A new study released this week claims AM radio signals disorients birds migrating at night.
The study shows how even weak electromagnetic fields produced by AM radio signals are bad for birds.
Research was outlined in the journal Nature.
Electronic pollution, or "electrosmog" as it's called among researchers, is a growing issue that will likely just continue to get worse as more people plug in or listen to radio stations, computers, TVs, and other electrical devices.
Biologist Henrik Mouritsen, a professor at the University of Oldenburg, and his fellow researchers, made this conclusion after studying European robins, according to a university press release.
The European robins have an internal magnetic compass, which helps them find their way when other cues, like visual ones, are bad.
"For decades, it has been hotly debated whether man-made electric and magnetic fields affected biological processes, including human health," the authors, from Oldenburg University, wrote in Nature.
The internal magnetic compass helps birds find their way at night, according to Mouritsen.
The team housed birds in windowless huts, which helped them figure out a way to easily turn on and off the bird's exposure to urban electromagnetic signals.
Only certain electromagnetic noise bothered the birds however, according to the release. The birds were affected in the frequency range of two to five kilohertz megahertz, putting it right in the range of AM radio signals.
"These perturbations do not originate from power lines or mobile networks," Mouritsen said.
The study has people wondering if they are in trouble as well.
"Many people claim to be bothered by radio transmissions, and some have even moved to live in radio frequency 'quiet zones' around radio telescopes," Joseph Kirschvink, a researcher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, said according to . "Modern-day charlatans will undoubtedly seize on this study as an argument for banning the use of mobile phones, despite the different frequency bands involved."
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