9th grade student “Cress + WiFi” experiment attracts international attention

Cress expose to WiFi.  Yum?

Foreign researchers are extremely excited for a biology project from five 9th grade girls.

Researchers from England, Holland and Sweden have shown great interest in the five girls’ biology experiments.

Take 400 Cress seeds and place them into 12 trays. Then place six trays in two rooms at the same temperature. Give them the same amount of water and sun over 12 days, and remember to expose half of them to mobile [Wi-Fi] radiation.

It is a recipe for a biology test so brilliant that it has attracted international attention among acknowledged biologists and radiation experts. Behind the experiment are five girls from 9b in Hjallerup School in North Jutland, and it all started because they found it difficult to concentrate during the school day:

“We all think we have experienced difficulty concentrating in school, if we had slept with the phone next to our head, and sometimes also experienced having difficulty sleeping”, explains Lea Nielsen, who is one of the five aspiring researchers.

The school was not equipped to test the effect of mobile phone radiation on them. Therefore, the girls had to find an alternative. And the answer was Cress.

Six trays of seeds were put into a room without radiation, and six trays were put into another room next to two [Wi-Fi] routers. Such routers broadcast the same type of radiation as an ordinary mobile.

Healthy Cress

The “healthy” cress without the influence of the router. Photo: The girls from 9b

Then it was just necessary to wait 12 days, observe, measure, weigh and take pictures along the way. And the result spoke was clear: cress seeds next to the router did not grow, and some of them were even mutated or dead. (emphasis added – Ed.)

“It is truly frightening that there is so much affect, so we were very shocked by the result”, says Lea Nielsen.

Unhealthy Cress

The “sick” cress exposed to the [Wi-Fi] router. Photo: The girls from 9b

Reactions

The experiment secured the girls the finals in the competition “Young Scientists”, but it was only the beginning. Renowned scientists from England, Holland and Sweden have since shown great interest in the girls’ project so far.

From left: Lea Nielsen, Mathilde Nielsen, Signe Nielsen, Sisse Coltau and Rikke Holm. Photo: Kim Horsevad

The renowned professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Olle Johansson, is one of the impressed researchers. He will now repeat the experiment with a Belgian research colleague, Professor Marie-Claire Cammaert at the Université libre de Bruxelles, for the trial, according to him, is absolutely brilliant:

“The girls stayed within the scope of their knowledge, skilfully implemented and developed a very elegant experiment. The wealth of detail and accuracy is exemplary, choosing cress was very intelligent, and I could go on”, he says.

He is not slow to send them an invitation to go on the road:

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

No mobile by the bed

The five girls from northern Jutland have not yet decided their future careers. They are still very surprised by all the sudden attention.

“It has been such a rollercoaster ride. I still cannot believe it”, says Lea Nielsen.

And Mathilde Nielsen added:

“It’s totally overwhelming and exciting. It’s just not something you experience every day”.

But there have also been other consequences of the cress trial, which is quite low-tech in nature.

“None of us sleep with the mobile next to the bed anymore. Either the phone is put far away, or it is put in another room. And the computer is always off”, says Lea Nielsen.

http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2013/05/16/131324.htm (in Danish)

via C4ST – Danish Students Attract International Attention with Cress and Wifi Experiment.

41 Comments
  1. This is wonderful news – not wonderful that it’s so destructive, of course, but that it has been so elegantly and simply illustrated, in a classroom by the very children who were affected by it!

    Do you know when the experiment was done? I ask as it would be very interesting to know how quickly the media at large picks up on this. And where did you hear about it?

    It’s made my day, thank you so much for posting it.

  2. Excellent:- this experiment or similar should be on the Science Curriculum so every school and every 13/14/15 year old child finds out for themselves the effects of wi-fi etc. Far more effective in getting a message across quickly, than boring old lectures by teachers.
    CAN SOMEONE SUGGEST IT TO Mr GOVE ?
    Better still can he be sent an account of this experiment?

