10 ms·

As a side note: My biggest disappointment regarding the 5G discussion with respect to potential health implications is the widespread lack of acknowledgement ab

As a side note: My biggest disappointment regarding the 5G discussion with respect to potential health implications is the widespread lack of acknowledgement about the fact that we have not yet conducted any meaningful scientific experiments (let alone ones whose methodology is robust) to even hold a meaningful debate. It's derailed into a political debate between those who "know for a fact" there are zero health implications and those who "know for a fact" that you'll certainly die within a week from a 5g antenna being placed next to your apartment.

vardump 6y ago
If the energy isn't enough to ionize, then what is there to study? (Extreme) heating effects can cause cancer, but the source of heat is irrelevant. The power levels 5G uses make even this point completely moot. If you really have to search for something that could cause you cancer, perhaps those rather carcinogenic compounds your phone is made out of could be studied instead? Although I prefer just not to pulverize my phone and breath in the resulting dust. :-)
- willis936 6y ago
  There has been a fabled danger of low levels of non-ionizing radiation without an explained mechanism for decades. There is no data to support it, but there will never be enough “studies” to disprove it.
  - cogman10 6y ago
    What gets me is that these people still walk out in the sun. We are talking about orders of magnitude weaker radiation than what you get dosed with every time you go outside. But further, sunlight does contain ionizing radiation (hello UV).
    - willis936 6y ago
      I can’t believe people are still flying on commercial airliners; over the poles no less!
      - fsh 6y ago
        Flight attendants indeed have a significantly increased cancer risk which is most likely due to radiation exposure: https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-018-0396-8 https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-...
        willis936 6y ago
        Yes, commercial airliners do pose a real health risk. There’s an understood mechanism and impact. I know I was joking about it, but only to highlight how crazy it is to push personal electronics use down for radiation health concerns, while airplanes continue to operate with no changes.
- tzs 6y ago
  > If the energy isn't enough to ionize, then what is there to study? DNA is conductive, and there are researchers who believe that this might be an important component in how the cell detects and repairs damage to its DNA [1]. There have been a couple of papers that claim that DNA can act as a fractal antenna allowing it to react to wavelengths that you would at first expect to be way too large to affect it. Here's one [2], which claims it interacts over a wide range of frequencies with a resonance at 34 GHz. If DNA charge transport does turn out to play an important role in how the cell identifies damaged DNA, and if it turns out that those fractal antenna claims are true, then we'd have a potential mechanism for non-ionizing, non-heating radiation to increase cancer rates. Note that it would not cause cancer, but it might prevent a cell from finding and repairing damage that if left unrepaired will lead to cancer. The first part of the above, that DNA is conductive, is firmly established. How the cell detects damaged DNA is not known. That charge transport plays a role in that is currently just one theory that researchers are studying, but it is a theory that if it turns out to be true will not surprise anyone. I haven't been able to find much on fractal antennas, especially very small ones, so can't tell if the claims about DNA acting as an antenna have merit. [1] http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jkbgrp/Research.htm http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jkbgrp/Research.htm [2] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-5699-4_21 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-5699-4_...
  - vardump 6y ago
    Interesting. Fractal antennas are pure black magic, so I don't dare to speculate either way.
Jonnax 6y ago
What experiments when the majority of 5G deployments will be using the same bands as 4G? What are the specific health concerns from what 5G is doing differently to 4G? Because I remember a couple of petitions from scientists none of whom in the radio field with no specific scientific information or concerns.
sschueller 6y ago
My disappointment is the lack of discussion regarding privacy. It was posted on HN just a few weeks ago how a human can be identified by its gate with high density deployment of antennas.
- willis936 6y ago
  It’s also simply wasteful. 5G’s benefits over 4G are: - 4G’s benefits over 5G are: - Fewer towers necessary because larger coverage areas - Better penetration of materials - Doesn’t interfere with weather data collection Why is there even a push for 5G? What is the benefit to the consumer? A higher bill because a 10x increase in infrastructure is necessary? Asinine. Just use wifi. I don’t understand what 5G was even made to technically accomplish.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    > 5G’s benefits over 4G are: It enables huge numbers of connections, making it more feasible for IoT appliances to use cell radios instead of wifi radios, taking yet more control away from consumers. Oh wait, 'benefits'... well I suppose that's a matter of perspective..
  - jiggawatts 6y ago
    Your ignorance of its benefits doesn't mean it has none. You can literally google "5g benefits" and read through any number of whitepapers. For one, it has much lower latency, making it competitive with fibre in many areas. It's more efficient, allowing more devices in the same area. The 60GHz band in particular will allow extreme densities as seen in sports stadiums or major train stations in rush hour. It has higher peak bandwidth. It includes special modes optimised for very lower power devices with modest bandwidth requirements. Etc...
    - willis936 6y ago
      Yeah, it works as a competitor to Wi-Fi in the ultra dense scenarios. How on Earth is it justified to deploy it to an entire city, let alone a Metropolitan area, county, state, or country? It has specific, limited use cases, and even then Wi-Fi’s solutions are arguably much better. Where is the benefit to the consumer?
hnhg 6y ago
I've tended to side with the "5G must be safe" crew but to see the other side I checked pubmed and found a fair few reputable-looking studies such as this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31991167 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31991167 So, yeah, how much do we know for a fact? I say that as a true sceptic (i.e. sceptical with my own views as well as anyone else's). Decades ago we knew for a fact that dumping a ton of plastic into the environment was totally fine. Also we "didn't know for a fact" that greenhouse gas emissions could play a part in affecting our climate for the worse.
- cogman10 6y ago
  > So, yeah, how much do we know for a fact? Because it is transmitted at the same frequency as previous cell phone technologies. There are literally decades worth of studies around the effects of nonionizing radiation. The only thing 5G changes is the transmission protocol. It's fine to be a skeptic, but this is fear mongering. We don't need a 20 year long study to prove something we've known to be safe for 20 years because some crackpots claim it makes them nauseous or causes cancer. If you are going to be skeptical, why aren't you skeptical of the unverified negative claims? Where's my proof? Google "non-ionizing radiation health". Would find a bunch of articles from reputable sources that all land on the same conclusion. It's safe. Here's the CDC article on it. https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/nonionizing_radiation.html https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/nonionizing_radiation.htm...
  - hnhg 6y ago
    I haven't dived deep into this topic, and this isn't a challenge to what you're saying, but what are your thoughts on the points here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S037842742030028X?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03784... TBH, unless you work directly in an area like this and stay up to date, it's a question of faith in experts either way. It basically becomes an appeal to authority, and as you can see, if you have multiple putative authorities, it becomes difficult to select.
    - cogman10 6y ago
fsh 6y ago
Possible health effects of non-ionizing radiation have been studied in all kinds of frequency bands for many decades. So far, no significant effects that go beyond heating have been found, and there is no known mechanism that could cause such effects.
- hnhg 6y ago
  To argue devil's advocate, the scientific literature commenting on this says that existing studies are in too short a timeframe to draw long-term conclusions. I haven't dived into this other than a search on PubMed so it's a question of faith either way.
jacquesm 6y ago
Flagging this comment for being of the 'both sides' variety without having a basic understanding of the underlying material.

