The dangers of Wi-Fi radiation (updated)

Tonight, in the UK, a BBC Panorama programme (Wi-Fi: a warning signal) is promising an "investigation shows that radio frequency radiation levels in some schools are up to three times the level found in the main beam of intensity from mobile phone masts," reports BBC News.

The Guardian also has a story about the programme in today's paper, Scientists reject Panorama's claims on Wi-Fi radiation risks, by James Randerson.

It's a topic we've covered numerous times already, of course. Examples include Is Wi-Fi bad for you?, Are mobile phones and Wi-Fi to blame for the world's ills?, Is there any proof that Wi-Fi networks can make you sick? and, last August, an Ask Jack query. There was also a piece from Kate Figes, A wireless warning, on the Comment is Free blog, which was discussed here under Wireless technology made me sick, claims author Kate Figes.

No doubt this one will run for a while longer....

At least the BBC story manages to get Wi-Fi right -- it's a registered certification mark of the Wi-Fi Alliance, ie Wi-Fi® -- which the Guardian can't always manage.

Update: The BBC how now published something that reads somewhat like a rebuttal of its earlier Panorama story: Wi-fi health fears are 'unproven'. (Sadly it uses wi-fi for Wi-Fi, but at least wifi is avoided.)

Charles Arthur adds: we were going to try to offer a crystal healing Wi-Fi base station, which would come with crystals (durr) that would absorb the waves. But having hunted around (20 minutes on Google) we can't find anything that has an absorption spectrum around the 12-centimetre wavelength (for that's what a 2.4GHz signal is).

But we did come across this reminder that if Wi-Fi does make us ill, then the universe must be quite poorly: the universe has cosmic background radiation at, yes, the 12-centimetre wavelength (which is proof, in a roundabout way, of the Big Bang).

If there are alien races out there, might they have determined already whether Wi-Fi is harmful?