If You are a Cress Seed, Sell Your Smartpone Immediately

Wifi is harmless. Wifi is harmful. We’re not sure if wifi is harmless or harmful yet. Wifi is harmless. Wifi is harmful. We’re not sure if wifi is harmless or harmful yet. Wifi is harmless. Wifi is harmful. We’re not sure if wifi is harmless or harmful yet.

If the above paragraph feels inconclusive and also rather annoying, welcome to the debate about the danger (or lack thereof) of wifi—you know, the thing that’s absolutely everywhere these days.

Some people, like Frank Clegg, who worked at Microsoft for 15 years and was president of Microsoft Canada from 2000 to 2005, is opposed to wireless internet in schools. He calls wifi a “real hazard.” Others disagree vehemently. But what do cress seeds think of things?

Five high school students have caught the attention of foreign researchers after showing that wifi may fervently prohibit the growth of cress seeds. Here’s the experiment breakdown courtesy of C4ST:

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. 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.

 After those 12 days, one room saw the cress seeds grow:

 

cress-unexposed

 

And one room (the one with wifi radiation) saw the cress seeds not grow, and in some cases mutate or die:

 

cress-exposed

 

Now, humans aren’t cress seeds, so fortunately we won’t die 12 days after buying an iPhone, or spending 12 days in the office, or—oh shit—12 days in a hospital (which all have wifi now). And the experiment may or may not have been adequately controlled for temperature, hydration, etc.

Still, it’s food for thought.