German wind energy protest site windwahn.com here presents a brand new paper showing that infrasound-induced changes in brain activity is made visible and proven.
The findings thus suggest that the health impacts by the low-frequency sound waves generated by industrial wind turbines in fact do adversely affect human health, a claim that has often been denied by Big Wind.
Fig. 1: The new paper by Weichenberger et al: “Altered cortical and subcortical connectivity due to infrasound administered near the hearing threshold – Evidence from fMRI”
Some lobbyists and proponents even went on to say that it was all in people’s heads. Well it turns out that this is true, but it’s real!
The groundbreaking paper by Markus Weichenberger and scientists at the Charité (Berlin), the PTB (Braunschweig) and the UKE (Hamburg) is comprehensive and was published on April 12, 2017.
The study used advanced brain imaging to compare activity for infrasound near the hearing threshold.
Fig. 2: Results of whole-brain contrast regional homogeneity (ReHo) maps acquired during near-threshold vs. no-tone condition.
The paper’s conclusion is not what the wind industry and green energy proponents want to hear:
To our knowledge, this study is the first to document changes of brain activity across several regions in response to prolonged near-threshold IS using fMRI*. ReHo analysis revealed higher local connectivity of rSTG, ACC and the rAmyg only when IS was administered near the hearing threshold and ICA showed that effects can also be found on the inter-regional level. On the one hand, these results seem to support the hypothesis that (sub-)liminal IS can exert an influence on the organism via a subconscious processing route (which supposedly involves outer hair cell-mediated signal transduction). On the other hand, though clearly audible, prolonged stimulation with IS above the hearing threshold did not lead to changes of brain activity, which could indicate that the signal processed along the conscious hearing route may have been attenuated in a top-down fashion via attentional mechanisms.
Also, since the brain’s response to prolonged near-threshold IS involves the activation of brains areas, which are known to play a crucial role in emotional and autonomic control, a potential link between IS-induced changes of brain activity and the emergence of various physiological as well as psychological health effects can be established. Transient upregulation of these brain areas in response to below- or near threshold IS may thus reflect an initial stress response of the body, eventually promoting symptom formation as stimulation occurs repeatedly and additional risk factor come into play. Nevertheless, further research, in particular longitudinal exposure research, is needed in order substantialize these findings and contribute to a better understand of IS-related health effects.
Expect the pressure to mount to make wind park setback distances from residential areas greater.
And yet as I understand almost every national EPA-type body requires wind turbine noise to be measured with a conventional ‘sound level meter’ that is designed to detect and measure audible sound (20 to 20,000 Hz), but not infrasound. Meanwhile, infrasound has been the subject of research for decades as a ‘non-lethal weapon’ by the military in several countries.
Does anyone know how much testing has been done on offshore wind turbines.
Many aquatic species use infrasound for communication and navigation, the turbines would almost certainly cause major disruption to this.
Not that the “environmentalists” could give even the slightest care.
They’re busy demanding more refugee intake. Refugees are the new threatened species.
As refugees are stand-ins for Rousseau’s Noble Savage, they symbolize nature to the Green. The Greens have in fact not talked about anything regarding plant or animal life at least since Merkel’s invitation to the Islamic world to come to Germany in 2015.
Also, the Greens are now collapsing and are at 6% in the polls. A party must achieve at least 5% to be in the next Bundestag.
German Maoism is over. (Interestingly the leftists who took the party over in 1980 were all Maoists from the K-Gruppen, like Joseph Fischer. Even more intriguing; Mao is famous for the extermination of the sparrow in China, leading to an ecologic catastophy and famine. So much for the relationship of the Greens to animals.)
Also, Mao is revered as a great teacher.
Really, you can’t make this shit up.
I wonder if people living at the coast (within a few tens of meters from the beach) get sick from infrasound emitted by beaches. I wonder if people on a swing (children) get their brains altered from the infrasound. And third, I wonder if people driving a car get sick from infrasound emitted by their vehicle.
All those sources emit infrasound at around 100 dB. Wind turbines emit at 60-65 dB. Hell, there even were controlled experiments where they shut down a nearby wind park and there was no change of infrasound levels in the homes. If you live in a city you are exposed to infrasound at a level of 60+ dB all the time.