  3. I think it would be better to tell as many people by word of mouth and online etc as quickly as possible before the government and IT industry tries to distort or discredit it.

    • I’ve been going around for years telling everyone how dangerous WiFi is, because I have severe reactions to it, but I’ll tell you NOBODY wants to hear about it, and it’s so simple any computer can be hooked up to the internet with a cable and the wireless disabled on the router. And Cell phones come with warnings, but hardly anyone pays attention to that either. Some concrete evidence like this I am grateful for, Thank you!!!

  4. I think it is important to tell as many people about this by word of mouth and online etc as quickly as possible before the government and IT industry tries to distort or discredit it.

  5. It’d be amazing if it were true (in terms of the laws of physics, I mean, rather than people’s expectations). I’d suggest a healthy dose of skepticism for now, unless you’re a this-story-is-too-much-like-what-I-think-to-warrant-further-investigation sort of person.

    It’s way too easy – and far too common – to hastily report claims that fit prejudices. There’s a lot more to science than that. If the results are valid, then they will be easily reproduced by laboratories with a reputation for integrity and accuracy. Be patient.

    • Ah yes, you’re talking about ‘confirmation bias’, a very dangerous state of mind. This experiment, fortunately, couldn’t be easier – so why not give it a try for yourself?

      • I’m not a laboratory with a reputation for integrity and accuracy.

        Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how much of a scientific stir this would cause if it were true. It would be massive. The team that definitively established a result like this would go down in scientific history.

        If anyone were tempted to suggest that no reputable lab in the entire world would bother doing this, or that none would be honest in making their result public, then I’d think they had no idea about what makes scientists tick.

        Do a search for “cress wifi” now and you’ll see that it’s been pounced on by (a) conspiracy theory fruitloops and (b) groups that would benefit from bad publicity for EM radiation. When someone with a reputation for integrity and accuracy, with no vested interest in one outcome or another, takes it on and gets a result, then that would be worth sitting up and taking notice of.

        If I had to bet, I’d lay massive odds on it ever being reproducible. Obviously my opinion doesn’t count for anything, but that’s the reason that I don’t feel personally compelled to go out buying trays of cress. I’m lazy and I’m patient.

        • Perhaps that should read “lay massive odds *against* it ever being reproducible”. I never really understood betting! I think you know what I mean 🙂

          • I said people with no vested interest in one outcome or another. There is no shortage of them.

            The vast majority of science is not funded by any private organisation, and results become established by being reproduced by teams with no connection to one another.

            There’s no need to apply to a phone company for funding to grow cress in a tray.

          • The example was to show you that whilst one independent researcher organisation – on the dollar of big telecom – discovered something that their benefactor would rather hadn’t, the results can be covered up for a very long time. Big Tobacco should serve as maybe the biggest example so far of how finance and influence can buy tenure and silence. The independent scientists, especially those with results that count against the darling of big industry (wireless tech), are hard to hear and even harder to find. If you’re new to this issue, check our health studies page for some links. https://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/resources/resources-scientific-studies-into-the-health-effects-of-emr/

          • Like I said, most science doesn’t rely on benefactors.

            And most scientists are in their line of work to do honest investigations into the way nature works. That’s what they love.

            And most scientists would love to get a result that shows that everything their colleagues thought was true is actually not.

            And most scientists would feel immediately and strongly compelled to go public with any finding that suggested a risk to human health.

            I know it’s very easy to find counterexamples, but think about it for a second. You’d have to be astonishingly misanthropic towards the scientific community as human beings to suggest that every team of researchers in every one of the big, reputable academic research groups throughout the world are all cowering behind corporate compromise. I don’t think that would be a particularly mature view of the world.

            There are people who would do this and who would throw their reputation behind it if it were true.

