An Important Warning - Boiling water explodes in a microwave cooker

This is an important warning to us all when using microwave ovens.

A 26-year old man made a decision to have a mug of coffee. He took a cup of water and put it in the microwave to heat it up ( something he had done numerous times before ). He wasn't sure how long he set the timer for, but he would have liked to bring the water to the boil. When the timer shut the stove off, he took away the cup from the stove. As he looked into the cup, he observed that the water wasn't boiling, but instantly the water in the cup "blew up" into his face. The cup stayed intact till he threw it out of his hand but all the water had flown out into his face because of the build up of energy. His entire face is burned and he has initial and second degree burns to his face that might leave scarring! He also could have lost partial sight in his left eye.

While at the surgery, the doctor who was attending to him said that this is reasonably common occurrence and water ( alone ) should not ever be heated in a microwave cooker. If water is heated in this way, something should be placed in the cup to diffuse the energy like a wooden stir stick, teabag, and so on. It is however a much safer choice to boil the water in a teakettle.

Microwaved water and other liquids don't always bubble when they reach the boiling point. They can essentially get superheated and not bubble at all. The superheated liquid will bubble up out of the cup when it is moved or when something similar to a spoon or teabag is put into it.

To stop this from taking place and causing injury, don't heat any liquid for at least 2 mins per cup. After heating, let the cup stand in the microwave for 30 seconds before moving it or adding anything into it.

But why?

What occurs is that the water heats faster than the vapor bubbles can form. If the cup is extraordinarily new then it is doubtful to have little surface scratches within it that supply a place for the bubbles to form. As the bubbles can't form and release some of the heat which has built up, the liquid does not boil, and the liquid continues to warm up well past its boiling point. What then often occurs is the liquid is bumped or jarred, which is enough of a shock to cause the bubbles to quickly form and expel the hot liquid. The quick formation of bubbles is also why a carbonated libation spews when opened after having been shaken.

Toxic Light - The Dark Side of Energy Saving Bulbs

A look at how dangerous the new energy-saving light bulbs are. The EU has banned many incandescent bulbs in favor of Compact Florescent Lights (CFLs). CFLs emit serious toxins while being used. All Florescent lights contain Mercury. There is enough Mercury to pose a serious health risk in the event of a CLF breakage. People are being told to run out of the building for 15 minutes, open windows and turn off the heat. Additionally the bulbs do not last as long as advertised and they take a long time to warm up, decreasing in brightness over time. The light they emit is not a full spectrum steady light. Few Bulbs actually get recycled and they need to be treated as hazardous materials when discarding them. Consumers be alerted!

Source: http://citizensforsafetechnology.org/u.s.-and-international-in-news-and-developments,16,0

FCC & Cell Phone Industry: A Cozy Relationship

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has never levied a fine against a cell phone company for exceeding its RF exposure limits from a base station antenna.

That's not because all of the 300,000 cell sites in the U.S. comply with the FCC rules, according to an Industry Insider with years of training and experience measuring RF radiation. He told us that he has found RF levels higher than those allowed under the FCC rules at sites across the country. The real reason there have been no fines, he said, is "because there's collusion between the companies and the government." The insider, an RF engineer, calls himself "EMF Expert"; he asked that his real name not be used.

"The carriers and the FCC have an extremely cozy relationship," said the engineer. "Whenever there's a problem, someone in the FCC's RF safety office warns the carrier and the company then puts the 'fire' out."

Over the last two years, the RF engineer and the EMR Policy Institute, based in Marshfield, VT, have identified more than 100 rooftops in 23 states where the FCC's limits have been exceeded. Back in December 2011, the Institute described the situation to the chairman of the FCC, Julius Genachowksi, and the other commissioners. These findings are "shocking," the leaders of the Institute wrote, and point to "a systematic pattern of non-compliance" by the country's largest providers of cell phone service. Nothing much has changed since then.

When the radiation limits are exceeded, it's most likely close to the transmitting antenna. The strength of RF signals, like all types of electromagnetic radiation, decreases quickly with distance from the source (the inverse square law). For most freestanding cell antenna towers, the "hot" zone —where RF levels are higher than the exposure limits— is usually inaccessible, but for roof-mounted antennas, public access is not uncommon. The FCC requires that such hot zones be roped off and warning signs posted. Most cell sites are composed of multiple antennas, with some pointing in different directions. Different carriers will often place their antennas on the same site, a process called colocation.

