Russell McMahon wrote:

> What is happening is that the blanket is capacitively coupling mains
> voltage via them to you and via your body capacitance to local ground.
> (My comment about the 'glass house' notes that the final return path may
> be via return distributed resistance. The precise mechanism is not
> crucial to the basic demonstration). 
> 
> Body capacitance to the blanket is probably 100's of pF and from body to
> ground is highly variable and lower. It's entirely possible that there
> is no deleterious effect from acting as a capacitor plate for mains
> leakage in this manner. But, in the absence of at least statistical
> indications to the contrary, if this didn't make you at least uncertain
> about the possible effects of such an environment on pregnant women then
> I'd be just a little surprised. 

Imagine a chip that is much more complex than your average PC processor and
works on a lower voltage. Are you sure that sending this capacitive current
through the chip (mind you, the chip was not designed for that current)
doesn't change its normal function -- and if it does change it, do you know
how?

There is also this thing with mobile phones. Many people are quite certain
that they don't affect anything in our brains, yet I can't even have such a
phone turned on while an aircraft is in the air. The potentially affected
equipment in the aircraft has been designed to withstand radiation of the
type the mobile phone emits and is often tens of meters away, yet it
apparently may be affected enough to cause malfunction. The human nervous
system has not been designed (has not developed, if you want) to withstand
that type of radiation and it is much closer to the phone than the
aircraft's equipment -- and we understand it much less. How come it seems
so unreasonable (to some) that the function of the human nervous system may
be affected by this radiation?

Gerhard

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