Induction Hobs

What levels of exposure do induction hobs produce — and should current safety standards be revisited? A recent study takes a closer look at these questions.

Extremely Low Frequency Magnetic Fields (ELF-MF) Exposure: Insights from Switzerland’s Strict Limit

Read about: 

• The Loizeau study measured ELF-MF in public areas, transport settings, and homes near power lines and transformers (Environ Int., 2024;194:109181)

• Switzerland’s strict national limits for electromagnetic fields from power lines and electrical devices. 

Combined Exposure to RF-EMF and Chemical Carcinogens

The Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) continues to support further research into possible increased cancer risks following combined exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) and chemical carcinogens.

Spotlight – Sep/2025 No.1 (Eng), Competence Centre for Electromagnetic Fields (KEMF)
Citation: urn:nbn:de:0221-2025090854656

The GSMA – Representing the Mobile Industry

In the EMFSA October 2025 Newsletter, we highlight the 14th GSMA EMF Forum that took place on 30 September 2025. Of specific interest is the presentation by Dr. Emilie van Deventer and Dr. Jos Verbeek on the WHO’s ongoing systematic reviews on RF-EMF health effects, evaluating potential risks, including cancer, from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields.

Alternative Perspective on WHO EMF Reviews

An ongoing debate in the scientific community questions how EMF evidence is evaluated. Scientists and activist groups have highlighted potential issues in the WHO’s systematic reviews on RF-EMF health effects, including study selection, methodology, and possible author bias.

Insects and Pollinators

The 49th Apimondia Conference is the world’s largest beekeeping event. It brings together beekeepers, scientists, honey traders, manufacturers, and policymakers. Participants exchange knowledge, showcase innovations, and discuss scientific advances shaping the future of apiculture.

“Chernobyl Black Frogs”

Mortazavi S, Rabiee S, Fallah A, et al. Adaptive Responses in High-Radiation Environments: Insights From Chernobyl Wildlife and Ramsar Residents. Dose-Response. 2025;23(4) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15593258251385632

Why have these frogs developed darker pigmentation?
Why is this important for evolutionary biology, radiobiology, and public health?

Full newsletter https://mailchi.mp/emfsa/emfsa-october-2025-newsletter

Further reading: Radiofrequency radiation and metal containing nanoparticles https://www.emfsa.co.za/research-and-studies/radiofrequency-radiation-and-metal-containing-nanoparticles/

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The United Nations’ Office of Outer Space Affairs is considering issues of light pollution spanning from streetlights to satellites.

BY: MONICA YOUNG OCTOBER 22, 2021

The statistics are stunning: More than 80% of the world’s population (and more than 99% of those in the U.S. and Europe) live under light-polluted skies. Most people can’t see the Milky Way. All this artificial sky glow has real impacts, affecting everything from insect reproduction to bird migration to crop yields to human health. Yet over the last 25 years, light pollution has only increased, by at least 50% overall — and in some areas, it’s up 400%.

More recently, the problem of light pollution has expanded in an unexpected way. The growing number of artificial satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO) are increasingly adding moving lights, glints, and even diffuse glow to the night sky. Over the past two years, the number of active and defunct satellites has doubled, to a total of about 5,000 as of March 30, 2021. And companies have filed to launch tens of thousands more into orbit within the decade. While astronomers have always traveled away from civilization to reach darker skies, now satellites will streak across the fields of view of even the most rural telescopes.

Astronomers are engaging with satellite companies, such as in two conferences dubbed SATCON1 and SATCON2, which took place in the summers of 2020 and 2021, respectively. But the challenges facing satellite operators and astronomers alike are daunting.

Now, to bring the issue to a higher level — and address ground-based and space-based lights in one fell swoop — these issues are going to the United Nations. Astronomers, dark-sky advocates, industry representatives, and members of the UN’s Office for Outer Space Affairs took part in the Dark and Quiet Skies for Science and Society workshop on October 3–7, 2021. (The conference was virtual, not because of COVID-19 but because of an active volcano in La Palma, Spain, which was where the workshop was to have taken place.)

ARTIFICIAL LIGHTS AT NIGHT

Reducing light pollution doesn’t have to mean eliminating lights; outdoor lighting just needs to be directed where it is needed, when it is needed. And critically, any outdoor lights should be amber-colored, rather than the white/blue LEDs that disrupt the circadian rhythms of humans and wildlife alike.

Simple enough, right? So why aren’t we doing these things? Some individual cities have instituted dark-sky lighting ordinances. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, did so recently, and Tucson and Flagstaff in Arizona have and continue to implement even stricter measures in place, in part to protect nearby observatories. Representatives from Morocco and China gave updates during the conference on dark-sky efforts, and Andreas Hänel (Dark Sky Germany) reported that his country has particularly strong participation in dark-sky measures.

