answer is, essentially, "No."  They tested ordinary folks and "sensitives," exposing them to real and sham (i.e. non-existent) electromagnetic fields, and documented the symptoms participants had afterwards.  The results are damning:

(N)o strong evidence was found of any difference between the conditions in terms of symptom severity.  Nor did evidence of any differential effect of condition between the two groups exist.  The proportion of sensitive participants who believed a signal was present during GSM exposure (60%) was similar to the proportion who believed one was present during sham exposure (63%)... 

No evidence was found to indicate that people with self reported sensitivity to mobile phone signals are able to detect such signals or that they react to them with increased symptom severity.  As sham exposure was sufficient to trigger severe symptoms in some participants, psychological factors may have an important role in causing this condition.

Another study, led by Ulrich Frick of the Psychiatric University Hospital, Regensburg, Germany, found similar results:

The major study endpoint was the ability of the subjects to differentiate between real magnetic stimulation and a sham condition. There were no significant differences between groups in the thresholds, neither of detecting the real magnetic stimulus nor in motor response... Differences between groups were mostly due to false alarm reactions in the sham condition reported by subjectively electrosensitives (SES). We found no objective correlate of the self perception of being "electrosensitive."

Even more devastating to the claim is a study done by Lena Hillert et al. of the Environmental Illness Research Centre of Huddinge, Sweden, which found that there is a good treatment scheme for electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome... cognitive behavioral therapy:

Cognitive behavioural treatment, as part of a multidisciplinary treatment package for patients with electric sensitivity, was evaluated in a controlled trial. Ten patients who received treatment were compared to 12 controls. Outcome measures included different dimensions such as symptoms, beliefs, behaviour, and biochemical measurements of stress-related variables. All outcome measures were collected prior to the study, post-treatment, and after an additional 6-month follow-up. 

The therapy group rated their electric sensitivity as significantly lower than did the control group at the 6-month follow-up, and reduction of self-rated discomforts from triggering factors was significant in the therapy group. There were no systematic changes in the biochemical variables. The symptom indices were significantly reduced over time, and ability to work continued to be good in both groups. 

The prognosis for this syndrome is good with early intervention and cognitive therapy may further reduce the perceived hypersensitivity. This may have important implications on handling of patients with electric sensitivity.

In other words, the evidence is pretty clear that electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome is purely psychosomatic in origin, and best treated by mental health therapy.

And there certainly isn't any evidence that turning off the wifi will make a damn bit of difference.

It's to be hoped that the judge in this case, Timothy S. Hillman, will do his homework, and throw the lawsuit out.  Even more beneficial would be getting the child, and possibly the parents, some psychological counseling.

Because whatever is making this kid ill is clearly not the electromagnetic fields in the school, or anywhere else.  And if he is not suffering from some kind of psychosomatic illness, possibly engendered by the worries of the parents, then there is another organic cause for his symptoms, which should be looked into for his health's sake.

What's clear is that wasting time suing the school over an imagined risk isn't helping anyone, least of all the child.

Unbearable

I remembering going to visit my parents during the Christmas season in the mid-1980s, and there was this new thing on the market for kids called "Teddy Ruxpin."  Teddy Ruxpin was a talking teddy bear that would move his eyes and mouth while "saying" pre-recorded lines, first on a cassette tape, and (in later models) on a digital device.

Teddy Ruxpin was a massive hit, largely due to an equally massive advertising campaign.  They flew off the shelves.  Toy stores couldn't keep them in stock.  Desperate parents of spoiled children paid huge amounts for black market Teddies Ruxpin.

I remember this primarily, though, for a different reason than crass commercialism, a phenomenon so deeply entrenched in American culture that it'd be hardly worth commenting on.  What I mostly remember about Teddy Ruxpin was that during the height of the craze, a batch of the toys went out that had defective playback devices.  They played the recordings slowly, with a lower pitch, with the result that Teddy Ruxpin's voice sounded like a cross between Morgan Freeman and Satan.

I still recall the news broadcast where a reporter, trying heroically to keep a straight face, talked about the recall, and activated one of the defective bears.  "I WANT TO PLAY WITH YOU," Teddy said in a sepulchral voice, all the while smiling cheerfully.  "HA HA HA HA HA HA."  Apparently the voice was scary enough that several children had already been traumatized when they activated their bear, expecting a cheerful cartoon-character voice, and instead got something that sounded like the soundtrack from The Exorcist.

