DNA is a fractal antenna in electromagnetic fields (2011)

This is 100% snake oil bullshit, right up there with anti-vaxxers and 5G conspiracy theories.<p><i>Even if true</i> that DNA behaves as a &quot;fractal antenna&quot;, which this paper does not establish in any way, the scales are all wrong.<p>The paper itself contains this little table of fractal sizes:<p><pre><code> DNA level Diameter Double helix 1 nm Chromatin fiber 10 nm Solenoid 30 nm Hollow tube 200 nm </code></pre> Notice what it omits? The matching frequencies, which are trivial to compute thanks to the speed of light[1]:<p><pre><code> DNA level Diameter Frequency Type Double helix 1 nm 300,000 THz Soft X-Ray Chromatin fiber 10 nm 30,000 THz Extreme Ultraviolet Solenoid 30 nm 10,000 THz Far Ultraviolet Hollow tube 200 nm 1,500 THz Ultraviolet </code></pre> Then most of the rest of the paper talks about frequencies as low as 60 Hz, which have wavelengths about 25 trillion times longer than the ones in this table!<p>The conclusion -- of course -- is that WiFi which uses 2.4 to 6 GHz is dangerous:<p><i>&gt; The proliferation of mobile phones, WiFi (wireless communication technology), etc. could lead to a large increase in mutations over a very short period of time.</i><p>This isn&#x27;t even remotely science. It&#x27;s a bunch of quacks that got their garbage published in PubMed, which is a low bar. There&#x27;s nothing to see here until it turns up in Nature, and is replicated.<p>Read the paper for yourselves: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sci-hub.se&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.3109&#x2F;09553002.2011.538130" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sci-hub.se&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.3109&#x2F;09553002.2011.538...</a><p>[1] I&#x27;ve ignored the index of refraction of water, because it&#x27;s a small, largely irrelevant difference. We&#x27;re talking orders of magnitude here, and the paper is off by about 15 of them!

The consequence of this would be heating, which is how radiation safety is already established. I&#x27;d be curious to see how the absorption of EM into DNA differs from other tissue (or I guess molecules) more than the specific observation that it can absorb EM over a broad band. That&#x27;s all &quot;fractal antenna&quot; really means in this context (broadband absorbtion and therefore potential for heating), it is not some special feature<p>I remember many years ago there was a bit of a fractal craze, in signal processing and antenna design. The idea for antennas was that self similarity gave a broad resonance because there was always some fractal element that was the right size. In practice I never saw any indications they were better than other antennas.<p>I&#x27;d be much more concerned if DNA had a resonance somewhere in common radio bands where it absorbed a lot of EM, that would be much more likely to be dangerous.

I&#x27;m glad some actual reaearch has been done on this.<p>Reminds me a bit of the far-fetched claim by mystic pseudo-scientist David Wilcock that biological viruses could be transmitted via EMFs.

Yes, a fractal antenna in a bag of salt water. Good luck getting more than 2 or 3 bars with that. :-P