Gaming may get embroiled in new scare

[wraggster]

Via joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2006/12/12/gaming-may-get-embroiled-in-new-scare/)

The public loves its scares. Since the advent of gaming, our beloved hobby has been under attack. The scares normally revolve around violence and how gaming is the root cause. The newest scare that might get tagged to gaming: WiFi.

Currently, the scientific world is fighting over the health effects of WiFi. Some claim that WiFi destroys organ tissue -- didn't they try this with cell phones -- and another camp that says the first group is full of bunk. Since each major console, handheld and not-so-handheld, has some WiFi component, it is just a matter of time before gaming gets blamed.

Gamers, gear up for another possible scare: games cause cancer. It is not a matter of if, but when some "intelligent" person figures out that a large chunk of those evil WiFi waves are being pumped out by various DS, PSP, or Xbox 360 units. That's fine by us, we're already fully aware the public-at-large latches onto the worst possible (and frequently wrong) aspect of anything different, we're used to being under fire.

[Veskgar]

That is scary!!! Now I am forced to wonder about my reproductive health after months/years of using my WiFi laptop on my... well.. lap! LOL

Gosh, come to think of it, I have so much WiFi beaming throughout my room/house that I sincerely hope that there are no health risks.

Anyway, I'm so sick of petty meaningless scares. Fear controls the masses. I'm glad I'm not one of the gullible ones.

[Stew2000]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Funny :D

[ikarimaru]

As an Electrical Engineer, and someone who has spent significant time around/studying electromagnetic waves, this is completely ridiculous/bunk/whatever term you would like to attach to this preposterous theory. The amount of radiation it would take to cause cancer/destroy tissue/blah blah would be FAR more than the amount put out by anything capable of sending and receiving Wifi signals. Even if you stand right next to POWER LINES, you won't see the radiation necessary for this.

Anybody that feels that I'm wrong, well, the fact of the matter is that you know nothing about physics and are the reason that stupid theories like this get started. I'd be happy to show you the calculus involved if you'd care to dispute this.

[The_Ultimate_Eggman]

Man what next ? wanking makes me blind :). wifi makes me rot, and wii gives me rsi......

[GazeboflossUK]

Well, I actually believe mobile/cell phones can probably cause damage to us.

Thing is, there are always many experiments from both independant and phone company backed groups.
Phone company bosses would probably kill, lie, cheat and create false information to prevent ANY chance of an independant test gaining credibility.

Think about it? It would cost them all Billions if any mainstream news station actually cared about public interest.

Anyway, I'm not sure about the waves used in WiFi but I know mobile phones' are close to microwaves.
And there hasn't even been enough time to actually prove things either way....but I'm just not taking the chance with my best swimmers. So my phone is always away from my pockets.

[NeoXCS]

This is crazy. I would think by now you would have tons of "special" kids and people getting sick with the amount of WiFi used these days. I myself have my laptop and PSP to go wireless with. There are hotspots everywhere you go. This is just another scare as the article states. :p

[GazeboflossUK]

No, thing is, it would take a longer period of time to assess the amount of 'risk' involved....

[Flatlander]

Cellphones cause cancer, black mold causes cancer, certain ingredients in lotion cause cancer, microwaves cause cancer, everything causes cancer. Maybe we shouldn't even open our mouths and speak because maybe some cancer causing infectuous materials are floating through the air and we'll get cancer. Turn out all your lights, turn off all your electronics, and lock yourself in a air-tight box and throw yourself in a pit somewhere and you'll be away from all this cancer causing biohazardous bullshit. But wait.. maybe your BOX will cause cancer! Shit.. the theory is botched.. any ideas?!?!

I'm sure you all understand what im getting at here..

[C0R3F1GHT3R]

I'D RATHER DIE THEN NOT PLAY GAMES!!! WiFi FTW!

[ichi1986]

im not scared i'm getting a ps3 wich cures cancer.

[C0R3F1GHT3R]

im not scared i'm getting a ps3 wich cures cancer.
lol a cancer cured by suicide due to significant loss of money and induced debt!

[ikarimaru]

Well, I actually believe mobile/cell phones can probably cause damage to us.

Thing is, there are always many experiments from both independant and phone company backed groups.
Phone company bosses would probably kill, lie, cheat and create false information to prevent ANY chance of an independant test gaining credibility.

Think about it? It would cost them all Billions if any mainstream news station actually cared about public interest.

Anyway, I'm not sure about the waves used in WiFi but I know mobile phones' are close to microwaves.
And there hasn't even been enough time to actually prove things either way....but I'm just not taking the chance with my best swimmers. So my phone is always away from my pockets.

