Published in Electromagnetic Biology & Medicine, Aug 2013 – Cammaerts & Johansson
Abstract:
Society is confronted with an increasing number of applications making use of wireless communication. We also notice an increasing awareness about potentially harmful effectsof the related electromagnetic fields on living organisms. At present, it is not realistic to expect that wireless communication will decrease or disappear within the near future. That is why
we currently are investigating the mechanisms behind these effects and the effectiveness of possible solutions. In order to be efficient and effective, we designed and validated a fast and
easy test on ants – these insects being used as a biological model – for revealing the effect of wireless equipments like mobile phones, smartphones, digital enhanced cordless telephone
(DECT) phones, WiFi routers and so on. This test includes quantification of ants’ locomotion under natural conditions, then in the vicinity of such wireless equipments. Observations,
numerical results and statistical results allow detecting any effect of a radiating source on these living organisms.
(1) The fact that electromagnetic waves generate an impact on living organisms has already been largely documented (several references are cited in the ‘‘Introduction’’ section, in the first alinea). A large amount of websites actually deal with this problem, 13 are given in the references section. These results confirm that wireless technology harmfully impacts living organisms and shows that ants react very quickly to the existence of electromagnetic waves in their environment. A large number of ants can easily be maintained during years in laboratories. This makes these insects appropriate ‘‘biological models’’ for performing studies about the existence and the impact of electromagnetic fields, as well as for assessing the effectiveness of protective systems. Our ants appear to be excellent bio-indicators for immediately revealing the effects of electromagnetic fields.
(2) It appeared that ants’ linear and angular speeds ofmovement are immediately altered by the presence of electromagnetic waves. Assessment of these two ants’ locomotion characteristics constitutes a quick, easy and efficient means for revealing the existence of electromagnetic fields and for evaluating their effect on living organisms. Such an immediate assessment is made possible thanks to the use of updated software, which is available for everyone on the website of the journal ‘‘Belgian Journal of Zoology’’ (Cammaerts et al., 2012b).
(3) All radiating sources tested in this study on the ants demonstrated clear and statistically significant effects. It was already known that a mobile phone in standby mode affects living organisms (e.g. see Cammaerts et al.,2011; Favre, 2011; Panagopoulos et al., 2004; Sharma and Kumar, 2010). In this study, we showed that a common mobile phone has an effect while in standby mode and even in off-condition. Of course, when activated, the effect of a mobile phone is stronger. Without its battery, such a phone has no longer an effect. Our ants demonstrated that a modern smartphone and even more so a DECT phone do affect living organisms. Furthermore, the electromagnetic waves generated by a WiFi router impact our ants and such an effect increases during the course of the exposure time. Persons working in rooms provided with wireless equipment should note this result. A modern personal computer also generates electromagnetic waves. This is due to the PC WiFi function, which is automatically activated. Based on these results, we advice users to deactivate the WiFi function of their PC as long as they do not use it. This can also be deduced from the study related in http://bigbrouser.blog.lemonde.fr/2011/12/01/micro-onde-le-wi-fi-tueur-de-spermatozoı̈des/.
(4) The electromagnetic technology invades every human work task, equipment, hobby and also for very young persons. Efficient protections should be inserted inside the different wireless equipments present at home, at work, in public establishments and so on (e.g. WiFi, DECT phone, GPS, keys, baby phones, etc.). Another step could be to decrease the number and the power
density of communication antennae and to invent ‘‘built in’’ protection for them. Such measures would be beneficial for all living organisms, including trees, plants, fruits, vegetables, insects (such as bees and bumblebees), birds, bats, and other types of animals, which are necessary for human survival.
(5) Finally, one very elegant feature of using ants as experimental animals is – as for other animal species, plants and bacteria – that they do not lend themselves to psychological explanatory models, such as mass media-driven psychoses (Witthöft and Rubin, 2013). If they react to artificial electromagnetic fields, it is not because they have listened to radio broadcasts, watched the TV news or read columns in tabloids. No, then they do react to the actual adverse environmental exposure.
Full document: http://www.geobiologia.cl/files/Hormigas_y_Microondas_2013.pdf
Ants can be used as bio-indicators to reveal biological effects of electromagnetic waves from some wireless apparatus