While such grass roots actions are difficult to implement and unevenly distributed, they also provide crucial examples to guide broader policies. “You want best practices that can be applied internationally, unilaterally, for all satellites,” suggested space diplomat Peter Martinez. “Use the outcomes of bottom-up efforts as inputs to move toward a set of international guidelines that could be adopted by the UN General Assembly.”

However, the secretary of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses for Outer Space (COPUOS), Niklas Hedman, cautioned that the committee might not consider ground-based light pollution as part of their purview. “We have to be careful so COPUOS doesn’t dismiss it,” he said at a final roundtable.

Read more at: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/taking-dark-skies-to-the-united-nations/

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Synopsis

The use of artificial light at night (ALAN) is increasing exponentially worldwide and there is growing evidence that ALAN contributes to the decline of insect populations. One of the most conspicuous ecological effects is the strong attraction of ALAN to flying insects. In several studies, light sources with strong short-wavelength emissions have been shown to attract the highest numbers of flying insects. Furthermore, flying stages of aquatic insects are reported to be more vulnerable to ALAN than flying stages of terrestrial insects. This is concerning because freshwater habitats are likely affected by ALAN that originates from human activity centers, which are typically close to sources of freshwater. However, the effects of ALAN on aquatic insects, which spend their larval phase (amphibiotic insects) or their whole life cycle (fully aquatic insects) in freshwaters, are entirely understudied. Here, we investigated the phototaxis of aquatic insects to ALAN at different wavelengths and intensities. We used floating light traps and compared four, near-monochromatic, lights (blue, green, red, and yellow) at two different photopic light intensities in a ditch system, which was not exposed to ALAN previously. Similar to flying stages of (aquatic and terrestrial) insects, we found a strong positive phototaxis of aquatic life stages. However, in contrast to the flying stages, there is no clear preference for short-wavelength light. Overall, responsivity to wavelengths in the center of the visible range (green, yellow; 500–600 nm) was significant for all orders of aquatic insects studied, and the nymphs of Ephemeroptera did not respond to blue light at all. This is likely an adaption to how light is attenuated in freshwater systems, where not only the water itself but also a variety of optical constituents act as a color filter, often like in our case filtering out short-wavelength light. Therefore, insects living in freshwater bodies often live in longer wavelength-dominated environments and might therefore be especially sensitive to green/yellow light. In conclusion, the different spectral sensitivities of both aquatic and flying insects should be taken into account when planning lighting near freshwater.

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by Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (FVB)

Light pollution—too much artificial light in the wrong place at the wrong time is one reason for the decline in insect numbers worldwide. New research from the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) shows that current strategies for reducing the impact of light pollution do not go far enough in protecting aquatic insect species.

Most people are familiar with the sight of insects swarming around a streetlight at night. This well-known phenomenon shows one of the most severe ecological effects of artificial light at night—disruption of nocturnal insect location and behavior. Such is the attraction of artificial light to nocturnal insects, that the light acts like a “vaccuum cleaner,” drawing insects away from their regular habitat and out of their usual behavioral cycles. The effect not only disrupts the insects’ behavior and distribution, but has knock-on effects on the ecosystems in which they play a vital part. For example, nocturnal insects play an important role as pollinators. The recent German “Insect Protection Act” (Federal Nature Conservation Act) has anchored the implementation of insect-friendly lighting as a crucial strategy for biodiversity protection.

Insects and larvae are also attracted to light under water

In numerous studies, Dr. Franz Hölker’s team has been able to show the influence of artificial light on flying and ground-dwelling insects. Now the researchers have investigated the effect on aquatic insects and insect larvae. Inland waters are particularly affected by light pollution as the shores of rivers and lakes are often densely built-up and brightly lit at night.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2021-09-aquatic-insects-sensitive-pollution.html

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By Elizabeth Pennisi May. 4, 2021

Each summer, on bridges across the world, mayfly massacres occur. First, warm weather prompts the transformation of the insects’ aquatic larvae. Within hours, the short-lived, flying adults pop out of streams, rivers, and lakes, eager to mate and lay eggs by the millions.

But bridges illuminated with artificial light can lure the newly emerged adults away from the water to a futile death before breeding. Others, fooled by the sheen of reflective pavement, drop their eggs on the bridge road instead of the water. Because mayflies control the growth of algae and are food for fish, the fate of these humble insects may reverberate through ecosystems, says Ádám Egri, a biological physicist at the Centre for Ecological Research in Budapest, Hungary, who is working to save endangered mayflies there.