The people most at risk of RF overexposure are those working on rooftops close to the cell phone antennas. As the EMR Policy Institute wrote to the FCC commissioners:

Workers such as roofers, window washers, painters, HV/AC technicians, building engineers and superintendents, firefighters, wireless industry workers, and others have been and continue to be concerned that their safety and health have been and continue to be compromised by exposure to RF radiation in excess of lawful limits. 

Enforcement Is a “Total Illusion”

"Enforcement at the FCC is a total illusion," Deb Carney, a director of the Institute, toldMicrowave News. "The public is not being protected." Carney is an attorney practicing law in Golden, CO.

More than 100 instances of antennas exceeding the FCC limits have been reported toMichele Ellison, the head of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau, according to Janet Newton, the Institute's president. "To the best of my knowledge, the FCC has not taken any enforcement action," Newton said, "Neither Ms. Ellison nor anyone from her office has ever even acknowledged our complaints."

Ellison declined to comment, referring questions to Mark Wigfield in the FCC media office. "We routinely investigate RF complaints," Wigfield told us, "We take action where warranted by the facts and the commission's RF standards." When asked about the 100 violations reported by the EMR Policy Institute, Wigfield did not respond.

(In fact, in the last dozen years, the FCC has taken few enforcement actions for any type of RF source, including the much more powerful antennas broadcasting radio and TV signals, as shown in this list compiled by the FCC.)

The Industry Insider estimates that about 10% of all cell sites are on rooftops (the fraction differs from one carrier to another). And of that 10%, about 10% are out of compliance. This works out to about 1% of all cell sites being non-compliant. "It's a small percentage," he said, "but when you consider that there are some 300,000 sites out there, it is a significant number."

Asked why he was blowing the whistle on the cell phone industry for which he has long worked, the Insider replied: "Nobody is enforcing the law. You can argue about thermal and non-thermal effects until the cows come home, but these violations are not lawful and the rules should be enforced."

"Without enforcement, there can be no compliance," he said.

The Insider does not see the package of rules and proposals issued by the FCC last week as sufficient to deal with the lack of compliance on rooftops. "The section on mitigation is too ambiguous," he said. "The FCC appears to be only interested in making changes that do not add new costs for the carriers, he added, but that will not solve the problem."

"They can fix this if they want to, it's not that hard," said the Insider. "The situation is completely different in Canada and Europe. They take this seriously."

Noel Gail’s Roof in Queens New York

The EMR Policy Institute points to what happened on a rooftop owned by Mr. Noel Gail as an example of the cozy relationship between the FCC and the cell phone carriers. The story begins about three years ago, in March 2010, when Gail wanted to repair the roof on his two-storey building in Queens Village, New York City. On seeing cell phone antennas on the roof of an adjoining building, he called the toll-free number he spotted on a warning sign posted by AT&T. "I called that 800 number a few times, but it was a dead end," he told Microwave Newsnot long ago.

The Roofop Next to Noel Gail’s in Queens Village, NY

Gail then started calling the FCC. "After six or seven calls, I left a message on an FCC answering machine saying that I was going to call a local TV station and my attorney," he said. "But I was bluffing, I did not know any reporters and I did not have a lawyer. I just said that to get their attention." The bluff worked. Two months later, on May 11, a five-man team from the FCC made a site visit. They found the RF levels on Gail's roof near an antenna operated byMetro PCS, which was also located on his neighbor's roof, to exceed the FCC limit by 60%.

On November 10, 2010, the FCC issued Metro PCS a formal Notice of Violation. This is theonly NOV that the FCC has ever issued for an RF violation from a cell phone antenna. The AT&T antennas were found to comply with the RF rules and the company was not cited by the FCC.

Even though AT&T had not responded to Gail's calls, it moved quickly once alerted by the FCC. Microwave News has learned that soon after Gail left that message on the FCC's voice mail about contacting the media, word reached Donald Campbell in the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology. The EMR Policy Institute calls Campbell, "The Gatekeeper," the one who decides who gets the agency's attention. Gail must have passed the test. Campbell sent a message to AT&T, and the company sprung into action as the antennas on Gail's roof rose to a priority issue.