My dad and I took about 45 minutes to stop laughing.  Over dinner, one of us would say, "PASS THE KETCHUP," in a Darth Vader voice, adding, "HA HA HA HA HA."  And then we'd both crack up again, much to the chagrin of my poor, long-suffering mother, who had many fine qualities but was born without a sense of humor.

This all comes up because of a new talking teddy bear, also designed for children, but with a special twist.

This teddy bear is supposed to be appealing to dead children.

I wish I was kidding about this, but I'm not.  I heard about it on the Sharon Hill's wonderful site Doubtful News, and she has an excellent reputation for veracity.  Apparently the idea is that the bear, who is named (I kid you not) "Boo Buddy," says things that might be attractive or interesting to the spirits of dead children, who then will approach the bear and activate an EMF detector, making LEDs on his paws light up.

Here's the sales pitch, from Ghost Stop, the site that is selling Boo Buddy:

Not your average bear! BooBuddy is cute as a button and so much more. This ghost hunting trigger object responds to environmental changes and even asks EVP questions to initiate interaction and potential evidence. 

BooBuddy is not a toy - he's an investigator! 

Within the ghost hunting and paranormal investigations field, some theories suggest that using an object familiar and attractive to an entity may entice them to interact. This is called a 'trigger object'. BooBuddy is just that and more allowing us the ability to 'see' changes in the environment and initiate communication on it's [sic] own. 

Set BooBuddy and turn it on to detect environment changes and start asking questions. Make sure to set a recorder or camcorder near the doll to document any potential responses. That, and BooBuddy loves being on camera!

Sure he does.

I'm not at all sure what I could say about this, other than that I would buy one for the novelty value alone, if they weren't $99.95.  I guess if you believe all of this stuff about trigger objects and EMF fluctuations and so on, Boo Buddy is as sensible as anything else out there.  And if anyone does conduct any... um, empirical research using the teddy bear, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know the results.

Unless it says something like "HEY CHILDREN...  DO YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH ME?  HA HA HA HA HA HA."  And then winks at you.  Because that would be scary as hell.

Girding your loins

In the latest from the False Sense Of Security department, we have guys' underwear that contains a mesh of tiny silver threads to protect your privates from electromagnetic radiation.

It's not like this doesn't have precedent, I guess.  When you get a dental x-ray, the technician always drapes your torso with a lead apron to protect the rest of you from being irradiated.  The difference, of course, is that x-rays are high-energy ionizing radiation, while the radiation that Wireless Armour inventor Joseph Perkins is trying to protect us from is low-energy EM radiation in the radio and microwave regions of the spectrum, which has not been shown to cause ill health effects (at least not in the intensity that most of us are exposed to).

Perkins, who in his promotional over at IndieGoGo says he has a background in physics, states that there has been a 59% drop in sperm count in men exposed to the EM radiation from a standard laptop, a number I seriously question -- the studies I've seen haven't shown any such thing, although there is some indication that proximity of the testicles to a cellphone in call mode for an hour can cause a decrease in sperm motility.  A study in Norway of guys working near radio transmitter aerials did show that they had lower than expected fertility, but this is a level of radio wave exposure that most of us never see.  There doesn't seem to be any connection between using a laptop or cellphone in ordinary ways and a drop in sperm count, or even an overall lower fertility level.  I mean, think about it.  Given the ubiquity of laptops and cellphones and so on these days, if they were actually causing this kind of drop in fertility, we'd be seeing a pretty serious crash in the number of pregnancies.

And I don't think that there's any evidence for that.  People, even here in the tech-crazy industrialized world, still seem to be making babies just fine, regardless of what kind of underwear we guys prefer.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

But that doesn't stop Perkins.  His silver-wire-mesh boxer briefs are critical to "keep your troops from getting fried," a phrase that I didn't make up and plays off of every guy's worst nightmare.  The underwear works on the principle of a "Faraday cage," a mesh of conducting wires that blocks electromagnetic radiation, as long as the holes through the mesh are smaller than the wavelength of the radiation.

