- As five G technology begins to get implemented
all around the world,
there's a lot of confusion and concern over what it is,
how it works, and if it's even safe.
So today we're gonna go over all aspects of five G.
We have our friend and tech expert MKBHD
who's gonna explain why people are so excited
about this technology.
And then we're gonna take the science angle
about how it actually works, what it does to your body
and most importantly,
what the science says on whether or not it's safe.
- We have looked at hundreds of scientific papers
and journals in order to decipher the truth about five G
and yes, we will be jumping
into some of the conspiracy theories and claims,
so stick around for the end of the video when we do that
'cause they are pretty wild.
But first, we're gonna throw it to our friend, MKBHD,
to tell us about what's going on with five G tech right now.
- Hey, what's up guys?
I'm MKBHD here.
So five G technology or the fifth generation
of these data networks has been getting a lot of hype
and it's been talked about a lot
and it's been slowly rolled out over the past year or two,
and getting insane speeds on some phones.
So the wavelengths used for five G technologies
can be split into three different sections.
There is low-band five G,
which is frequencies below about one gigahertz.
Then there is what we call mid-band five G,
which is slight above that,
which is faster but travels a shorter distance.
And then there's millimeter wave,
which is talked about the most,
which can give you the fastest speeds
and uses the highest frequencies
but travels the shortest distance.
And so with five G now we're talking about download speeds
of anywhere from 50 megabytes per second,
all the way up to those crazy millimeter wave speeds
you might have seen of like two gigabytes per second,
which is insane, I mean, that's we're talking like
a whole TV show season downloads in seconds,
so download speeds are nice
but this five G tech will be useful
for far more than just your phone.
So having these high end speeds
and low latency in the future will be essential
for things like fleets of driverless cars
all driving as a swarm and all talking,
communicating with each other to never crash,
all the way to things like a robot
and a surgeon in two different states
but that surgery being performed remotely in real time.
So I had the chance to use some early five G,
it was millimeter wave, and it was really impressive
but you could tell it has a long way to go
before it can be used and rolled out to the world.
For starters, it doesn't travel very far
and it's very easily blocked by obstacles,
that stuff I talked about in my video.
So it would take a lot of nodes and a lot of antennas
just to cover a small area like a town,
let alone a country or the entire globe,
and that would be expensive and time consuming.
But even the low to mid-band five G can still be impressive
in terms of improvement in speed.
So there's a lot going on
but it is a pretty exciting future of five G
if I say so myself,
but with that comes a lot of fears and concerns
about the potential effects of these new frequencies
on our biology and on our health.
So for that, I'll throw it back to Greg and Mitch
to talk through the science of it all.
- So how does five G work?
In order to fully understand five G
we actually have to learn about one of my favorite things,
which is the electromagnetic spectrum.
And this is a spectrum of radiation.
So yes, we will be talking today about radiation.
So it does sound scary,
but it's important that we know that radiation
is just the transmission of energy
through waves or particles.
On the left of the spectrum we have really long wavelengths,
some as long as thousands of kilometers
and as we move to the right, they get shorter and shorter
to even a fraction of the size of an atomic nucleus.
Now a wavelength size is measured from peak to peak,
or trough to trough.
Basically, the distance over which the wave shape repeats
or the size of this literal tattoo on my arm
because yes, I do love the electromagnetic spectrum.
As the wavelengths become shorter and shorter,
they have higher frequencies and energy.
Frequency describes the number of waves
that pass a fixed place in a given amount of time,
and is usually measured in hertz each set.
So a low frequency will fit less wavelengths
and a high frequency more.
- Take gamma rays, for example,
which can be 10 to the power of minus 12 meters,
which is 0.000000000001 meters.
I hope I got the right amount of zeros.
And they're generated by radioactive atoms
and nuclear explosions.
And these gamma rays along with X-rays
and higher energy UV radiation can damage DNA
and destroy cells, also known as being ionizing.
Yeah, that's scary.
As we move back to the left,
the wavelengths get longer and have less and less energy
and are no longer ionizing.
This part of the spectrum is the wavelength size
that the cells in your eyes evolved to see,
otherwise known as visible light.
Every single wavelength your eyes pick up
fall within 400 to 700 nanometers.
If we keep moving left,
we go through microwaves and radio waves,
which are also called radio frequency radiation.
This low energy, low frequency radiation
has been used in technology like radios
since the late 1800s,
but it wasn't until the 1980s
that the first generation of cellular technology
or one G began.
- This next chart is from NASA, ever heard of her?
She's famous and it breaks down all the generations
of cellular technology frequencies.
One G cellular attack, we're talking in the 1980s,
used 150 megahertz aka UHF, ultra high frequency waves.
Two G was using around 450 megahertz,
more ultra high frequency waves.
Three G was allocated frequencies between 450 megahertz
all the way up to three gigahertz.
This was in the spectrum known as super high frequencies.
Four G was allocated similar frequencies to three G
but was taking advantage of some of those higher frequencies
which takes us now to five G,
which is allocated between 600 megahertz
to as high as between 38 to 90 gigahertz.
So it is also using a super high frequency section
but for the first time in cellular network technology,
it's moved into the extra high frequency section
with millimeter wavelength technology
leaving the radio wave section
in this graph and chart that we saw earlier
to the section of now microwaves.
Of course, none of these words
help make any of this sounds,
radiation, super high frequencies,
extra high frequencies, microwaves.
Thankfully, the electromagnetic spectrum
is regulated to keep us all healthy.
An important regulating body in all of this
is the International Commission
of Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection,
which is essentially a conglomeration of epidemiologists,
biologists and physicists
and people who understand this technology very deeply,
who take all the most up-to-date science
and make sure they understand
and regulate what this radiation is doing to all of us.