vardump 6y ago

If the energy isn't enough to ionize, then what is there to study? (Extreme) heating effects can cause cancer, but the source of heat is irrelevant. The power levels 5G uses make even this point completely moot. If you really have to search for something that could cause you cancer, perhaps those rather carcinogenic compounds your phone is made out of could be studied instead? Although I prefer just not to pulverize my phone and breath in the resulting dust. :-)

willis936 6y ago
There has been a fabled danger of low levels of non-ionizing radiation without an explained mechanism for decades. There is no data to support it, but there will never be enough “studies” to disprove it.
- cogman10 6y ago
  What gets me is that these people still walk out in the sun. We are talking about orders of magnitude weaker radiation than what you get dosed with every time you go outside. But further, sunlight does contain ionizing radiation (hello UV).
  - willis936 6y ago
    I can’t believe people are still flying on commercial airliners; over the poles no less!
    - fsh 6y ago
      Flight attendants indeed have a significantly increased cancer risk which is most likely due to radiation exposure: https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-018-0396-8 https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-...
      - willis936 6y ago
        Yes, commercial airliners do pose a real health risk. There’s an understood mechanism and impact. I know I was joking about it, but only to highlight how crazy it is to push personal electronics use down for radiation health concerns, while airplanes continue to operate with no changes.
tzs 6y ago
> If the energy isn't enough to ionize, then what is there to study? DNA is conductive, and there are researchers who believe that this might be an important component in how the cell detects and repairs damage to its DNA [1]. There have been a couple of papers that claim that DNA can act as a fractal antenna allowing it to react to wavelengths that you would at first expect to be way too large to affect it. Here's one [2], which claims it interacts over a wide range of frequencies with a resonance at 34 GHz. If DNA charge transport does turn out to play an important role in how the cell identifies damaged DNA, and if it turns out that those fractal antenna claims are true, then we'd have a potential mechanism for non-ionizing, non-heating radiation to increase cancer rates. Note that it would not cause cancer, but it might prevent a cell from finding and repairing damage that if left unrepaired will lead to cancer. The first part of the above, that DNA is conductive, is firmly established. How the cell detects damaged DNA is not known. That charge transport plays a role in that is currently just one theory that researchers are studying, but it is a theory that if it turns out to be true will not surprise anyone. I haven't been able to find much on fractal antennas, especially very small ones, so can't tell if the claims about DNA acting as an antenna have merit. [1] http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jkbgrp/Research.htm http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jkbgrp/Research.htm [2] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-5699-4_21 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-5699-4_...
- vardump 6y ago
  Interesting. Fractal antennas are pure black magic, so I don't dare to speculate either way.