So Perkins' Wireless Armour would work for radiation in the radio and microwave regions of the spectrum, as advertised.  The problem with the whole concept, though, is that the radiation that strikes our bodies under normal circumstances is of extremely low intensity -- according to Lorne Trottier, writing for The Skeptical Inquirer in 2009, "The photon energy of a cell phone EMF is more than 10 million times weaker than the lowest energy ionizing radiation."  Citing a great many controlled studies (and mentioning a few poorly-controlled ones), The Skeptic's Dictionary states, "(T)he likelihood that our cell phones, microwave ovens, computers, and other electronic devices (cause negative health effects) is miniscule."

There is, of course, the problem with laptops causing skin burns -- not from the EM radiation, but from the fact that the heat from the underside isn't dissipating well.  An article from the National Institute of Health warns against having a laptop against your skin for long periods of time with no heat insulation between it and you.  They describe "(a) 24-year-old man (who) presented with an asymptomatic reddish brown pigmentation on the thighs...  After an extensive work-up, burning caused by use of a laptop was observed...  Burning was induced in 3 days by using laptop for 4 h daily."

But silver mesh boxer briefs aren't going to protect you from heat.  Silver is quite a good heat conductor, so if anything, having silver threads in your underwear would make the problem worse.

That's not to say that Perkins's original claim is wrong, of course.  His Faraday-cage skivvies would protect you from the effect of high-intensity radio or microwave radiation, should you ever be exposed to such.  If you were, for example, standing in front of a high-output radio transmitter, and were wearing your Wireless Armour boxer briefs, your "troops would not fry."  The rest of your body, however, would heat up in the manner of last night's leftovers in the kitchen microwave, until you were piping hot on the inside.

Your junk, however, would remain nice and cool, if that's any consolation.

If you'd like, though, Perkins's IndieGoGo page has a place where you can contribute, and receive your very own pair of anti-EMR underwear.  The price varies between £14 (about $23) for a pair with mesh in the front only,  and £24 (about $32) for "360º protection."  This seems steep, but remember that they do contain woven silver thread, so I guess they're not cheap to manufacture.

The whole thing strikes me as unnecessary, though, and I think I'll stick with my previous three-pairs-for-ten-dollars boxers from J. C. Penney.

WiFi woes

A clever, although questionably ethical, marketing technique is to create a problem in people's minds, and then sell them a solution to the (nonexistent) problem.

I first saw this happen with the invention of "cellulite" in the 1970s.  Cellulite, supposedly, was some kind of special, hard-to-get-rid-of fat, predominantly on the upper legs of women, where it manifests as dimples and bumps.  Almost instantaneously that it was named (and identified as "difficult to treat"), various diets, exercises, and supplements appeared that were specifically intended to "flush cellulite from the body."

Sad to say, but cellulite is just plain old fat.  No different than fat anywhere in the body.  It only appears different on the upper legs because of the presence of fibrous connective tissue there.  And you can't get rid of it except the same way you'd get rid of any fat, i.e., to eat less and exercise more -- and because of skin wrinkling with age, older people probably won't ever be able to rid themselves of it entirely.

A similar kind of thing is going on today, in a completely different area -- this one with regards to the safety of WiFi networks.

Somewhere along the line, someone got the idea that the radiation emitted by WiFi networks was dangerous, leading to sites like the EMF Safety Network, which acts as a clearinghouse for all sorts of links on the subject.  On the "Welcome" page, we're given a taste of how seriously they take all of this with a quote from Dr. Robert O. Becker, who was "twice nominated for the Nobel Prize:"

I have no doubt in my mind that at the present time, the greatest polluting element in the earth’s environment is the proliferation of electromagnetic fields. I consider that to be far greater on a global scale than warming, and the increase in chemical elements in the environment.

Well, that's just terrifying, but allow me to point out that (1) anyone can be nominated for a Nobel Prize, (2) Becker's work with the role of electricity in disease and healing has been found to be unsupported, and (3) he thought that telepathy was real and caused by "low-frequency electromagnetic waves."

Be that as it may, there is now all sorts of scare-literature out there about how we should protect our children from the dangers of WiFi.  The general consensus by scientists, of course, is that this is nonsense -- the radiation from WiFi networks is non-ionizing (i.e., sufficiently low in energy that it cannot break chemical bonds) and of very low intensity.  A public statement by Princeton University identifies the dangers of WiFi as what they are (minimal):

(A) newly published paper entitled “Radiofrequency Exposure from Wireless LANS Utilizing Wi-Fi Technology” discusses a study in which measurements were conducted at 55 sites in four countries, and measurements were conducted under conditions that would result in the higher end of exposures from such systems. An excerpt from the abstract states “.…In all cases, the measured Wi-Fi signal levels were very far below international exposure limits (IEEE C95.1-2005 and ICNIRP) and in nearly all cases far below other RF signals in the same environments.”

