"Orientation, navigation, and homing are critical traits expressed by organisms ranging from bacteria through higher vertebrates. Sensory systems that aid such behavior have provided key selective advantages to these groups over the past 4 billion years, and are highly evolved; magnetoreception is no exception. Across many species and groups of organisms, compelling evidence exists that the physical basis of this response is tiny crystals of single-domain magnetite (Fe3O4). It is the opinion of the authors that all magnetic field sensitivity in living organisms, including elasmobranch fishes, is the result of a highly evolved, finely-tuned sensory system based on singledomain, ferromagnetic crystals . . .

" . . . Some years ago, education in our schools became a follower of trends in society, economy, media (imitation of television shows about fashion, singing, dancing, etc.) and politics. Despite all the posters and symbolic demonstrations--such as for Earth Day/Week-- consumer mentality thoughtlessly advocates continued pollution of the environment under the arrogant tenet that humans have the right to use the planet's resources as they see fit. This tenet has been adopted by many institutions and organizations, as well in the educational field.

"As life and learning are inseparable, I believe that education should lay the foundation in any society and culture. Education should lead the way of life and instill higher levels of thinking and higher valuation of nature and our only living space: the planet Earth.

"Our economy has shifted from a focus on manufacturing industries to a focus on service industries. This transformation cost society many job losses and made a huge impact because service industries rely more heavily on retailing. As a result, this service economy relies more directly on end-user consumers. Therefore, the best way to guarantee that the service industries will continue growing and the corporations will make profit is to find ways of assuring that the end-user population is well-trained to become dependent consumers with limited consciousness of the result of their purchases.

"In the name of education, we are killing this planet, we are contributing to global warming, we are officially producing e-waste and we are proud of it (the more we rely on technology the higher our score as a teacher/school)! Worst of all, we are raising a generation of dependent consumers--their sense of entitlement and their need for convenience, instant gratification and feeling good in the moment is dangerously destructive to their own environment and the future of the only home we have: Earth.

"You have a government that is micromanaging the message, obsessively. It seems to vet everything that goes out to the media" Margaret Muro, Canadian Science Journalist 

". . . It's so hard to get hold of scientists that a lot of my colleagues have given up," she explained.

"Ms Munro cited another example of research published in another leading scientific journal, Nature, that was published last October.

"An international team including several scientists from the government agency, Environment Canada, set out details of a hole that appeared in the ozone layer above the Arctic.

"Ms Munro said she had called one of the scientists involved who she had dealt with several times in the past. He agreed to speak to her, but said that he had been told that her request had to be put to government media relations officials in Ottawa.

"So I phoned up Ottawa and they just said no you can't talk to the guy. A couple of weeks later, he was available but by then the story had been done. So they take them out of the news cycle," she said.  

"Ms Munro also claims that journalists were denied access to scientists working for the government agency Health Canada last year, when there was concern about radiation levels reaching the country's western coast from Japan following the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Ultimately, journalists obtained the information they sought from European agencies.

"The Postmedia News journalist obtained documents relating to interview requests using Canada's equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act. She said the documents show interview requests move up what she describes as an "increasingly thick layer of media managers, media strategists, deputy ministers, then go up to the Privy Council Office, which decides 'yes' or 'no'" . . .

"The government has never explained what the process is. They just imposed these changes and they expected us to sit back and take it," she explained.

"Professor Andrew Weaver believes that the media protocol is being used by the Canadian government to "instruct scientists to deliver a certain message, thereby taking the heat out of controversial topics".

He added:  "You can't have an informed discussion if the science isn't allowed to be communicated. Public relations message number one is that you have to set the conversation. You don't want to have a conversation on someone else's terms. And this is now being applied to science on discussions about oil sands, climate and salmon."

"On January 11, the EMF Safety Network filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against the City of Sebastopol, Verizon, and Crown Castle alleging the City's decision to approve a 4G cell tower expansion was in violation of a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). According to the Sebastopol attorney, the city has a "hold harmless" clause in their contract with Verizon which requires Verizon to pay for all litigation costs related to the cell tower.