We asked Michele Ellison, the FCC enforcement chief whether anyone from the FCC had ever gone back to Mr. Gail's roof to check whether Metro PCS was now in compliance with the FCC rules. Ellison did not respond, nor did Mark Wigfield of the FCC media office. 

The FCC did not fine Metro PCS for exceeding the commission's RF radiation limits. No one has explained why.

The EMR Policy Institute returned to Gail's roof with an experienced RF engineer about a year after the FCC issued the notice of violation. They found that the RF levels near the Metro PCS antenna were close to three times the FCC limit and the RF levels near the AT&T antenna were more than five times the allowable limit.

"I am not an engineer and I can't prove it," Gail told us, "but my feeling is that AT&T lowered the power on the antennas before the FCC arrived and then boosted it after they left."

Evie Hantzopoulos, the executive director of a New York City non-profit and a sometime cell antenna activist, tells a similar story about dealing with the FCC over a rooftop antenna some years ago. “T-Mobile constructed antennas directly facing the adjacent roof of a property next door. You could go up to the roof and walk right up to them,” she told us. “It took calls, emails, letters and more to get the FCC to inspect the site. Once a date was set, T-Mobile was notified. Then, two days before the visit, the antennas were taken down. That was the end of the story, even though we had pictures of the violation.”

“The FCC's approach to enforcement is so laissez-faire, it amounts to incompetence,” Hantzopoulos said.

No Help from the Carriers’ Toll-Free Help Lines

The EMR Policy Institute has posted two videos that describe the rooftop RF problem on YouTube ("Wireless Safety Failure Part I" and "Wireless Safety Failure Part II"). Each is about 15 minutes long; the second includes footage filmed on Gail's rooftop.

Some of the most striking parts of the videos are what workers are told when they call the toll-free numbers posted on warning signs near cell phone antennas. Most of the operators responding to the calls appear to be ill prepared to answer the workers' questions. All too often they are quick to reassure the workers that there is nothing for them to worry about.

Richard Tell, a consultant with extensive RF experience, was not surprised by what he heard on the videos. "It happens over and over again," he said in interview from his office in Colville, WA. "The telephone operators don't know diddly-squat about the RF problem."

In a December 11, 2001 letter to the FCC's Ellison, the Policy Institute urged the Enforcement Bureau to "investigate the type and veracity of the information provided to those who called."

Last July, David Dombrowski of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau in Philadelphia wrote to Janet Newton of the Policy Institute asking about operator responses to the toll-free numbers. She then sent him recordings, which the Institute had made from calls to AT&T, Metro PCS, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. "That was the last I heard from him," Newton said. When contacted byMicrowave News, Dombrowski wrote back that he could not comment because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The Institute's Deb Carney wants the FCC to get tough with the industry. "The problem is that the FCC is colluding with the cell phone carriers and the result is lax enforcement," she said.

Source: http://microwavenews.com/news-center/cell-phone-carriers-fcc-cozy

Bluetooth: Is Its Radiation Harmful?

It is a matter of concern for many people that the carrier waves used by Bluetooth´s transmitters use the same frequency range as microwave owens (Bluetooth uses 2.402 GHz to 2.480 GHz). What does it feel like to get in the path of such waves?

Actually, the transmitting power is far too weak to be noticeable for humans. Moreover, the radiation is not concentrated in a beam, but dispersed more or less in all directions. When using a wireless phone or a Bluetooth device, some of the emitted RF energy is absorbed by the body. The penetration depth is about 1.5 cm at 2450 MHz (about 2.5 cm at 900 MHz), which means that the absorption is very superficial. The main absorption mechanism is fieldinduced rotation of polar molecules (for example H2O), which generates heat through molecular "friction".

Heating by means of radio frequencies is possible over a broad frequency range. This is taken advantage of in microwave ovens at 2450 MHz using very high power levels (up to 1,000,000 times the power used by Bluetooth devices). However, 2450 MHz is not a resonance frequency of water. But does exposure to Bluetooth RF emission heat the human body? No it does not. The output power of a Bluetooth-enabled device is far too low to cause any detectable temperature increase. Again, in comparison, the maximum increase from handheld cellular phones is less than 0.1°C.