Dr. Steven Novella, in SkepticBlog, also addresses the claims of certain individuals who believe they are "electromagnetic hypersensitives:"

What about electromagnetic hypersensitivity – the reporting of common non-specific symptoms, such as headache, fatigue, dizziness, and confusion, while being exposed to EMF? Well, the same review also summarizes this research, which finds that under blinded conditions there is no such hypersensitivity syndrome. Even with people who consistently report symptoms with exposure to EMF, in blinded conditions they cannot reliably tell if they are being exposed to EMF.

This hasn't stopped the claims from flying, and dozens of cases of parents petitioning school boards to have WiFi networks removed from schools to "protect the children" -- in some cases, successfully.  Novella concludes,

What we have here are the seeds of yet another grassroots movement that is disconnected from science and hostile to authority. This is a scenario we have seen played out many times before, and no doubt we will see it many times again.

And, of course, wherever you have panic over risk, you'll have some shrewd marketer who decides to capitalize upon the fear.

Take, for example, EarthCalm, which purports to shield you from the dangers of the nasty WiFi waves.  Here's their sales pitch:

Concerned about WiFi radiation dangers?  You have reason to be.

WiFi uses hazardous radiation to send its signals through walls.  If you have WiFi, you are receiving massive amounts of radiation that may be causing you and your family health problems.

WiFi Health Risks:

• headaches
• fatigue
• sleep disorders
• digestive problems
• brain fog and memory loss
• depression and anxiety
• dizziness

Research on WiFi Radiation Dangers:
There's a great deal of research that's been done on the non-thermal kind of radiation that WiFi emits.

One comprehensive report is the Bioinitiative Report.  Written by 29 scientists, researchers, and health policy professionals from 10 different countries, this report documents clear evidence that numerous health issues, including DNA breakage and risk of cancer, are created by exposure to radiation from cell phones, cell towers, power lines, and WiFi.

They must define "massive amounts" differently than I do, given that the Princeton study (cited above) found that the levels of low-frequency radiation given off by WiFi networks was so small as to be nearly indistinguishable from the background noise.

However, don't let little things like "facts" stand in the way of your sales pitch.  Because the EarthCalm people aren't just saying to give in; no, they're saying that they want you to purchase a "shield" -- the "EarthCalm WiFi Pak" -- that "eliminates WiFi health risks by transforming the hazardous cloud of radiation into a calming field of protection throughout your home."

For only $457.

And I'm sure they're selling like hotcakes, given the current scare tactics being used by the anti-WiFi cadre.  Same, actually, as the scare tactics used by the chemtrails people, the anti-GMO folks, and the anti-vaxxers.

Wouldn't surprise me if there was a significant overlap between those four groups, actually, because the conclusions they've reached come from the same source -- fear, distrust, and a poor understanding of the science.

Now, don't misunderstand me; I know there have been times that people have thought something was safe, sometimes for decades, and then it turns out not to be.  It's just that I don't think this is one of those cases.  The science, here, is well understood; the whole thing has been tested to a fare-thee-well; and the claims of the people who disagree virtually entirely rest on anecdote and poorly-controlled "studies" that wouldn't pass peer review even if there were hefty bribes involved.

So, in my mind, it's case closed.  But I'm sure that doesn't mean the controversy will go away, nor the clever salespeople trying to capitalize on it.  Because one thing hasn't changed since P. T. Barnum's time; there's still a sucker born every minute.

Shielding yourself from nonsense

A regular reader and frequent contributor to Skeptophilia commented recently, "Having done this blog for as long as you have...  I am surprised you have not yet thrown up your hands and said: 'Fine. Everything's true!  Aliens, Vampires, Yeti, Roswell, Nibiru, Atlantis...  Whatever!  All of it!  Blargh!'  ...and gone to live in a cave of solitude.  I do appreciate your resolve, good sir."

