SUBLETHAL EFFECT OF A
S
INUSOIDAL
MAGNETIC FIELD ON
THE
XENOPUS LAEVIS
(DAUDIN) TADPOLES
COHORTS
DEVELOPMENT
Massimo Loy
1
,
Roberta Alilla
2
, Emanuele Giacomozzi
1
,
Claudia Giliberti
3
,
Angelico Bedini
3
,
Raffaele
Palomba
3
, Livio Giuliani
3
,
Maurizio
Bonori
1
,
Ag
ostina Congiu Castellano
1
and Maurizio Severini
1
1
Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”
2
Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Università degli Studi della Tuscia di Viterbo
3
Istituto
Superiore per la
Prevenzione e
la
S
icurezza
de
l Lavoro (ISPESL)
4
Istituto di Scienze dell’Atmosfera e del Clima (ISAC
-
CNR), sezione di Roma
T
he results
of a recent work
show that a long
-
term exposure of
X
enopus
laevis
tadpoles to the
saw
-
tooth
shaped
magnetic
f
ield of a television set
(a
mplitude <
25 μT
)
causes a measurable increase of
t
he
animals’ maturation times
(1)
.
This increase is not accompanied by mortality or malformations of the
exposed individuals, and can be classified among the sublethal effects of magnetic fields.
According to
Adey
(2
)
,
biological matter seems to be particularly sensitive to
pulsing electromagnetic fields. One
possible explanation
of this phenomenon could be the so
-
called window effect
(
3), i.e. particular
co
mbinations of
frequencies and small amplitudes of EM waves pr
oduce
significant biological effects.
Although
a
television set is probably the most readily available source of pulsing electromagnetic
fields
,
a living being exposed to a magnetic field
emitted
from a TV set
,
receives
its whole spectrum
whose main
harmon
ic components
fall into the ELF and VLF wave band
.
So
it is not possible to
establish which
harmonic component of the two perpendicular magnetic
fields emitted from the TV set
caused the
sublethal effect showed.
In order to
find
one or more windows in the
range of amplitude 0
-
100
μT
and frequency 50
Hz,
an
experimental system based on a solenoid as magnetic source was build
up.
It permits to choose
the
amplitude
-
frequency
combination
of the magnetic
field
,
between the
possible ones
,
that causes
the sublethal
effect
showed in (1).
H
ere we present a detailed description of
method
ology
used
and the results of
a first
series of
three
experiments
in which
tadpoles are expsosed
to a
67
μT
magnetic field
. The results showed
an
increase of
t
he animals’ maturation times
in exposing
cohort
s
like in (1),
but less
evident. This confirms that a
magnetic
f
ield
cause
s
development delay,
still
it
suggests that the
window effect
could
involve an
amplitude
small
er than that used.
REFERENCES
1
-
Severini M., Dattilo A.M., De Gaetano A., (2003)
S
ublethal effect of a weak intermittent magnetic
f
ield on the development of
Xenopus laevis
(Daudin) tadpoles. Int. J. Biometeorol. 48
:
91
-
97.
2
-
Adey W
.
R
.
(1979) Long
-
range electromagnetic field interactions at brain cell surfaces. In: Tenforde
T.
S
.
(
ed) Magnetic field effects on biological systems. Plenum, New York, 57
–
80
.
3
-
Ubeda A., Leal J., Trillo M., Chacon L., Jimenez M.A., Delgado J.M.R.(1983)
Pulse shape of MF
i
nfluences chick embryogenesis. J
.
Anat
.
137:
513
–
536
.
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