Another knowledgeless comparison. The sounds from a beach or from a city are totally random and thus have no affect as do the cyclic, steady infrasound from a wind turbine.
@SebastianH 27. April 2017 at 10:05 AM
Yet again you display an utterly biased in ignorant point of view, offering as you do nothing to the debate except the wish to comment.
Go away and at least find some basic knowledge on the subject before offering yet more displays of your paucity of knowledge.
You appear to be utterly unrestrained in your belief that you know everything on any subject on this blog, however by the evidence of your own comment you know very little.
You are acting as a childish but pompous little know-it-all.
Again we see the COMPLETE and ABSOLUTE IGNORANCE of the seb.
It knows zero about sound,
It knows ZERO about infrasound.
It just makes up CRAP as it goes along.
Willing to BET that seb would NEVER move to somewhere within 500m-1km from a big wind turbine.
and live there for 6 months or more.
Come on seb… leave that inner-city latte-ghetto basement of yours, and go and experience what people being foisted with these obnoxious anti-human, anti-birdlife contraptions have to put up with.
I DARE YOU !
Put your money where your foot usually is. !
That reminds me , seb
Have you traded in your Mercedes on an EV yet?
or are you STILL an absolute base-level HYPOCRITE,
….. full of baseless blah-blah !!
@Boyfromtottenham 26. April 2017 at 11:02 PM
And therein is the main problem in assessing subsonic effects. It is NOT about what you hear it is about the effects on the body.
Major parts of the human body have resonant modes that are in the subsonic region. Arms, legs, torso and trunk, head even eyes within eye-sockets all resonate at different subsonic frequencies.
Modern builds as large vertical structures of internal voids and cavities can act as resonant structures, amplifying the effects on the occupants.
From various papers looking at airforce pilots and industrial work (mostly health and safety) I glean this information —
Based on psychological studies, observations indicated that the general state of consciousness is influenced by vibrations. Low frequency vibrations 1-2 Hz with moderate intensities induce sleep. Unspecific psychological stress reactions have also been noted (Guignard, 1965: von Gierke, 1964), as well as degraded visual and motor effects on functional performance.
Symptoms Due to Whole-Body Vibration and the Frequency Range at which They Usually Occur (Adapted from Rasmussen, 1982 — note many later papers have different figures)
General feeling of discomfort 4-9Hz
Head symptoms 13-20Hz
Lower Jaw symptoms 6-8Hz
Influence on speech 13-20Hz
Feelings of “Lump in throat” 12-16Hz
Chest Pains 5-7Hz
Abdominal pains 4-10Hz
Urge to urinate 10-18Hz
Increased muscle tone 13-20Hz
Influence on breathing movements 4-8Hz
Muscle contractions 4-9Hz
From an exposure point of view, the low frequency range of vibration is the most interesting. Exposure to vertical vibrations in the 5-10 Hz range generally causes resonance in the thoracic-abdominal system, at 20-30 Hz in the head-neck-shoulder system, and at 50-100 Hz in the eyeball.
When vibrations are attenuated in the body, its energy is absorbed by the tissue and organs. The muscles are important in this respect. Vibration leads to both voluntary and involuntary contractions of muscles, and can cause local muscle fatigue, particularly when the vibration is at the resonant-frequency level. Furthermore, it may cause reflex contractions, which will reduce motor performance capabilities.
That goes a long way to explain the wholesale collapse of the cognitive function of the government parties’ members.
In the first below video, a Canadian company run by acoustic experts
give (what seems to be) a good overview of infrasound, with
a possible solution (in the future) for homeowners who are sensitive to
infrasound. The videos are 19 and 2.5 minutes long, respectively. The second vid talks about the weird effects of infrasound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAB4bZLZp8I
Kevin Dooley,
A New Theory On Motion Sickness: Infrasound & Motion Linked
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_Ll3pHtxmQ
Mike Goldsmith,
On vibrating eyeballs, ghosts, and the strange science of infrasound
Oxford Academic (Oxford University Press)