Watch out, insects!

Watch out, insects!

Can 5G radiation affect insects? Here’s more evidence that it can.

In a paper published in October, researchers from Belgium and Switzerland speculated that the high frequency carrier waves of 5G networks could be particularly harmful to insects.

‘Current telecommunication networks make use of frequencies of 0.1–6 GHz, while the carrier frequencies for 5G networks can go up to 300 GHz, entering the millimeter-wave frequency range. For these higher frequencies, the wavelength becomes comparable to the body size of insects. When wavelength and body size become of the same order of magnitude, an increase in efficiency of absorption of RF-EMFs in the body is expected,’ they said.

To explore this hypothesis, they created a model of the yellow fever mosquito (A. aegypti) and calculated the amount of radiation that male and female insects would absorb.

They found that absorption increased with frequency, that high absorption occurred between 90 and 240 GHz, and that highest absorption occurred when the wavelength matched the size of the mosquito. This can ‘cause dielectric heating and have an impact on behaviour, development and possibly spread of the insect,’ the authors said.

Mosquitoes are not the only insects to be impacted by wireless radiation. According to the authors, ‘The effects of RF-EMF exposure can have an important impact on insects, they have been investigated experimentally on several insects. Influences were reported on e.g. the development and mating of honeybees (reduced hatching of honey bee queens), behaviour of ants (the locomotion), and the morphology of mealworm beetles during development (abnormalities of appendages).’

De Borre E et al, Radio-frequency exposure of the yellow fever mosquito (A. aegypti) from 2 to 240 GHz. PLoS Comput Biol. 2021 Oct 28;17(10):e1009460. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009460. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34710086, https://journals.plos.org/plos...

Questions and answers – an opportunity

Do you have a question about wireless radiation?

Would you like answers from an international expert on the topic?

Professor Dariusz Leszczynski is a world-recognised authority on electromagnetic radiation and he has kindly agreed to answer some of our readers’ questions.

We’ll be sharing the questions and Professor Lezczynski’s answers in a video blog later this month.

Professor Leszczynski has two doctorates and a docentship in biochemistry, was Research Professor and Head of the Radiation Biology Laboratory at the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) in Finland and spent 18 years conducting experimental work on electromagnetic fields and health. He was a member of the IARC Working Group that classified radiofrequency radiation a class 2B carcinogen.

If you have a question for Professor Leszczynski, please send it to EMR Australia by reply email. Please note, while we’ll do our best to cover as many questions as we can, we can’t guarantee that every question will be answered in the available timespan. We look forward to hearing from you.

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