Notwithstanding that his comment gave me a good laugh, I have to admit that sometimes it's tempting.  As has been shown over and over again, people will believe what they want to believe.  But I have to believe myself that if exposed to rationalism, if taught a little science, most people will (as it were) see the light.

Because, after all, that's what scientific thinking does, isn't it?  It casts light on a previously shadowed bit of reality, and allows you to see it clearly for what it is.  Science takes fuzzy thinking and makes it sharp, hard-edged, accurate.

By way of example, let's look at this bit of woo-woo I ran across just yesterday: an advertisement for a "Total Shield EMF Protection Device."  Here's the sales pitch:

This popular multipurpose unit neutralizes electromagnetic fields and geopathic stress in your home or office. For EMF protection, the Total Shield produces a 7.83 Hz field (the Earth’s natural field, also called the Schumann Resonance), which blankets a 20,000-square-foot area (or more, depending on the model) and overcomes negative EMF fields. It protects you from all electrical and electronic devices, including computers, TVs, microwaves, even power lines outside your house. For geopathic stress, the unit detects and then amplifies the waves, reversing them by 180 degrees and retransmitting them. This counteracts the harmful waves, similar to how noise cancellation technology uses a low hum to cancel sounds. You can use the Total Shield in one of three ways: EMF protection only, geopathic stress only or a combination of both. Colored lights blink at the Schumann resonance and can be used for stress relief or to help with biofeedback. Operates on AC adapter (included). The units are available in four coil strengths, with each additional coil adding 50% more intensity. Stronger units are appropriate for people who are very sensitive to EMFs; who have a large number of electronic devices in their home or office; or who live very close to power lines or stations.

Sounds pretty cool, no?  No more nasty negative EMF fields (whatever those are); counteracting "geopathic stress" (whatever that is); and aligning your house to the "Schumann Resonance" (whatever that is).  Not to mention colored lights blinking, and noise cancellation, and all sorts of other special offers.

Well, looked at through the lens of science, the whole thing kind of falls apart, as you probably predicted it would.

First, the sales pitch is correct that electronic devices produce EMF (electromagnetic fields).  That is, after all, how they work.  However, a great many peer-reviewed and controlled experiments have failed to establish any connection between exposure to EMF and human disease.  The funniest part of this claim is that if the device really did what it claims to -- neutralizing EMF in all forms, over a 20,000 square foot area -- this would block all radiation that is carried by fluctuations in the electromagnetic field, presumably including light.  This would mean that once you turned on the machine, you would immediately vanish from sight, which would be kind of cool.  (You also wouldn't be able to see out of it, which would be less cool but still pretty striking.)

Well, what about "geopathic stress?"  Sounds bad, no?  Well, I did a little bit of digging, and found the site GeopathicStress.com, wherein we find out that "geopathic stress" occurs when a place is sick because of a "bad emotional imprint:"

When a building appears to be causing ill health or 'non wellness' in people, most common conclusion is that the building may be subject to geopathic stress. However there are in fact at least three distinct areas to be addressed in house clearing work and for satisfactory results we must attend to them all.

One of the problem areas we investigate when dealing with 'sickness of place' is indeed the debilitating effects related to geological anomalies and underground water courses in or about buildings. The other two categories however, relate to strong emotional imprints in a place, and what can loosely be called 'spirit' presence. When working in houses we search for all three of these factors and build up an overall picture by taking them together.

Difficulties in dwellings are seldom straightforward. They tend more often to derive from various combinations of influence rather than neatly fitting into one category or another. Moreover, there is usually a natural sequence by which we should proceed. For instance, it is strongly recommended in situations where 'spirit presence' is encountered, that this aspect be attended to first, before moving on to apply any corrective measures indicated for geopathic stress anomalies found.

We are then told that the appropriate response, once you find out that your house is exhibiting "geopathic stress," is to consult a shaman.  No, I'm not making this up.

So, okay, I think we can move on to #3, the "Schumann Resonance."  What, you might ask, is this?  A thirty-second consultation of the Wikipedia article about the Schumann Resonance allowed me to learn the following:

The Schumann resonances (SR) are a set of spectrum peaks in the extremely low frequency (ELF) portion of the Earth's electromagnetic field spectrum. Schumann resonances are global electromagnetic resonances, excited by lightning discharges in the cavity formed by the Earth's surface and the ionosphere.