Mayflies aren’t alone in their fatal attraction to what researchers refer to as ALAN: artificial light at night. Studies from around the globe are finding worrisome impacts on insect mating and abundance, says Stéphanie Vaz, an entomologist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s main campus. In the past year, researchers have published the first experimental and regional studies of the problem, and in March, Insect Conservation and Diversity devoted a special issue to the topic.

Some researchers think brighter nights may be a factor in recently documented insect declines, says Stephen Ferguson, a physiological ecologist at the College of Wooster. With insect numbers dropping by 80% in some places and 40% of insect species headed for extinction by some estimates, “Some researchers have started to make more noise about the ‘insect apocalypse,’” Ferguson says. “ALAN is almost certainly one of the drivers.”

Read more at

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/can-scientists-help-insects-survive-their-fatal-attraction-light-night

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On top of pesticides and habitat loss, increased exposure to electromagnetic radiation is “probably having a negative impact on the insect world”, according to the study presented in Stuttgart, which is yet to be peer reviewed.

The analysis of 190 scientific studies was carried out by Germany’s Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) together with two NGOs, one from Germany and one from Luxembourg.

Of the 83 studies deemed scientifically relevant, 72 showed that radiation had a negative effect on bees, wasps and flies.

These effects ranged from a reduced ability to navigate due to the disturbance of magnetic fields to damage to genetic material and larvae.

Mobile phone and Wi-Fi radiation in particular opens the calcium channels in certain cells, meaning they absorb more calcium ions.

Snippet:

Peter Hensinger of the German consumer protection organisation Diagnose Funk said closer attention must be paid to the possible negative effects of radiation on both animals and humans, particularly with regard to the introduction of 5G technology.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2020-09-mobile-insects-german.html

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Abstract

Radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) can be absorbed in all living organisms, including Western Honey Bees (Apis Mellifera). This is an ecologically and economically important global insect species that is continuously exposed to environmental RF-EMFs. This exposure is studied numerically and experimentally in this manuscript. To this aim, numerical simulations using honey bee models, obtained using micro-CT scanning, were implemented to determine RF absorbed power as a function of frequency in the 0.6 to 120 GHz range. Five different models of honey bees were obtained and simulated: two workers, a drone, a larva, and a queen. The simulations were combined with in-situ measurements of environmental RF-EMF exposure near beehives in Belgium in order to estimate realistic exposure and absorbed power values for honey bees. Our analysis shows that a relatively small shift of 10% of environmental incident power density from frequencies below 3 GHz to higher frequencies will lead to a relative increase in absorbed power of a factor higher than 3.

Strengths and limitations

This manuscript presents several contributions to the state of the art in the field of RF-EMF exposure assessment of insects. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the only paper where a numerical RF dosimetry is presented for different developmental stages of honey bees. Second, this is the only study that combined real, in-situ exposure measurements with numerical simulations of RF-EMF exposure of insects in order to estimate a realistic exposure of honey bees. In comparison to our previous study¹¹, we considered a broader frequency range from 0.6 GHz up to 120 GHz, which is more in line with the frequencies used in the current telecommunication networks (3 G and 4 G). Finally, this study presents a unique quantification of real-life exposure of honey bees and estimations of how this might change if future frequency shifts in that exposure might occur.

A disadvantage of this study is that we did not executed dielectric and thermal measurements in order to obtain dielectric and thermal properties of the studied honey bees. We obtained dielectric properties from literature and were able to execute electromagnetic simulations. We did not perform thermal simulations in this study. Another disadvantage is that we modeled far-field exposure by a limited number of plane waves, while previous studies have shown that a large set of plane waves is necessary to properly model far-field exposure²⁶. We did execute a validation of our exposure set up by comparing it with a set of random plane wave exposures and found good correspondence, certainly close to the mean/median. Finally, we used FDTD simulations that are faced with uncertainties²⁹ and used models that have a limited spatial resolution. This is a disadvantage of any RF-EMF simulation study in comparison to a study that relies on measurements of real insects.

Future research

Our future research will focus on executing exposure measurements of insects in order to validate the RF-EMF P_abs values and the dielectric parameters. Additionally, we would like to execute thermal simulations of honey bees and other insects under RF-EMF exposure. Finally, we aim to work on the development of more insect phantoms, with more spatial accuracy and potentially several independently identified tissues.

