9th Grade Science Experiment: Garden Cress Won't Germinate Near Routers 327
New submitter SessionExpired writes "Five 9th graders from Denmark have shown that garden cress won't germinate when placed near a router (Google Translation of Danish original). Article text is in Danish, but the pictures illustrate their results. The exact mechanism is still unknown (Danish original), but experts have shown interest in reproducing the experiment."
near a WIRELESS router (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks, Editor-dot, for not reviewing TFS. This was an experiment to test EM radition, its nothing to do with 'routers'. Believe it or not, there are things which are 'routers' that are not supplied by your ISP when you sign up for home broadband.
Re:Freshmen in high school, come on. (Score:2, Informative)
If I were them, I would find a way to measure the internal temperature of the cress.
At least read TFS.
..garden cress won't germinate when placed near a router
So, you see, there is actually no cress for them to measure. It never germinated.
Re:Bit misleading (Score:4, Informative)
The point is that they are using confusing and inconsistent terminology to report on the parameters of a scientific study. Using imprecise language muddies the results and makes them hard to reproduce, or even to draw a conclusion of your own.
A comment from a native dane (Score:5, Informative)
They're using 2.4GHz wifi routers. 3G and LTE was not chosen because of data cost.
The rooms are all locked, so only the teacher and the 5 pupils have access.
They've done the tests twice with the same results.
They've controlled temperature, water amount, sun radiation from windows and more factors, to control bias.
The danish newspaper Ingeniøren (The Engineer) has the teacher Kim Horsevad explain in detail in the comments on their article on the subject: http://ing.dk/artikel/folkeskoleelever-vaekker-forsker-opsigt-mobilstraaling-forhindrer-karse-i-spire-158867#comment-529110
His comment is REALLY long, so some other dane will have to translate if Google Translate doesn't cut it ;)
Re:No reproduction (Score:2, Informative)
For anyone who actually wants to reproduce the experiment, a teacher from Hjallerup posted a detailed description of the experiment setup [ing.dk] in the comments of the second FA. It's in Danish, but Google Translate should be able to make some sense of it.
At the very least, it seems to have been done a lot more thoroughly that I had first suspected. I'm still sceptical that the results will be consistently replicated, but the experiment as described is of high enough standard to warrant an attempt.
Re:No reproduction (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, cellphones are higher powered - I believe they top out at between 0.5-1W max transmit power. Your wireless router is typically anywhere from under 50mW to 100mW, though it's possible to get "long range" ones that do 250mW.
Of course, a cellphone dynamically adjusts its power - in urban areas, it typically is close enough to a cell tower that it can crank the transmit power way down. This, of course, is to save battery (RF level amplifiers aren't efficient at all - they waste a lot of power). If you live in a poorly covered area, you'll note your battery life is a lot lower as a result of having to crank up the power to maintain the link.
CDMA phones are interesting - the amount of power they use is proportional to usage as the more phones using it, the lower the SNR. You've hit the limit when everyone's transmitting at max power and the SNR is too low for successful correlation.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Need a control. (Score:4, Informative)
No, heat is NOT EVEN CLOSE to being a viable cause. Room is controlled and regulated. Cress has quite a nice wide range of germination temperatures.