"Sebastopol is located adjacent to an internationally recognized wetlands preserve, the Laguna De Santa Rosa. The City filed a CEQA exemption for the project stating there would be "negligible or no expansion of use", calling it a "minor alteration." EMF Safety Network lawyer Rose Zoia argued their exemption claims were false. The addition of 3 and 4 G panels to the cell tower will add significant radio frequency (RF) exposure to the downtown area and extend nine miles into the Laguna.

"Sebastopol's Telecommunications Ordinance states, " No telecommunications facility shall be sited such that its presence threatens the health and safety of migratory birds." . . .

If Wi-Fi harms trees, what about children?

"Aspen decline has been reported in North America over the past half century and rapid mortality of aspen clones has been observed in Colorado since 2004 and has become a major concern for environmentalists, scientists, and foresters.

"In one experiment, published February 2010 in The International Journal of Forestry Research, scientists constructed mock-shielded cages and faraday-shielded cages in the forest just outside of Lyons, Colorado. The mock cage shielded aspen seedlings only from direct light - while the faraday cage shielded seedlings from all forms of radio frequency radiation originating from the town of Lyons in the frequency range of 1 MHz to 3 GHz. This includes radio broadcast signals as well as cell phone and WiFi signals.

"The researchers discovered that the tree seedlings growing inside the radio frequency-shielded cages were much larger and healthier than those in both the mock-shielded cages and in the unshielded controls. The authors report that the background levels of radio frequency radiation may be adversely affecting leaf and shoot growth and inhibiting fall production of anthocyanins (these are the pigments associated with leaf senescence in trembling aspen seedlings). These results suggest that exposure to the RF radiation generated by our wireless technology may be an underlying factor in the recent rapid decline of aspen populations . . .

"Since atmosphere "microwave window" allows penetration of cosmicradiation with frequencies ranging within GHz domain, there is always amicrowave component within the environment radiation background. In the modern world, with the use of sophisticated microwave emitting devices for communications in the air, surveillance systems, industry, diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in medicine - the importance of electromagnetic pollution need not be over emphasized.

"There is a rich literature describing the biological influence of low frequency electromagnetic fields upon vegetal organisms. But the responses elicited invarious plant species appear to depend in a complex way on both the physical parameters of the irradiation source (frequency, power density, pulses or continuous waves, duration of exposure etc.) and the condition of the biological material magnetic (vegetation stage, pretreatment, environment etc.); nevertheless different biological parameters may lead to the revealing of different aspects of the interaction between the electromagnetic waves and the irradiated material. Some examples are illustrating the above statement . . .

"Trees are now dying mysteriously from a variety of diseases in urban areas all over Europe and are also showing abnormal photoperiodic responses. In addition, many have cancer-like growths under the bark (phloem nodules) and the bark may also split so that the underlying tissues become infected. All of these can be explained as being a result of weak radio-frequency radiation from mobile phones, their base stations, WiFi and similar sources of weak non-ionising radiation. But first let us look at how living organisms use electric currents that they generate themselves and which perform vital functions in their normal day-to-day metabolism and growth. We will then go on to see how weak electromagnetic fields can disrupt these and bring about many unwanted biological effects... 

"The hearing of microwave pulses is a unique exception to the airborne or bone-conducted sound energy normally encountered in human auditory perception. The hearing apparatus commonly responds to airborne or bone-conducted acoustic or sound pressure waves in the audible frequency range. But the hearing of microwave pulses involves electromagnetic waves whose frequency ranges from hundreds of MHz to tens of GHz. Since electromagnetic waves (e.g., light) are seen but not heard, the report of auditory perception of microwave pulses was at once astonishing and intriguing. Moreover, it stood in sharp contrast to the responses associated with continuous-wave microwave radiation.

Experimental and theoretical studies have shown that the microwave auditory phenomenon does not arise from an interaction of microwave pulses directly with the auditory nerves or neurons along the auditory neurophysiological pathways of the central nervous system. Instead, the microwave pulse, upon absorption by soft tissues in the head, launches a thermoelastic wave of acoustic pressure that travels by bone conduction to the inner ear. There, it activates the cochlear receptors via the same process involved for normal hearing.

