Birds colliding into poles and buildings, beehives going through colony collapse disorder and plants with irregular metabolisms, these problems and more are thought by some to be caused by an increase in human caused EMF radiation.
EMF is short for Electromagnetic Field; electromagnetism is a type of interaction that occurs between electrically charged particles. Everything in the universe is made up of a diverse group of subatomic particles (particles smaller than the atom). One of these particles is the electron, the electron is electrically charged and exists within almost all atoms. When voltage is applied to a conducting material such as copper the electrons within will gain energy and begin to move in a sort of stream know as electricity. Electricity is extremely efficient in the transfer of energy and information and due to these properties, it is used in almost all aspects of modern life and technology.
Electrons like to have as little energy as possible, so to get rid of extra energy electrons will eject EMF radiation. EMF radiation is made up of subatomic particles called photons, photons can be thought of as packets of energy that travel through space delivering emitted energy from exited particles to particles they collide with. Photons while being a particle can also be thought of as a wave in which frequency corresponds to energy. These different frequencies make up a spectrum in which lower energy photons have lower frequencies and higher energy photons have higher frequency. Many different phenomena are actually effects of photons at different points on the energy spectrum, i.e.: Microwaves, X-rays, Light, Radio, ect.
The electromagnetic spectrum: Showing correspondence between frequency, ionization potential and different EMF radiation classifications. Picture retrieved from: https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/emf/index.cfm
There are generally two types of EMF radiation ionizing and non-ionizing. Ionizing radiation has enough energy to change the chemical properties of the object affected while non-ionizing is characterized by its lower impact on the objects affected. All electronics used by people today have EMF radiation of the non-ionizing variety because of current safety regulation.
Recent study’s by EKLIPSE have shown that the magnetic orientation of animals and plant metabolism are altered by non-ionizing EMF radiation. The alteration of magnetic orientation within bees can cause them to lose their way and some hypothesis may even be the reason for colony collapse disorder. Magnetic disorientation in birds can cause birds to migrate to the wrong geographically locations and even may affect their ability to balance during fight causing them to crash into things.
A graph of the amount of average EMF radiation measured within UK houses (estimation before 1949) normalised so that the amount of exposure in 1989 is 1. Picture retrieved from: http://www.emfs.info/sources/levels/time/
Since the discovery of electricity, the exposure to EMF radiation in house holds has gone up over ten-fold. This number is only projected to increase and so at this point research into the effects of EMF radtion on the envornment are needed. There may come a day when EMF polution regulations are passed into law.
By Noah Rudlowski
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