such EMFs is the detection of the fields by the CNS and the subsequent adaptive activation of the
organism's various physiological systems. Only when the organism's compensatory mechanisms are
exhausted -when the EMFs are present too long, or at too high a strength, or when other factors are
simultaneously present- do the effects become irreversible.
The cellular and molecular mechanism underlying the CNS's detection of applied EMFs are (for
the most part) unstudied, and hence unknown. As we have shown in chapter 1 the study of bioelectrical
phenomena has had a complex history involving many scientific, political, and economic factors. This
combined with, ironically, the great intellectual triumphs of early twentieth century physics, produced a
scientific Procrustean Bed1 regarding the biological effects of EMFs. The Bed consisted of an almost
exclusive emphasis on the role of dipole orientation and heat-production as the molecular mechanisms
for bioelectrical phenomena. Commonly, reports of biological effects were stretched to fit the Bed: the
notion of "strong" and "weak" EMFs evolved in relation to how much heat was deposited in saline-
filled beakers which were considered to represent the average electrical properties of living organisms.
EMFs of 10,000-100,000 µW/cm2 were considered to be strong because they would noticeably heat
the saline animal. Fields of 1000-10,000 µW/cm2, however, were held to be weak, because the saline
animal's temperature change was so small that it was said, that if it were a real animal, the heat
generated would probably be handled by the animal's homeostatic mechanisms. It was argued that
fields below 1000 µW/cm2 were no more than electrical noise to the organism, and thus were entirely
without physiological significance.
The thermal fiction took such firm root that it became impossible to establish that other
mechanisms besides heat could be involved in the production of biological effects above 10,000
µW/cm2. This occurred despite the fact that no EMF-induced biological effects above 10,000 µW/cm2
have been replicated with heat applied via some other means. When reports of effects in the 1000-
10,000 µW/cm2 range began to surface in the 1950's, the thermal hypothesis was extended to also
apply in this range. The notion of differential heating was advanced, and its proponents argued that
there were "hot spots" in the real animal, and that accounted for the observed biological effects. When
reports of EMF-induced biological effects that extended beyond the Bed-below 1000 µW/cm2, 50
kv/m, 102 gauss-began to surface in the 1960's they were simply cut off: there developed
unprecedented attacks against investigators who reported such effects.
The EMF Procrustean Bed has been destroyed by the weight of the number of excellent EMF
studies: they exist, and it now becomes the business of science to investigate them and to learn their
laws. Despite the interesting and provocative thoughts of some theoreticians and the tentative results of
some experimentalists involving in vitro systems, there is still much to learn. Molecular processes that
could explain EMF-induced biological effects are found in inanimate nature and, if they also occur in
living systems, they would constitute one class of possible explanatory mechanisms. in addition, since
the structural complexity of even the simplest living organism greatly exceeds that found in inanimate
nature, it would be a mistake to expect that only molecular processes identified in purified materials
could be candidates for the mechanism by which the organism detects an EMF. As we have frequently
pointed out, solid-state biology may ultimately provide the answer - it may reveal mechanisms that
simply do not exist in purified crystals.
Our best guess (and at the moment it is no more than that) is that the organism detects EMFs via
cooperative dipole, or higher order, interactions in neural tissue-possibly peripheral nerves. An
engagingly simple mechanical model of this notion has been described by Bowman (14). He assembled
an array of dime-store magnetic compasses (Fig. 9.3), and described as follows the remarkably diverse
ELECTROMAGNETISM & LIFE - 129