            Just as there was high profile research by highly-respected academic teams leading to overwhelming consensus regarding the devastating truth about smoking, and just as there has been (for several decades) high profile research by highly-respected academic teams leading to overwhelming consensus regarding the devastating truth of climate change.

            Growing some cress in a tray and being honest about it is not beyond the capabilities of the world’s scientists.

          • We try to remain diffident and intellectually solvent in the face of assured certainty about all points of argument and consensus – especially so with the latter given that the vast majority of people (including many scientists) have never been introduced to concepts which would allow them to objectively validate the contents of their own mind. And we are all still learning.

            If we get around to growing some cress for ourselves, we’ll post the results. Might even use occam’s razor to shave off the cuttings.

    • Are you serious?!

  6. I am very impressed with these young girls for their intelligence and tenacity in applying themselves at such an age. Our future is in good hands – bless you all! Wi-Fi in schools is so widespread here in Australia and our politicians are just not listening to cautionary warnings with parents given no choice in the matter… big mistake:( It is time to Act!

  7. @ Bob D. Thanks for your comments. You raise some very interesting, intelligent points. As someone who gets headaches and sometimes a faint but sharp pain and heat sensation on the back of my crown (and several other weird and unpleasant things) when near mobile phones, I would expect it to be reproducible.

    I have tested myself in a variety of ways over several years to my own satisfaction that my symptoms are not psychosomatic – even though I am aware that stress and anxiety about being surrounded by it in others’ environments can make it harder for me to cope with the symptoms. It doesn’t create the symptoms but I become more agitated obviously, because I know what it is doing and has done to me, in the short and long term.

    if you have an open mind about its reproducibility is that because you’re not aware of any unpleasant body changes, agitation, mental impairment etc. when you yourself are close to wireless tech? And if you did feel changes in your body would you lay different odds?

    Best wishes, Stephanie

    • I’ve never had any experience like that. If I did, perhaps I would lay different odds. I can understand why someone with different experiences might feel differently.

      This is why I’d like to see the research come from a group with a sound reputation and no vested interest in one outcome or another. I don’t doubt stopsmartmeter’s integrity or knowledge base, but it is a campaign promoting one side only. Personally I wouldn’t look to any one-sided source, no matter how well-intentioned and no matter how much it resonated with my own feelings. I think the primary responsibility of all science is to transcend preconceptions and get to the heart of what’s going on. Humans are incredibly good at convincing themselves that they already know what’s going on. It takes blind trials, statistical rigour, and reproducibility by different groups under different conditions to transcend this.

      And it has to be done by people who actually want to transcend it. Many people don’t, and I can sympathise with that. In science, there’s no question. You put your preconceptions aside, do the experiments blind (without knowing which cress is which), factor out every conceivable variation (make sure the temperature, light, moisture, water, other conditions are identical), take the results lots of times, run the statistics, and expose every detail of your method to your colleagues for them to find fault with. It’s not everybody’s idea of fun, but for an inspired scientist, the purity of the process is a really beautiful thing, especially compared to politics! I love the fact that I have to get myself out of the way in order to do science. It’s refreshing.

      Science’s role is to stand away from the human aspect of how people feel about an issue… but of course, how people feel matters too. If people have particular experiences, and if people are personally concerned, then that really matters – in a different way. I’m definitely not in favour of trying to diminish the experiences of anyone.

      But it’s good to see these issues raised. I’d just like to see what the scientists make of it.

      • I see your point, and I admire and respect your ability to be so objective. It’s BECAUSE of the pro wireless tech attitude/ignorance that people who believe in, or have experienced its dangers, turn to this site. But it doesn’t mean that any of us don’t also seek other information that is neither for or against to supplement or check what we already believe, or do not attempt to examine ourselves or our personal motives/agendas, at an intellectual, emotional or spiritual level.