That's a very cynical view, and precisely why this garbage gets started. You're welcome to your opinion, but microwave physics haven't changed in the past, oh, say billion years, and I'm pretty sure human physiology hasn't changed that much since the inception of Wifi/Cell Phones/Etc. Cell phones can go batty because of Solar Flares which are EXTREMELY high emissions of electromagnetic waves which propogate through space (most are deflected by our atmosphere), so technically, shouldn't solar flares be hurting us more than cellphones? They do. If you were on the moon during a solar flare and did not have a way to dissipate the radiation, chances are you would get radiation poisoning and die on the spot. We're lucky to have the upper atmosphere to deflect most of it, and even THEN, cell phones can go haywire because of these waves.

Do your research. There are tons more electromagnetic phenomena at work besides your cell phones and Wifi. Saying the effects are likely to cause cancer, etc. is like saying that getting your picture taken by a camera will steal your soul. Researchers just wanted their 15 minutes:

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/

*gets ready to whip out his calculus*

[The_It]

we better store up on food and water and build bomb shelters for when the global warming makes the world go all crazy while destroying everything with wifi.

so... if cell phone waves are kinda like micro waves, you can put 10000 phones in a room and cook a meatloaf with them?

[The_It]

Oh my god......... pictures steal your soul?!

Why didn't anyone tell me this!!!!!

[ikarimaru]

Oh my god......... pictures steal your soul?!

Why didn't anyone tell me this!!!!!

Yes, and spontaneous generation is possible. Oh yea, and bloodletting cures headaches! :)

[cloud_952]

That is scary!!! Now I am forced to wonder about my reproductive health after months/years of using my WiFi laptop on my... well.. lap! LOL

=D You should REALLY worry about the incredibly hot CPU that's sitting on your ever-important parts MUCH more than the wifi. ^_- Because we KNOW that'll fry reproductive health.

[Destroyer699]

Erm, roflcopters?

[Styroformer]

and gaming rots ur brain and TV makes u blind o_O

Well...im screwed...anyone else?

[kiariki]

=D You should REALLY worry about the incredibly hot CPU that's sitting on your ever-important parts MUCH more than the wifi. ^_- Because we KNOW that'll fry reproductive health.

That's why the next generation in Japan is going to be -ALOT- less than what it is going to be here. :D

And, according to my old photography teacher, cellphones, if used for a prolonged amount of time can, indeed, cause some form of ear damage... But only if you keep on talking on it for a long time... >_>

(BTW, my computer WTFPWNed itself when I was writing this. Firefox saved it for me and I finished writing now, about an hour after.)

[shadowhawk22]

Yeah, people say cell phones cause brain cancer. But there is NO evidence to back this up. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some effect, at least on lab mice, if you pumped the room with like 1000x the normal wifi waves. But come on, our bodies are very strong, something like this is the least of our worries. The happiness my PSP and consoles gives me FAR exceeds the small damage they may cause. Am I right or what?

[Amethyst]

so... if cell phone waves are kinda like micro waves, you can put 10000 phones in a room and cook a meatloaf with them?

Or would it refrigerate it?

So, we want to live forever so we must alert the world whenever something MIGHT, but most likely wont, but it MIGHT, as in maybe, but not positively, just possibly, as in lottery odds, cause murderous tendencies, insane cancers, far-left thinking, or spontaneous combustion.

I say they should keep these findings quiet and allow the human race to thin out a bit.

[robocelot]

As an Electrical Engineer, and someone who has spent significant time around/studying electromagnetic waves, this is completely ridiculous/bunk/whatever term you would like to attach to this preposterous theory. The amount of radiation it would take to cause cancer/destroy tissue/blah blah would be FAR more than the amount put out by anything capable of sending and receiving Wifi signals. Even if you stand right next to POWER LINES, you won't see the radiation necessary for this.


A slight correction here. There is some evidence for power lines (mostly high tension wires) being problematic. It'll take years or decades to sort it all out though.


Anybody that feels that I'm wrong, well, the fact of the matter is that you know nothing about physics

Ahh but do you know anything about radiobiology?
To really understand this issue you need to draw from both disciplines.

While it's true that 2.4 GHz microwave radiation isn't ionizing or even the correct frequency to cause DNA damage (or at least cause non-repairable damage) that's only one small part of the puzzle. Acute radiation damage to DNA has been extensively studied but we have almost no idea of the effects on other cell structures, cell to cell signalling, and even less data on the effects of long term low level exposures. Biological systems tend not to behave as predictably as we would like, and the radiobiological equations are only the best available model.

