Subject: Scientists dispute military "raygun" claims (Smith).
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 091602 -0600
From: Roy Beavers
To: guru
--------------------------------------------------
..........From EMF-L........
Always pleased to hear from Dr. Cyril Smith -- one of the early
pioneers in the EMF research field........Now retired
and living in Malta???
Carrots (>) denote original message. Dr. Smith response is in
plain text.....guru.....(Our fellow researchers will be interested
in this.)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Scientists dispute military "raygun" claims
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 10:32:22 +0000
From: cyril.smith@which.net
Reply-To: cyril.smith@which.net
To: Roy Beavers
Roy,
I am sending you this comment on the content of your two notes on the
above topic dated March 7th since it is rare that enough information is
ever made public to allow even back-of-the-envelope calculations. It
also contains enough important environmental considerations to be of
more general concern.
>Claims by U.S. military officials that a new skin-heating weapon
>causes no permanent health problems are
>exaggerated and highly suspect, experts told United Press International
>on Tuesday. Possible long-term
>side-effects could include cancer and cataracts, they said.
If you want to grow cataracts 'in vitro' on bovine eye lenses with
microwave radiation at microwatts/sq.cm. you should make their
modulation satisfy proton NMR conditions in the precise ambient magnetic
field [Smith et. al. in "Modern Bioelectricity" A.A. Marino (Ed.),
Dekker (1988) Chap.4]. We do not know their modulation conditions but,
..........
> Military officials say the device sends brief pulses of electromagnetic
> energy 1/64 inch deep into skin, agitating water molecules in the skin and
> causing thermal agitation, or a feeling of heat. The pain is similar to
> touching a hot light bulb but stops once the waves stop. The idea is to
> generate enough heat on the skin that the individual retreats from the beam.
If the 1/64 inch is the "penetration depth" for the radiation [= 0.4 mm
or 400 microns], this would equate with thickness through the epidermis
and the dermis with its sensory nerve endings. Note that any absorption
is likely to be exponential so, after one penetration depth: 37% (1/exp)
of the incident power density remains. After two penetration depths: 14%
(1/exp squared) remains, and so on. Similarly, 'half-power-beam-width'
only
says that half the power is within the beamwidth, it does not point out
that the other HALF can go anywhere.
Above 10GHz, the dielectric properties of body tissues tend to those of
water. I have some millimetre wave data for water [J.B. Hasted, "Aqueous
Dielectrics", Chapman & Hall (1973)] and from this the following
penetration depths can be estimated with due approximations:
Frequency Penetration Depth
30 GHz 440 microns
45 GHz 420
48 GHz 400 (=1/64")
60 GHz 360
100 GHz 180
This suggests that the 'device' in question will operate in region 30-60
GHz where there is an established technology.
What goes on in the millimetre EM spectrum? There are technical
frequency allocations up to 300 GHz (on my old data); there are
spectral resonance lines including oxygen and carbon monoxide; and water
absorption. Also, I have measured endogenous acupuncture frequencies at
approximately 40 GHz and 300 GHz.
> Military officials have said the weapon does not harm human eyes because
> their intense sensitivity to heat cause victims to immediately close their
> eyes or turn away, supposedly avoiding damaging levels of exposure.
There are some persons unable to feel any heat and pain (syringomyelia).
The eye is not particularly sensitive to radiant heat, hence the need
for protection against cataracts in foundry and glass workers.
> The officials claim to have exposed 72 human civilian and military
> volunteers to 6,500 exposures from the weapon in laboratory conditions.
> "They've tested on volunteers who are probably healthy, but what happens when they aim it at
> pregnant women or children or people who already have a disease that could
> be worsened by exposure?"
The incidence of persons severely hypersensitive to their electrical
environment is of the order of 1/1000.
This survey had small probability of testing even a single one.
> "Other than minor skin tenderness due to repeated exposure to the beam,
> there are no lasting effects," stated a military document.