        BTW I personally don’t think that empirical science (which you may be referring to?), IS objective because I don’t think it recognises or seeks to understand the whole Human Being for example – for more on this see Goethe’s study of the plant, and Philosophy of Freedom by Rudolf Steiner which seeks to teach objectivity by observing our own thoughts – pure thought in other words. I say all this in the hope that can take my comments about my experience of EMR from wireless tech seriously.

        I think I am very unusual in being so acutely aware of its effects as they are actually happening, and ironically I believe it is my actual training in objective thinking that has give me this ability to observe myself while I experience them.

        Isn’t it axiomatic that support forums and (most) campaigns are biased in a particular direction?

        • “Isn’t it axiomatic that support forums and (most) campaigns are biased in a particular direction?” – Yes. And I think they’re a good thing (so long as they don’t also deliberately try to distort the science, which most don’t).

          I know nobody’s perfect. (Steiner included.) Hopefully you’d agree that scientists are capable of dealing objectively with a couple of trays of cress. That’s all we need to be on the same side 🙂

          • 🙂 Point taken!

            Actually I think RS was an exceptionally gifted initiate, perfect or not. His suggestions were sought for a renewal of agriculture, education, banking, architecture, medicine… that he could see (100 yrs ago) that we would be SO desperately in need of at this time. We ignore him at our peril!

            His advice regarding economics and a three-fold social order, for example, are behind the principles of Triodos bank, which I have just been told was recently voted the World’s most sustainable bank, out of 67 others. BUT I know I digress, and am finding an excuse to plug him – his indications are widely misunderstood, thanks to slur campaigns by the usual suspects.

  8. One important point to add… I have noticed that (my) susceptibility to symptoms caused by EMR is much greater when I have eaten wheat flour, or a glass of wine, a cigarette, cleaning chemicals etc.

    This is a crucial point because I am certain that EMR works in a dangerous tandem with toxins because EMR inhibits (the production, or is it uptake of?) melatonin, and as you probably know melatonin is needed for a healthy sleep architecture and the very deep sleep needed for recover and prevention of disease caused by toxins.

    Have you seen photos online of blood cells from blood sample taken before and after exposure to EMR? It’s just as weird as the cress experiment.

  9. We can chose when and whether to expose ourselves to chemicals but we can’t chose whether or not to be exposed to EMR.

  10. …ctd. I mean the sort of chemicals I mentioned – not ones such as are in chem trails, petrol, common tap water etc.

    SSM would it be possible to have an edit option (one that times out, after 15 mins or someting)?

  11. They do not mention the distance between the seeds and the router. This is the most important factor. Because of the inverse square law, a very small change in distance has a huge effect on the amount of RF energy that the seeds are exposed to.

    • As it does on all organisms.
      I imagine it was a comparable distance to the distance of the girls from their mobile phones on a daily basis.

  12. It is well known that radiation is one of the causes of cancer,
    eg see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation-induced_cancer. Wifi
    works using microwave radiation, so it can’t do human beings much
    good to be constantly exposed.
    Radiation can destroy cancers (radiation therapy) or it can cause them.
    All proteins have a common molecular formula (Torabizadeh),
    http://www.waset.org/journals/waset/v54/v54-186.pdf
    and radiation tends to knock off protons, disturbing proteins molecular formula. Many are signalling proteins so it is not surprising that with high radiation doses there are other effects like malaise or sleep disturbance.

    • Wiki page says ionising radiation and UV (all higher frequency than visible EM) are well-known causes of cancer. It doesn’t say microwaves, aside from a suggested note of it being unproven in the intro.

      Radiation therapy uses ionising radiation (shorter wavelength than visible EM). Torabizadeh article has nothing to do with radiation. And “knocking electrons off” is a definition of ionising.

      Wifi uses microwaves. Mircrowaves aren’t ionising.

