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Manfred comments on Open Thread, Feb. 2 - Feb 8, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Should we be concerned about the exposure to RF radiation? I always assumed that no, since it doesn't affect humans beyond heating, but then I found this:
http://www.emfhealthy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012SummaryforthePublic.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412014001354
The only mechanism they suggest for non-thermal effects is:
One of the articles they cite is behind a paywall (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15931683), and the other (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21799142) doesn't actually seem to control for thermal effects (it has a non-exposed control, but doesn't have a control exposed to the same amount of energy in visible or infrared band). The fact that heat interferes with male fertility is no surprise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat-based_contraception), but it's not clear to me whether there's any difference between being exposed to RF and turning on the heater (maybe there is, if the organism deals with internal and external heat differently, or maybe this effect is negligible).
Nonetheless, if there is a significant non-thermal effect, that alone warrants a lot of research.
You shouldn't be worried. Because of the low low energy of radio waves, all chemical transitions they could cause in your body are already happening due to random thermal motion.
If the amplitude is high enough, though, radio waves can still move ions around. So it's possible that standing next to an AM antenna would have some psychoactive effects, similar to transcranial magnetic or DC stimulation (though the existence of a similar effect for RF, that shows up before the heat input becomes dangerous, is far from certain). But these would be be chemical changes and have nothing to do with cancer.
Also, you're totally right about radio waves warming things up.