Wednesday, October 17, 2012

17 October - News Picks

English: Three different Dielectric interfaces, demonstrating the use of dielectric shaders. Français : Trois interfaces diélectriques, montrant l'utilisation des Shaders diélectriques. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Wrath of Putin

Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the richest man in Russia when he dared confront then president Vladimir Putin, criticizing state corruption at a meeting with Putin in February 2003. Arrested that fall, then convicted in two Kafka-esque trials, Khodorkovsky has been imprisoned ever since, the once powerful oligarch now an invisible hero for the growing opposition to Putin’s tyranny.

The Moscow Signal

In Chapter 3 (The Cover-up Begins), Brodeur wrote,”By the late 1950s, virtually all the investigations into the biological effects of microwaves were being either conducted or financed by the Department of Defense, which had assigned the Air Force the responsibility of developing a program of coordinated research in the three [armed] branches…known as the Tri-Service Program…Therefore the task..was validating the ten-milliwatt level that had already been adopted..as a theoretically safe level of continuous whole-body exposure to microwaves…[p32]…As for nonthernal, or low-level, effects upon human beings..it was virtually ignored during the Tri-Service Program. On..occasion..it was treated as a joke…[p33] One was a study..at the Naval Medical Research Institute [that] reported..testicular damage resulting in temporary sterility..in test animals exposed to power densities of only five milliwatts per square centimeter. Another was an animal study by Russell L. Carpenter..whose findings not only suggested that pulsed microwaves, such as those used in radar, might have a nonthermal effect in producing cataracts, but also..that cataracts might occur through the cumulative effect of repeated exposures to low-level microwave[s].

“By the time of the fourth and final Tri-Service conference which was held in New York in August 1960, it was apparent that the military-industrial complex had developed almost complete immunity to any information that might place the ten milliwatt level in question. By then, it was known that the power of microwave-radiating equipment, which had risen within the previous twenty years from average outputs of ten watts to almost a million watts, would soon be increased to meet the demands of the space age.”[p34]

“Over the next few years [after 1962]..it became apparent that the Russians had based their standard primariliy on the effects of low-level microwave radiation on the central nervous system, which they had observed in the course of many large-scale, long-term clinical investigations of workers… [It] turned out that the Russians had recognized unusual effects of radio-frequency energy on the human central nervous system as early as 1933 and had been studying the problem ever since. [p35]

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“It is well known that electromagnetic fields cause mechanical forces. If one applies an electrical field to a suspension of microscopic particles [i.e. metal colloids, metallorganic compounds, biological cell contents], these particles realign themselves along the direction of the field and form pearl-chain-like aggregates. These chains are mostly single stranded but they are frequently multistranded. This phenomenon has been investigated by a number of groups. Here we discuss the dependence of threshold field strength on particle size and frequency. Also, pulsed fields have been thought to be more effective than continuous fields of the same average power in evoking biological effects.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1435134/

“Molecular rotation occurs in materials containing polar molecules having an electrical dipole moment, with the consequence that they will align themselves in an electromagnetic field. If the field is oscillating, as it is in an electromagnetic wave or in a rapidly-oscillating electric field, these molecules rotate continuously aligning with it. This is called dipole rotation. As the field alternates, the molecules reverse direction. Rotating molecules push, pull, and collide with other molecules…” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating

“Dielectrophoresis (or DEP) is a phenomenon in which a force is exerted on a dielectric particle when it is subjected to a non-uniform electric field… ” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectrophoresis; Dielectric materials are those which polarize in the presence of an electric field.

“…fields of a particular frequency can manipulate particles with great selectivity. This has allowed, for example, the separation of cells or the orientation and manipulation of nanoparticles… Although the phenomenon we now call dielectrophoresis was described in passing as far back as the early 20th century, it was only subject to serious study, named and first understood by Herbert Pohl in the 1950s… biological cells have dielectric properties…”