Conclusions

Exposure of Western Honey Bees (apis mellifera) to radio-frequency (RF) electromagnetic fields was studied using a combination of in-situ exposure measurements near bee hives in Belgium and numerical simulations. The simulations use the finite-difference time-domain technique to determine the electromagnetic fields in and around five honey bee models exposed to plane waves at frequencies from 0.6 GHz up to 120 GHz. These simulations lead to a quantification of the whole-body averaged absorbed radio-frequency power (P_abs) as a function of frequency. The average P_abs increases by factors 16 to 121, depending on the considered phantom, when the frequency is increased from 0.6 GHz to 6 GHz for a fixed incident electric field strength. A relatively small decrease in P_abs is observed for all studied honey bees between 12 and 120 GHz. RF exposure measurements were executed on ten sites near five different locations with bee hives in Belgium. These measurements resulted in an average total incident RF field strength of 0.06 V/m, which was in excellent agreement with literature. This value was used to assess P_abs for those honey bees at those measurement sites. A realistic P_abs is estimated to be between 0.1 and 0.7 nW for the studied honey bee models. Assuming that 10% of the incident power density would shift to frequencies higher than 3 GHz would lead to an increase of this absorption between 390–570%. Such a shift in frequencies is expected in future networks.

From the study:

RF EMFs can be absorbed and can cause dielectric heating in insects and (ii) this absorption of RF-EMFs is frequency dependent. This frequency dependency is important since 5th generation (5 G) networks are expected to partially operate at higher frequencies (up to 300 GHz)12,13. This shift might induce a change in RF EMF absorption for insects11.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-56948-0?fbclid=IwAR1KtHib8TmsFJrKGJUmfD2EHCwh_UxTXBIIGp4I3FXQgC4_GlbOJmMmyHg

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Abstract

The introduction of the fifth generation (5G) of wireless communication will increase the number of high-frequency-powered base stations and other devices. The question is if such higher frequencies (in this review, 6–100 GHz, millimeter waves, MMW) can have a health impact. This review analyzed 94 relevant publications performing in vivo or in vitro investigations. Each study was characterized for: study type (in vivo, in vitro), biological material (species, cell type, etc.), biological endpoint, exposure (frequency, exposure duration, power density), results, and certain quality criteria. Eighty percent of the in vivo studies showed responses to exposure, while 58% of the in vitro studies demonstrated effects. The responses affected all biological endpoints studied. There was no consistent relationship between power density, exposure duration, or frequency, and exposure effects. The available studies do not provide adequate and sufficient information for a meaningful safety assessment, or for the question about non-thermal effects. There is a need for research regarding local heat developments on small surfaces, e.g., skin or the eye, and on any environmental impact. Our quality analysis shows that for future studies to be useful for safety assessment, design and implementation need to be significantly improved.

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The post German Federal Office for Radiation Protection-Focus on Possible Influence of Electromagnetic Fields on Plants and Animals appeared first on EMFSA.

Professor Dariusz Leszczynski is one of the world’s leading figures on the impact of radio frequency emissions, and was one of 30 experts who made up the International Agency for Research on Cancer/World Health Organisation 2011 evaluation group that classified all radiofrequency emissions – including parts of 5G – as potential carcinogens.

Re – posted from:

We, the People… are driving insects to extinction…

Excerpts:

Decision-makers have knowledge, but do they have “courage” to act? Time will show.

The 5G radiation exposures, either alone or in combination with other insect-depleting factors presented in the article published in the Biological Conservation, might (will) potentiate the insect-killing properties of our environment.

It is time to act. It is not possible to rely solely on the self-regulation of the telecom industry by itself or by ICNIRP and ICNIRP’s front organization – the WHO EMF Project.

In a recent opinion article published in the Huffington Post, Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, co-author of the study, stated the following about the rapidity of the disappearance of the insects:

• “It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none“.

• “If insect species losses cannot be halted, this will have catastrophic consequences for both the planet’s ecosystems and for the survival of mankind“

HuffPost article also reminds what opinion scientists expressed in November 2018 for the New York Times about the world without insects in article entitled “The Insect Apocalypse Is Here. What does it mean for the rest of life on Earth?“:

Man-made Armageddon with the 5G involvement? It is not scaremongering. It is a possibility, if we do not act now.

The to-date gathered information on biological and health effects of 1G – 5G mobile communication devices suggests that there are sufficient grounds for implementation of the Precautionary Principle, as specified by the European Union. While deployment of new technologies needs to continue, it is necessary to determine whether everything and everywhere needs to be wireless. Especially, the use of optic fiber technology should be considered, whenever possible and feasible, as a reliable replacement for the wireless technology.

Note by EMFSA:

Eklipse EMR Conference

Electromagnetic radiation from power lines and phone masts poses ‘credible’ threat to wildlife, report finds

Planetary electromagnetic pollution: it is time to assess its impact

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