My interpretation is that this was the thermal effect, all the other
effects
were non-thermal.
> Adey, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a
> distinguished visiting professor of the Royal Society of Medicine, said
> Russian studies conducted some thirty years ago show that microwaves can
> effect white blood cells before the subject feels heat. "The question is
> whether this weapon could include a bundle of non-thermal effects that are
> not related to heating," he said.
Experiments with 42 GHz radiation showed effects within bands only 8 MHz
wide [Grundler et al. in "coherent Excitations in Biological Systems" H.
Frohlich (Ed.) Springer (1983)]. Subsequent experiments with millimetre
waves around 42 GHz and 84 GHz included work on individual cells which
showed that they
reacted in several distinct sub-groups and that there was a phase of the
cell-cycle specific effect.
[Grundler et al. in "Biological Coherence and Response to External
Stimuli" H. Frohlich (Ed.) Springer (1988)]. This reference also
discusses earlier Russian work around 42 GHz.
There have been experiments showing no change in the mean value of the
parameter being investigated, the cell distributions split into two
giving the same mean value overall, the effects were to be seen in the
standard deviations (Frohlich - personal communication).
The important question is not, whether an effect is as reproducible as
the sunrise but, if it can happen even once, what are the implications
for the physics of a biological system?
> Years ago, Soviet researchers used millimeter waves in experiments
> designed to treat diseases including skin disorders, heart disease and
> cancer. Experts said the fact that the waves could have therapeutic benefits
> raises the specter of potential hazards if a human is overexposed.
Most of these bioelectromagnetic effects are bi-phasic (i.e. they can go
both ways).
> Foster said most of the Soviet experiments using millimeter waves were scientifically suspect.
It all depended whom you talked with in the former Soviet Union. While
visiting Moscow (Russia), I could not get anyone to tell me about
millimetre wave therapeutic work already published and ongoing in Kiev
(Ukraine), the researchers were 'persona non grata' in Moscow. Arriving
in Kiev, I found not only the research but saw clinical trials well
underway. The Kiev message was, "Look at the 60GHz oxygen lines, they
all have therapeutic applications".
> According to budget military documents obtained by U.S. News for its July 7
> cover story, the Air Force's Armstrong Laboratory at Brooks Air Force Base in
> San Antonio, Texas, likely will spend $110 million through 2003 to exploit
> less-than-lethal biological effects of electromagnetic radio for Air Force
> security, peace-keeping and war-fighting operations.
Millimetre waves are in a part of the EM spectrum where water absorbs
strongly. What might work in a high altitude desert laboratory would
have little penetration through rain in Seattle, fog in San Francisco,
blizzard in Buffalo or, the British - whole lot together weather. The
real hazard posed by the 'device' might be a scald from a jet of steam!
My own work suggests that the non-thermal effects are highly frequency
specific, intensities (power levels) only appear as thresholds.
There seem to be endogenous frequencies on the acupuncture meridians and
these can
synchronise to external frequencies. If these are able to relax back to
the endogenous value when the
external radiation ceases, there is no problem. If not, there has been
an adaptation within the body which may prevent it from responding
adequately to its environment and which is equivalent to a body load of
a toxic substance. The search for a detailed mechanism for hazardous
non-thermal effects should examine the effects of the millimetre waves
on the tertiary structure of enzymes and the role of water. Enzymes
are highly specific for a particular reaction. The active site of an
enzyme is a highly organised, stereo-specific,
three-dimensional, region of a macromolecule and only one isomeric form
may catalyse a reaction. For example, it has been reported that the
microwave cooker frequency 2.45
GHz alters constituents in milk from L- to D- isomers [Lancet (1989)
9:1392-3]. One way that this might happen is if water hydrogen bonded to
the amino-acid, resonating at 2.45 GHz forced the change in
configuration.It is to be expected that another frequency will perform
the reverse switching operation.
Regards,
Cyril Smith.
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com