Aside from tissue heating, microwave auditory effect is the most widely accepted biological effect of microwave radiation with a known mechanism of interaction: the thermoelastic theory. The phenomenon, mechanism, power requirement, pressure amplitude, and auditory thresholds of microwave hearing are discussed in this paper. A specific emphasis is placed on human exposures to wireless communication fields and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) coils.

Editor:

I am the unhappy recipient of a Smart Meter in spite of my telephoned objection noted in my Hydro file in October.

I have been experiencing intermittent physical symptoms and physical distress. If it were not for the reaction of my cats, I would be tempted to think that I am just "off"; but my two youngest cats exhibited abnormal hyperactivity during the first two nights after the Smart Meter was installed; a third cat experienced acute diarrhea and vomiting for 24 hours and has not eaten in over a week.    

In a registered letter to Grey Reimer, executive vice president of transmission and distribution for BC Hydro, I stated: "Substantial scientific data exists relative to the health hazard from the neurological effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation.  The purpose of this writing is to memorialize my objection & demand to remove the device.  If you fail or refuse to do so, this writing is to serve as my notice of litigation to you."

I included a deadline replacement date of Dec 15. The Coalition to Stop Smart Meters lists symptoms of electrohypersensitivity at http://www.stopsmartmetersbc.ca/html/?page_id=179.

If you or other members of your family and pets are having similar experiences, you might follow the bread crumb trail. If you too send a letter, the paragraph quoted and a deadline date for replacement are suggested.

Jalien Shandler

Madeira Park

(Related Christopher Ketcham Article: Warning: Your Cell Phone May be Hazardous to Your Health, February, 2010)

"Consider this story: It's January 1990, during the pioneer build-out of mobile phone service. A cell tower goes up 800 feet from the house of Alison Rall, in Mansfield, Ohio, where she and her husband run a 160-acre dairy farm. The first thing the Rall family notices is that the ducks on their land lay eggs that don't hatch. That spring there are no ducklings.

"By the fall of 1990, the cattle herd that pastures near the tower is sick. The animals are thin, their ribs are showing, their coats growing rough, and their behavior is weird - they're agitated, nervous. Soon the cows are miscarrying, and so are the goats. Many of the animals that gestate are born deformed. There are goats with webbed necks, goats with front legs shorter than their rear legs. One calf in the womb has a tumor the size of a basketball, another carries a tumor three feet in diameter, big enough that he won't pass through the birth canal. Rall and the local veterinarian finally cut open the mother to get the creature out alive. The vet records the nightmare in her log: "I've never seen anything like this in my entire practice... All of [this] I feel was a result of the cellular tower."

"Within six months, Rall's three young children begin suffering bizarre skin rashes, raised red "hot spots." The kids are hit with waves of hyperactivity; the youngest child sometimes spins in circles, whirling madly. The girls lose hair. Rall is soon pregnant with a fourth child, but she can't gain weight. Her son is born with birth defects - brittle bones, neurological problems - that fit no specific syndrome. Her other children, conceived prior to the arrival of the tower, had been born healthy.

"Desperate to understand what is happening to her family and her farm, Rall contacts the Environmental Protection Agency. She ends up talking to an EPA scientist named Carl Blackman, an expert on the biological effects of radiation from electromagnetic fields (EMFs) - the kind of radiofrequency EMFs (RF-EMFs) by which all wireless technology operates, including not just cell towers and cell phones but wi-fi hubs and wi-fi-capable computers, "smart" utility meters, and even cordless home phones. "With my government cap on, I'm supposed to tell you you're perfectly safe," Blackman tells her. "With my civilian cap on, I have to tell you to consider leaving."

"Blackman's warning casts a pall on the family. When Rall contacts the cell phone company operating the tower, they tell her there is "no possibility whatsoever" that the tower is the source of her ills.

"You're probably in the safest place in America," the company representative tells her.

"The Ralls abandoned the farm on Christmas Day of 1992 and never re-sold it, unwilling to subject others to the horrors they had experienced. Within weeks of fleeing to land they owned in Michigan, the children recovered their health, and so did the herd.

"We are now exposed to electromagnetic radio frequencies 24 hours a day. Welcome to the largest human experiment ever.

"Not a single one of the half-dozen scientists I spoke to could explain what had happened on the Rall farm . . .