Student Science Experiment in Dänemark finds Plants won't grow near Wi-Fi router

Photo: girls from 9b

Ninth-graders in Dänemark design science experiment
to test the effect of cellphone radiation on Water Cress
plants. These surprising results are causing a stir in the
world's Scientific Communities.

I've been researching something which appears to be very very serious going on here in Sweden in both the wilds and Urban City gardens. I first noticed it when I first got home back from the United States, because all around my neighbourhood, these various different species of conifers are all dying at once and there seems to be no one species which is immune to this blight which I would call, "Fire Blight on Steroids". Every single kind of Cypress, Junipers, Cedars, and even some of the native Scots Pine are showing some effects. I tried to do a bit of Googling to find anyone else noticing this, but nothing yet. Although, many citizens here in Göteborg are talking about it. During the Google search, I stumbled across this story out of Dänemark which appeared around the middle of May 2013. Such a simple experiment and revealing given modern Mankind's addiction to everything electronic. 

What's incredible about this experiment was that it was created based on other observations and questions about an entirely different problem. The girls noticed that if they slept with their Cell or Mobile Phones near their heads at night, they had problems concentrating at school the next day. The school had no specialized equipment and facilities for testing out such an experiment, so it was decided that they would test out Cell Phone radiation on plants instead.

Photo courtesy of Kim Horsevad

These are what are known as KarseFrö (Lepidium sativum) or Garden Cress Seeds. There were six trays of the seeds which were put into a room without the effects of the radiation, and six trays of seeds which another room next to two routers. According to the girls, this way of experimenting emitted about the same type of radiation emitted by Cell Phones. Notice the healthy tray of seeds in the tray above which were grown in the room with no radiation influence from the Router whatsoever.

Photo courtesy of Kim Horsevad

They waited about twelve days, observed, measured, weighed and finally took pictures documenting growth along the way. The results really spoke for themselves. These Cress Seeds above grown inside the room with the Router had not grown and many that did were mutated or dead. 

Photo: Kim Horsevad

From left to right: Lea Nielsen, Mathilde Nielsen, Signe Nielsen, Sisse Coltau, and Rikke Holm. The experiment secured these girls in the finals in the competition of "Young Scientists", but it was only the beginning as other outside interests have been impressed and want to repeat the experiment. Good for them and their teacher.

Researchers from other countries like Nederland (Netherlands), England and Sweden have shown interest. One of them here in Sweden is Olle Johansson, professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. He will now an attempt to repeat this experiment with a Belgian research colleague, Professor Marie-Claire Cammaert at the Université  libre de Bruxelles, for trial. He had this comment about the girls below.

"The girls are within the scope of their knowledge and skills implementing and developing a very elegant job. The wealth of detail and accuracy is exemplary, choosing the right Garden cress is very intelligent, and I could go on."  

"I sincerely hope that they spend their future professional life to researching, because I definitely think they have a natural aptitude for it. Personally, I would love to see these people on my team." 

Olle Johansson 

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Article Source from Dänemark

http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2013/05/16/131324.htm

http://www.dr.dk/NR/rdonlyres/075641A4-F4D4-4ECF-834F-C0DAF2B8E1E1/5134851/Undersoegelse_af_nontermiske_effekter_af_mobilstra.pdf

Back to my horrific and frantic search for anything regarding this mysterious sudden death syndrome effecting most all of the evergreens here in southern Sweden. I'll keep looking and I've taken lots of photos. I'll post a gallery of them soon.