It's dangerous to presume that physical equations are the last word on the subject. I don't doubt the numbers, just the context in which it is reported.

As it is, it's very hard for the general public to understand that we live in a sea of EM radiation 24/7 because they can't see it -- whereas they can lay blame on the microwave oven, cell phone, and WiFi router they can see. The pubic needs tangible scapegoats. Try explaining to the average Joe that living in Denver or being a frequent flier is doing more to damage their health than their game console.

Unfortunately this sort of information doesn't lend itself to being condensed into the 10 second sound bites that our news agencies love.

[ikarimaru]

A slight correction here. There is some evidence for power lines (mostly high tension wires) being problematic. It'll take years or decades to sort it all out though.



Ahh but do you know anything about radiobiology?
To really understand this issue you need to draw from both disciplines.

While it's true that 2.4 GHz microwave radiation isn't ionizing or even the correct frequency to cause DNA damage (or at least cause non-repairable damage) that's only one small part of the puzzle. Acute radiation damage to DNA has been extensively studied but we have almost no idea of the effects on other cell structures, cell to cell signalling, and even less data on the effects of long term low level exposures. Biological systems tend not to behave as predictably as we would like, and the radiobiological equations are only the best available model.

It's dangerous to presume that physical equations are the last word on the subject. I don't doubt the numbers, just the context in which it is reported.

As it is, it's very hard for the general public to understand that we live in a sea of EM radiation 24/7 because they can't see it -- whereas they can lay blame on the microwave oven, cell phone, and WiFi router they can see. The pubic needs tangible scapegoats. Try explaining to the average Joe that living in Denver or being a frequent flier is doing more to damage their health than their game console.

Unfortunately this sort of information doesn't lend itself to being condensed into the 10 second sound bites that our news agencies love.

Good conversation here. :) Nice to know someone else is looking at this from a technical viewpoint. I appreciate it.

An instructor of mine cited such a case where power lines were shown to have less of an effect on the human body than, say, a clock radio. He was working for an independent group on the project, and I can't really quote him here, but that was the general gist. I know, it sounds crazy, but then again, my instructor could very well be crazy... I never liked him anyway, lol.

It all comes down to the situations you may be in where this is the possibility of being exposed to high EM fields. In my normal, everyday life, it's not much. I play my DS, I stream music wirelessly to my 360, blah blah, what have you. The case where I may see intense gamma radiation is rather slim. Heck, X-rays are the same. We're looking most in the range from radio to ultraviolet...

You're right, it IS very hard to tell people who haven't taken courses in electromagnetics that their whole world is essentially EM Waves. I appreciate your addition to the discussion. I haven't the background in the pure DNA level biology of the situation, but from the EE standpoint, this is bunk. :)
Thanks again!

[Basil Zero]

this is just another reason they'll use to ban video games

pitiful really, man this is getting crazy, movies cause more mental damage than games lol

[C0R3F1GHT3R]

this is just another reason they'll use to ban video games

pitiful really, man this is getting crazy, movies cause more mental damage than games lol
yea man movies do! When im at a movie and it starts to suck i constantly pelt ppl with peanut M&M's! Now take that force and like x1000 that could put a whole through someones head or cause extensive brain dmg!!!

[Sonny_Jim]

yea man movies do! When im at a movie and it starts to suck i constantly pelt ppl with peanut M&M's! Now take that force and like x1000 that could put a whole through someones head or cause extensive brain dmg!!!

Well Done. You must have barrels of self esteem to annoy people for your own amusement whilst sitting in a darkened room with no possibility of comeback.

Please, please do the world a great favour and microwave your reproductive organs so your idiot legacy can be discontinued.

[nozzie]

sooo..... if i print this out and blame the school for causing canser can i sue them :D

to video game wifi OMFG NOOOOOOOOOOOOO oh sweet new map brb!!!!!

[GazeboflossUK]

Wi-fi worry

Claire Heald
BBC
Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Some schools are removing wi-fi networks after complaints from parents that their children suffer headaches. In what sounds like a re-run of mobile phone radiation panic, is there evidence for harm?
Sitting too close to the TV. Standing in front of the microwave. Spending too long on the mobile. Living under a pylon, or next to a phone mast. We've always worried about what the technology around us might do to our bodies.

Now, wi-fi is rolling out from the humble coffee shop hotspot to create swathes of wireless networks in towns and cities.

But some are concerned that we don't know enough about the health effects of electromagnetic radiation - the radio waves that allow the computer network to transmit (along with longwave, FM and TV and phone frequencies).

For others, headaches and skin rashes - that they feel are due to the radio waves - are prompting a big switch off.