So, if you're not an atmospheric scientist, the Schumann resonance would only be interesting to you as a curiosity.  It's not "the Earth's natural field," and a light blinking at that rate might be pretty, but otherwise won't accomplish much.

So, the "Total Shield EMF Protection Device" seems like a bit of a bust, scientifically.  And how much do they want for it?

$325.  $500, if you want the more powerful four-coil model.

See?  Skepticism is good for you.  Especially for your pocketbook.

So, dear readers, no worries that I'll be giving up any time soon.  Frankly, it's kind of fun poking holes in woo-woo ideas.  And if I've saved even one person from wasting his or her money on something like the "Total Shield," the whole thing has been worth it.

Cellphones and brain explosions

A while back there was a rumor circulating that using cellphones could give you brain cancer.  A study published in 2010, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, indicates that there is no correlation between cellphone use and cancer, which caused sighs of relief from the thousands of people who like to discuss details of their sex lives and intimate health issues in public places.

Now, however, thanks to a scary email I received yesterday, I find that cellphone users have worse things to worry about than brain cancer; using your cellphone can simply make your head explode.

Don't believe me?  I'll show you.  I excerpt part of the email below:

Do not pick up calls under the following given numbers:  9888308001, 9316048121 91+, 9876266211, 9888854137, 9876715587.  These numbers will come up red in color, if the call comes from these numbers.  It's with very high wavelength, and very high frequency.  If a call is received from mobile on these numbers, it creates a very high frequency and will cause you to have a brain hemorrhage.

It's not a joke, it's TRUE.  27 people have died receiving calls from these numbers.  This has appeared on news programs and has been verified as true, it's not a hoax.  Please forward this on to all the people you care about!

Well, first off, it's a little ironic that I was the recipient of this email.  My wife recently perused the cellphone use by the members of our family, and found that in the months of May and June I accrued a grand total of seven minutes of cellphone use time.  I suspect that this was actually unusually high, because during May I was away teaching classes at a music workshop weekend in Pennsylvania, and had much higher need for my cellphone than normal.  I use my cellphone so infrequently that when I do need it, I often (1) can't find it, and then when I do find it, (2) the battery is dead, so I have to (3) locate my cellphone charger, and (4) wait several hours for the battery to charge, by which time (5) whatever need I had for a cellphone is long since past.

I think my problem is that besides being a Luddite, I just hate telephones in general.  I actually enjoy being in a place where I can't be reached by telephone.  I'm sort of like Pavlov's dog -- but instead of salivating, when the telephone rings, I swear.  The idea of taking a telephone with me, so I can be reached anywhere, has about as much appeal as taking along my dentist on vacation so that he can interrupt my lying around on the beach by doing a little impromptu root canal. 

But I digress.

For those of you who actually can find your cellphones, and do use them occasionally, should you worry about picking up your cellphone, for fear of your brain exploding?  The answer, fortunately, is no, and we don't need to have a study funded by the National Brain Explosion Institute to prove it.  Without even trying hard, I can find three problems with the contents of the email:

First, there's no way that a cellphone could transmit sound waves at a high enough volume to cause any damage.  Cellphone speakers are simply not capable of producing large-amplitude (high decibel level) sounds -- cellphone use isn't even damaging to your ears, much less your brain.  You're at more risk of ear damage from turning your iPod up too high than you are from your cellphone.

Second, how do they know all of this, if all the people it happened to died?  Did the victims pick up their cellphones, say "Hi," and then turn to their spouses and say, "OMIGOD I JUST RECEIVED A CALL FROM 9888308001 AND THE NUMBER CAME UP RED AND NOW I'M HAVING A BRAIN ANEURYSM ACCCCCKKKKK"?

Third, the email itself indicates that the originator has the intelligence of cream of wheat, because anyone who's taken high school physics knows that it's impossible for a wave to have high frequency and high wavelength at the same time, as wavelength and frequency are inversely proportional, sort of like IQ and the likelihood of watching Jersey Shore.

So, anyway, feel free to continue using your cellphones without any qualms, and I'll continue to not use mine.  Maybe one day I'll eventually arrive in the 21st century, and stop being such a grumpy curmudgeon about telephones, and consent to carry one around so I can have constant, 24/7 availability to receive calls from telemarketers.

But don't expect it to happen any time soon.