There is, however, another side to this; some people are demonstrably over-sensitive to electromagnetic radiations. Long exposure to strong fields make some individuals so sensitive, after a few years, that they can no longer be near such fields without considerable discomfort. Bluetooth fits into a general development pattern where antennas for GSM-transmission and other sources of electromagnetic radiations become more and more prevalent in our cities. The future will show whether this is a healthy development.

Source: http://www.swedetrack.com/images/bluet05.htm

How to protect yourself from Electromagnetic stress

I am a stressed man, and who can blame me? I have a kid on the way, trying to manage all my debts and at the same time I read and write about all the dangers radiation and EMF pose to us. In addition to this, I’m pretty sure all of the excess Electromagnetic energy being produced can’t be doing much good.

Let’s think about it for a minute, ten years ago, there was hardly any wireless technology out, the occasional phone and television remote being the only things that immediately pop into mind, as well as the few overhead power cables.

Now, let’s compare that to these days, we have Mobile phones, Mp3 Players and Laptops all of which are producing electromagnetic fields. A tangle of wires hang over our heads, telephone cables, power lines and the such, all leaking their own EMF’s. Towering telephone masts and Cell phone towers loom over us, showering us with radiation. In short, compared to then, there is so much more technology projecting waves that damage us on a cellular level.

I’m not sure about anyone else, but ten years ago, I felt much healthier and a lot less stressed (this may have been because I was 10 but who knows…) now a possible cause of all this is the aforementioned EMF, which constantly bombard our bodies. These fields actively attack our cells, damaging them on a molecular level, causing us to become fatigued, our metabolism to slow and lower our resistances to disease. And because of all this we become more and more stressed, so they key to alleviating this stress falls into making our bodies more resistant to the damage these EMF’s are unavoidably doing.

The most obvious way to combat the damage is to minimize the amount of time we expose ourselves to these EMF’s. By spending less time using our phones and other wireless electronics, we can decrease strength of EMF’s we are exposed to.

As an example, I play a lot of video games, mainly on the Xbox, so I was regularly holding onto a wireless controller for several hours on end, when I started to read about EMF’s however I immediately went out and bought a wired control. It wasn't much, but I did feel a very slight improvement in my health, whereas I used to feel run down after a couple of hours of playing, I now felt fine, well worth the money.

Another obvious way of minimizing the strength of the EMF’s, is to make sure you live far away from Cell phone towers and other powerful EMF producers, it may seem a trivial matter but it will make all the difference. In addition, by wearing magnetic jewellery you can help to counteract some EMF fields, a simple magnetic bracelet can make a world of difference.

You know how metal conducts electricity correct? Well

many of us have metal filling, and the EMF’s react with them the way you would expect it to. When the EMF passes through your body, the metallic fillings conduct trace amounts of the electromagnetic pulse, and does so repeatedly, gathering its own EMF overtime, producing it in your own mouth and I need not describe how that is damaging. If you can have these replaced with tooth-colored composite fillings, you should as it will lead to less damage from EMF overtime.

By improving your immune system your cells will naturally be more resistant to the damage the EMF’s will do. There are dozens of ways to improve your natural immune system, drinking lots of water and eating raw vegetables are both simple ways to give yourself a little boost. Upping your vitamin intake will help in more ways than one, as will taking several Probiotics over the course of a week.

To continue on the theme of Probiotics, the bodily stress caused by the EMF’s will cause your body to power through the good bacteria in your body, causing you to become more and more susceptible to diseases and illnesses, so by using Probiotics you can replenish the good bacteria at rate that should hopefully match the rate that the EMF’s cause them to die off.

When your body is regularly hit by powerful EMF’s it causes the micro-organisms in your body to produce an excess of neurotoxins as a response to the mass of minor infections your body has to start to defend itself against and due to the prior damage already caused, your body cannot cope with the mass of neurotoxins now flooding your system. So be sure to regularly purge your body of toxins, or the build up will cause further cell determination which in turn causes your body to create more neurotoxins, a never ending cycle.

Remember when your parents used to say, “Don’t sit to close to the TV, or your eyes will go square” well, they weren't far off. Newer televisions produce a much stronger EMF’s than older televisions, so sitting further away will cause the EMF produced by the TV to deal less damage to your body. The same idea also goes for computer screens, even now as I write this I’m leaning back in my chair, a kind of unconscious way of minimizing the damage done, other than sitting across the room of course.

