This is primarily meant for fellow Vort, ChemEng (Stewart), but some others may have an interest.
Stewart, I think I may have a cause for your hypothesis re: a link between our modern radar systems and the dying of coral reefs. Seems that proteins in living systems have evolved such that they are at a 'critical state', and it doesn't take much energy at the right frequency to cause conformational changes; i.e., disruption in their tertiary structure (physical folding of the amino acid chain). the conformational change causes the protein to no longer function properly. this would likely have profound, and deleterious, effects on the living organism. Hundreds or thousands of proteins are involved in the normal biochemical reactions taking place all the time in any living organism. Up until recently, molecular vibrations in solution were thought to be highly damped, but that view may not always be the case, as explained in this layman's article: "Proteins 'ring like bells': Quantum mechanics and biochemical reactions" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140603092424.htm And this is the scientific reference: "Terahertz underdamped vibrational motion governs protein-ligand binding in solution" Nature Communications 5, Article number: 3999 doi:10.1038/ncomms4999 http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140603/ncomms4999/full/ncomms4999.html Stewart, I wonder if your scientific contacts studying the coral reefs dying off are aware of this research??? Although radar is not in the THz range, could be it contains some energy at subharmonic frequencies which do affect proteins in the organisms which build the coral structures. radar may not have been a problem if it wasn't operating 24/7/365. And finally, another researcher I follow has been looking into the possibility that our man-made EM radiation, which is quite extensive these days, could also be responsible for some of the health-related issues seen in modern society: "How Radio Waves Make You Sicker" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37j2jDN8IVo Prof. Trevor Marshall, Autoimmunity Research Foundation Time to break out the tin-foil hats??? ;-) -mark iverson