Jonnax 6y ago

What experiments when the majority of 5G deployments will be using the same bands as 4G? What are the specific health concerns from what 5G is doing differently to 4G? Because I remember a couple of petitions from scientists none of whom in the radio field with no specific scientific information or concerns.

sschueller 6y ago

My disappointment is the lack of discussion regarding privacy. It was posted on HN just a few weeks ago how a human can be identified by its gate with high density deployment of antennas.

willis936 6y ago
It’s also simply wasteful. 5G’s benefits over 4G are: - 4G’s benefits over 5G are: - Fewer towers necessary because larger coverage areas - Better penetration of materials - Doesn’t interfere with weather data collection Why is there even a push for 5G? What is the benefit to the consumer? A higher bill because a 10x increase in infrastructure is necessary? Asinine. Just use wifi. I don’t understand what 5G was even made to technically accomplish.
- catalogia 6y ago
  > 5G’s benefits over 4G are: It enables huge numbers of connections, making it more feasible for IoT appliances to use cell radios instead of wifi radios, taking yet more control away from consumers. Oh wait, 'benefits'... well I suppose that's a matter of perspective..
- jiggawatts 6y ago
  Your ignorance of its benefits doesn't mean it has none. You can literally google "5g benefits" and read through any number of whitepapers. For one, it has much lower latency, making it competitive with fibre in many areas. It's more efficient, allowing more devices in the same area. The 60GHz band in particular will allow extreme densities as seen in sports stadiums or major train stations in rush hour. It has higher peak bandwidth. It includes special modes optimised for very lower power devices with modest bandwidth requirements. Etc...
  - willis936 6y ago
    Yeah, it works as a competitor to Wi-Fi in the ultra dense scenarios. How on Earth is it justified to deploy it to an entire city, let alone a Metropolitan area, county, state, or country? It has specific, limited use cases, and even then Wi-Fi’s solutions are arguably much better. Where is the benefit to the consumer?

hnhg 6y ago

I've tended to side with the "5G must be safe" crew but to see the other side I checked pubmed and found a fair few reputable-looking studies such as this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31991167 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31991167 So, yeah, how much do we know for a fact? I say that as a true sceptic (i.e. sceptical with my own views as well as anyone else's). Decades ago we knew for a fact that dumping a ton of plastic into the environment was totally fine. Also we "didn't know for a fact" that greenhouse gas emissions could play a part in affecting our climate for the worse.

cogman10 6y ago
> So, yeah, how much do we know for a fact? Because it is transmitted at the same frequency as previous cell phone technologies. There are literally decades worth of studies around the effects of nonionizing radiation. The only thing 5G changes is the transmission protocol. It's fine to be a skeptic, but this is fear mongering. We don't need a 20 year long study to prove something we've known to be safe for 20 years because some crackpots claim it makes them nauseous or causes cancer. If you are going to be skeptical, why aren't you skeptical of the unverified negative claims? Where's my proof? Google "non-ionizing radiation health". Would find a bunch of articles from reputable sources that all land on the same conclusion. It's safe. Here's the CDC article on it. https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/nonionizing_radiation.html https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/nonionizing_radiation.htm...
- hnhg 6y ago
  I haven't dived deep into this topic, and this isn't a challenge to what you're saying, but what are your thoughts on the points here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S037842742030028X?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03784... TBH, unless you work directly in an area like this and stay up to date, it's a question of faith in experts either way. It basically becomes an appeal to authority, and as you can see, if you have multiple putative authorities, it becomes difficult to select.
  - cogman10 6y ago

fsh 6y ago

Possible health effects of non-ionizing radiation have been studied in all kinds of frequency bands for many decades. So far, no significant effects that go beyond heating have been found, and there is no known mechanism that could cause such effects.

hnhg 6y ago
To argue devil's advocate, the scientific literature commenting on this says that existing studies are in too short a timeframe to draw long-term conclusions. I haven't dived into this other than a search on PubMed so it's a question of faith either way.

jacquesm 6y ago

Flagging this comment for being of the 'both sides' variety without having a basic understanding of the underlying material.