The worry for parents is that children, who have thinner skulls and developing systems, are exposed to more gadgets and gizmos than previous generations. What might these be doing to their bodies?
Health expert advice is to limit mobile phone use among young people as a precaution. The government advises users to keep calls short.

Engineer Anthony Wood, a father with two young children from Bristol, refuses to install a wi-fi network to link his family's three home computers.

"I don't like the idea of transmitting a microwave into your brain. The frequency is important, not just the power. The higher the frequency, the more energy there is in the waves. I think wi-fi waves are close to microwaves, yet they're on all the time.

"I see no evidence to suggest they could be harmful, but it takes an enormous amount of evidence to prove anything. I don't understand the medical side very well but I do understand the technical side - that of frequency and power. That's why I decided against installing a wireless network."

Learning tool

Teachers have also raised concerns. A staff member who develops shocking headaches after a day in the classroom may be a cliche. But this is what happened to Michael Bevington, a classics teacher at top independent school Stowe, in Buckinghamshire, after wi-fi was installed in his classroom.

"I had thought, 'great, we can make use of it'. But then I started getting a series of headaches that got worse over the next few days."


Pains in the joints, heart palpitations and nausea followed, and he could tell if the wi-fi transmitters were on or off.
Like a number of other schools, Stowe has turned off some of its transmitters. But Mr Bevington says he is now sensitive to other sources of electro-magnetic radiation, such as phones, microwaves and fluorescent lights. He also has problems with city centre hotspots and his neighbours' wi-fi networks.

"The amount of microwave radiation in society needs to be completely reviewed. It's making it impossible for a small number of people," he says.

Hot spots

Other than anecdotal, what is the evidence to suggest a risk? There is no scientific proof that wi-fi can cause harm. But there is also a lack of research.

Experimental psychologist Dr Stacy Eltiti, of the University of Essex, researches sensitivity to telephone masts. The 3G signal is transmitted at a frequency not far off that of wi-fi at about 2.4 gigahertz. Hence her results, due in 2007, may hold some clues to wi-fi sensitivity as well.

"Everyone is exposed to mobile phone masts," she says. "You can opt not to own a computer or a mobile phone, but you go into your local town centre and they're everywhere. If there are physical impacts, we can investigate what these are."


The current official advice is that exposure to wi-fi radio waves is comparatively low.
"In classrooms, a typical exposure is at 20 millionths of the guideline levels, whereas a mobile phone is 50% of guidelines," says Dr Michael Clark, science spokesman for the Health Protection Agency.

"Twenty minutes on a mobile phone call is equivalent to a year in that classroom. It's a completely different level of exposure. These are non-ionising radio waves. They're not X-rays, or gamma rays, or ultra violet. It's completely different in energy terms. I'm looking outside now and that's electromagnetic radiation - visible light. Radio energies are a million times less energetic than ultraviolet light."

But as people claim sensitivity to radio waves, he would welcome more research, given the rapid introduction of the new technology.

But currently, the more common concerns for users lie in wi-fi's cost, patchy coverage and network security.

As Peter Green, a senior lecturer at the University of Manchester says: "You wouldn't put your wi-fi right next to your bed, but I know more people who are turning it off because they are worried about security and other people hacking into their network."



I'm not sure exactly how many people claim to be suffering.....it would be interesting if a serious test was done involving such people.

[shadowhawk22]

I think it would be a good test, to tell a group of people they are increasing the wifi signals by 10 fold in a school, when in reality you shut almost all of them off, and then see how many more people start to claim headaches from it. It's BS in my opinion. I live in an apartment with like lieterally 20 wifi signals I can connect to. I don't get headaches, nor does anyone else I know. I think we can all agree that idea is silly.

But really, we need to do some tests on lab rats, or something. Maybe do a few tests on the headache thing, with a double blind study. If anyone knows of any such study, or planning for one, let us know!

[Apoklepz]

Nowadays, everything causes cancer...but this is ridiculous.
People get headaches because of stress...Being on the computer and playing games may cause stress...it just depends on what the person is doing on the computer or how the persons feels at the moment. As for those kids and their school's wi-fi...that's a load of crock...kids get stressed too, cuz stress doesn't have an age, it can happen to anyone...
I think those parents went over their heads about their kid's headaches...They too got stressed out over that subject.
People need to lighten up and see the big picture....Technology is not compatible with the Human Body, and perhaps it will never be...so there will always be a side effect towards the cost of better living...There's always a catch, right?
...Unless you want to live like an Aborigine in the middle of the jungle, which is fine with me....But everybody is a Best Buy addict, so I don't see that happening.
Don't know if I'm making any sense...just wrote whatever came to mind :D