It's also important to note that this regulating body
isn't connected to any one government
or a country or commercial corporation.
- Which leads to the big question,
how do five G waves affect us?
We know that five G frequencies are not ionizing radiation,
but should we be worried
about them impacting our body in other ways?
After decades of research on health effects,
the ICNIRP found the only substantiated effect
of radio frequency exposure is heating of exposed tissue.
These wavelengths can cause vibration
of charged or polar molecules inside of us,
which creates friction and thus heat.
But the higher the frequency,
the lower the penetrative depth in the body,
which might seem a little unnerving
and I think it's fair to have concern
because technically there is a thermal threshold
that if we pass can cause adverse health effects on us.
But that's why all these regulating bodies are there
to make sure that our exposure
never goes over that threshold.
In fact, acute and long term effects
of radio frequency exposure below the thermal threshold
have been studied extensively
without demonstrating adverse health effects.
Research has even been done on headaches, sleep quality,
cognitive function, etc, and has shown no issues.
One other thing that was found
was a small effect on brain activity when measured by EEGs,
but the biological implication of what that means
is pretty small
and they haven't actually seen any negative effects
associated to this brain activity.
- So why do some people say that five G can cause cancer?
There are a few studies that often get quoted.
And one, lab rats and mice
were exposed to radio frequency energy used in cell phones
for nine hours a day starting before birth
and for two years after,
and found an increased risk of some types of tumors
in the male rats.
But the male rats exposed to the radio frequency radiation
actually ended up living longer than the other rats,
and the female rats and all of mice in the experiment
didn't have an increase in tumors at all.
Some other epidemiological studies
have found a small increase in some brain tumors
in people who are heavy users of cell phones,
but it was actually found that there were reporting biases
and weaknesses in these studies.
Also it's important to remember
that these studies are on cellphone use.
So they're actually talking about three G,
four G and five G frequencies.
The consensus among scientists
is that five G technology will not cause cancer
but it is very confusing to figure out this information
when you are looking online.
For example, even this article in "Scientific American"
would make you worried that cell phones
and five G could cause cancer
even though the studies are not corroborated
and some of it's claims
are just opposite of what the study actually says.
This happens a lot with scientific information
that gets cherry-picked to mislead people.
Read "Scientific American" a week later
and you get most of the prior articles information debunked,
but both of these articles
are from seemingly scientifically accurate sources.
So it can be very confusing,
no shade, I guess, to "Scientific American".
At the end of the day what it comes down to
is scientists looking at large trials
with large sample sizes and controlling variables.
One very large 13 countrywide study
found that there was no causal relationship
between brain tumors and cell phone use.
And another really great Danish study, large study,
I sound like Trump right now,
great, huge and large study (laughs)
also found that there was no link.
- Okay, so let's talk about the conspiracies.
First, we'll address the elephant in the room,
the new online theory that five G causes coronavirus.
So this one is relatively easy to debunk,
five G technology cannot break chemical bonds
which is a common claim that conspiracy theorists use.
On top of the fact that viruses are visible
we can literally see that they physically exist,
we can study them, we can look at their literal DNA.
So ultimately,
just know that five G does not cause coronavirus
- Is five G bad for birds?
This study is quoted often
to explain how the electromagnetic noise of five G
can disrupt the migration of birds.
But these researchers actually found
that it is longer wavelengths,
more like similar to AM radio type wavelengths
that were actually affecting migrating birds.
And they have actually come out and tried to speak openly,
trying to explain that their research
is getting cherry-picked
to try and say something about five G
that they never said.
- There's the new British 20 pound note
show coronavirus and five G.
These conspiracy theories have been popping up
stating that the 20 pound note has a five G tower
giving off radiation and the coronavirus is above.
This is actually an image of the Margate Lighthouse
and behind it is the new Turner Contemporary art gallery.
The purple foil patch is based on the staircase
at the Tate Modern.
With now off the science territory though,
so let's get back on track,
if you are interested in conspiracy theories
and the science behind why they work so well,
we actually have a video we made all about that,
we'll link it in the description.
So to recap, one, five G technology uses wavelengths
within the super high and extra high frequency spectrum.
Two, these fall into the category of non-ionizing radiation,
meaning they can't damage DNA or destroy cells.
Three, five G does have the capacity to heat-exposed tissue,
but due to regulation will remain below the threshold
known to cause any damage.
Four, the current scientific consensus
is that five G does not show adverse impacts on health,
like headaches, sleep, cognitive function or cancer.
And five, five G has nothing to do with coronavirus,
- The newly published guidelines about regulating five G,
I'm gonna link in the description below
so that you can read them yourself.
Now this doesn't mean that we shouldn't be skeptical
of technological advances.
I mean, honestly we did all this research
and made this video because we were skeptical ourselves.
I do think it is important that we continue to regulate
and understand how all of these technologies
that are gonna be used around us work.
But at the end of the day we also need to listen to science
and to listen to the scientific consensus
in order to guide our knowledge,
- We talked more about five G and conspiracy theories
in our newest podcast with a Harvard professor
who studies disinformation campaigns and conspiracies,
so definitely click that and check it out.
- It's fascinating,
it's really a good way to understand
how these conspiracy theories are spreading.
But if you haven't subscribed,
make sure you've done that, right?
What else can they use?
Subscribe to our email thread.
- Yeah we've got a mailing list, yeah.
This 30-year old calls it an email thread.
(laughs)
But otherwise, thank you for watching, like it,
subscribe, do all the things if you like science videos
and we'll see you next time. - (mumbles) Okay thanks.
(laughs)