      Here’s the page on non-ionising radiation, if you’re not clear about the difference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation

      • Bob is correct in that microwaves sit in the non-ionising part of the EM spectrum, but don’t be fooled by Wikipedia’s claim that it is ‘unproven’ – this stands against a raft of studies showing otherwise, e.g. the T-Mobile-funded Ecolog Institute review link we provided above shows examples of cancer initiation and promotion, for example. There are many others, including studies showing DNA damage (a known carcinogen) and melatonin disruption (a known oncological agent/cancer inhibitor). There are many, many more issues besides cancer, too (blood-brain-barrier leakage, calcium ion damage, nitric oxide depletion, oxidative stress, endothelial cell dysfunction, etc.).

        Also, the basis for the IARC/WHO’s designation of RF radiation (which is non-ionising) as a Class 2B carcinogen was summed up in one sentence:

        “Positive associations have been observed between exposure to radiofrequency radiation from wireless phones and glioma and acoustic neuroma” (p.421).

        Those associations with brain tumors and tumors of the acoustic nerve were observed by the Interphone study group and Lennart Hardell‘s team in Sweden.

  13. Class 2B sounds high but I think it’s a classification that reflects the debate and burial of the true science behind it, and that once they stick their necks out it will be moved up to 2A.

  14. This is very scary considering that we are moving towards 4G and 5G, with higher and higher frequencies and electromagnetic radiation that kids are being exposed to.

  15. I want to add that Stephanie is not unique – I get the same problems. A mobile phone mast was placed across the road from my bedroom in April 2000. I immediately started having sleep problems. Also 3 years later my mum got breast cancer – maybe coincidence maybe not. She spent most of her time on that side of the house. I now sleep in the bedroom on the far side away from the mast and my sleep is better. I also used to use my mobile phone as an alarm clock, until I found that it too disturbed my sleep so I started switching it off at night, and sleep improved again. I also get headaches if I am working near a WiFi router, so I don’t allow any to be permanently on in my house.

  16. Kudos to the girls but are we adults actually supposed to pretend like the be$$$t scientists don’t already know how deadly these microwaves, etc. are? Hey, if something has killing potential – they’re on it!

    We pretend they know as much as a 9th grader?

    Yeah, and I’m Jeff Foxworthy.

  17. Reproduce-ability? Try the experiment for yourself. If you wonder whether or not it is true, just replicate it. What you don’t have a router? How are you on the internet? Cell phone? Cant you get you some Cress seeds? Forget waiting for the distinguished expert determining if it is true. Find out yourself.

    • I did try this, though I used chia seeds instead of cress seeds. Seeds grew equally well right beside my router as well as 3 rooms away. I was really hoping to reproduce this, maybe cress seeds have some special sensitivity to wifi?

  18. How many times the experiment was repeated ? We’re the rooms exchanged ?

    • GO GO FOR IT, STUDENTS everywhere!!! Change is necessary for controlling EMF excesses at your future expense. Improve your health levels now! GET YOUR SCHOOL Principal( embarass the old dinosaurs into action ) to allow multiple experiments with WIFI versus food and seed growth/ brain effects/ headache effects / concentration abilities… To all new teachers, science teachers,( expand into the math , biology, physics, chemistry, environmental aspects of WIFI at schools and at home. Wake up a few university students, science professors and go for more comprehensive experimentation for credits, theses and public awareness. Use more variety of seeds too, like sprouts….alphalfa, sunflower seeds, radishes, tomato seeds mung beans ….. ESPECIALLY IN GRADE 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 , 10. Be the grade in your school that makes this happen again …..
      sencerely from a retired educator

      • I hope the electromagnetic effects from cell phones, tablets, iphones, smart meters are also studied and experimented with by several grade levels and universities and colleges in Canada, U.S., Britain, France, Japan, etc. There are so many possibiloities to show/ prove detrimental effects which telecom companies are seemingly ignoring.
        Sincerely, retired educator again

  19. Brilliant! Now, hopefully, teachers, councillors and school governers in my area will sit up and take note of what I’ve been saying these past years. Instead of ignoring me.