As I mentioned in my previous post “Is an Apple that healthy?” your room should be one of the cleanest areas in your home, both physically and on a molecular level. So here are a few tips to decrease the amount of Radiation and the strength of the EMF’s in your room:

• Remove any electrical wires than run under your bed.
• Avoid having wireless devices in your room.
• Substitute automatic electronic devices for manual non-electronic variants.
• Swap any cordless phones for corded versions.

So with only a few alterations in your room, you can massively alter the strength of the EMF’s where you sleep. Never underestimate the damage that can be done whilst you sleep, because you aren't moving the EMF’s affect you far more directly, damaging the cells over the time you sleep.

With a few of these changes, you should be able to lessen the amount of EMF that effect you, which will be minimize the damage the done by the electromagnetic fields that run rampant across our landscapes. On a secondary note, there have been proven methods that can minimize or sometimes even neutralize EMF’s harmful effects, so in time, a more widespread way of neutralize the damage may become available. But until then, I hope the tips I have given you prove to be helpful!

The TRUTH about Smart Meters

The UK is starting to see the spread of a new insidious technology that has already plagued the United States and left many of it's users both financially and physically poorer for it; the Smart Meter. The Smart Meter is being rolled out by a number of energy suppliers in the UK and although optional at this stage, it will become mandatory as the UK's official national smart meter roll-out will start in 2014 and finish in 2019.  Every home will have to have one!

Ok, so what is a Smart Meter?  Well, the old-style gas and electricity meters we use at the moment need readings to being taken every few months and then given to our energy providers, from which our bills are calculated.  The new Smart Meter measures your exact gas and electricity usage and then sends all the information back to your energy supplier.  No more meter readings of old.  “Hurrah” I hear you say.

But wait, that sounds very clever, but exactly how do they get this information from your Smart Meter to your supplier?  Well, the details of your power usage are transmitted from meter to meter in a network, using wireless RF signals, just like mobile phones. This RF radiation has been classified as a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization (as has DDT and lead) and its contribution to brain tumours via cell phones is just now becoming more widely recognised by the medical community.

The EMF emissions from these meters are both greater in volume and more frequent than power companies admit.  Some representative say the meters transmit RF six times a day; others, once an hour. Independent RF specialists have measured them every 45 seconds, or even twice in a minute.  As for peak power of Smart Meter radiation signals, power companies maintain that the RF transmissions are well within FCC standards, that they transmit data for only a fraction of a second and are far weaker than other everyday radio frequency emitters, such as cell phones, cell towers and Wi-Fi.  However, independent environmental EMF consultants have found that peak pulses to be far greater in intensity than the “average pulse” that many utility companies claim, sometimes up to 1000 times more powerful than a cell phone.

Smart Meters in the United States are already receiving massive negative publicity.  Smart Meter complaints include: skyrocketing utility bills, privacy invasion, vulnerability to cyber attack, interference with security systems and other wireless devices, burned out appliances, explosions, fires and health problems including headaches, tinnitus, sleep and heart problems, anxiety, nausea, and other health symptoms following installation.

Such is the negativity surrounding these Smart Meters, that Sebastopol in California became the 15th local jurisdiction to make Smart Meter installations illegal, along with Fairfax, Ojai, Santa Cruz, and Marin, Lake, Mendocino and Santa Cruz counties and others are following suit.

And don’t these promises and claims from the power companies sound very similar to the tobacco industries claims that cigarettes were safe in the 1970’s?

Here are just a few of the many complaints filed by consumers in the USA:

“A huge pulse repeat every 10 seconds is interrupting my WIFI, blue tooth and wireless internet. Stay with your original analog meter. I’m so angry. Now my recording studio clients and friends won’t use my facility.”

“I have a separate electricity meter for a water well. For the thirty years I have lived in my house the usage has been the same until after the “smart meter” was installed. There was no change in the usage, but my bill more than tripled.”

“We had a bee colony close to my meter. When my power supplier’s guys came to put in the smart meter, I warned them of it. One told me, ‘Don’t worry, this will get rid of them’.  After a few days, the bees abandoned the nest and never returned.”

It seems that Smart Meters aren't so smart after all!