We Solve the 49ers Viral Conspiracy Theory

Summary

Science Vs: We Solve the 49ers Viral Conspiracy Theory (August 13, 2026)

Host: Wendy Zuckerman (Science Vs), Pablo Torre (Pablo Torre Finds Out)
Production: Spotify Studios, collaboration with Pablo Torre Finds Out

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Episode Overview

This crossover episode tackles a viral conspiracy theory that blames the San Francisco 49ers’ unusually high injury rates on electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from a visible electrical substation adjacent to their stadium and practice facilities. Wendy Zuckerman and Pablo Torre embark on a rigorous fact-finding journey—leveraging investigative journalism and scientific analysis—to dissect and ultimately debunk the theory. They examine the origins of the claim, scrutinize the evidence (or lack thereof), converse with fans and experts, and uncover the real story behind the 49ers’ injury woes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Viral Theory: Substation Blame (05:05)

• Background: The 49ers have been plagued by injuries; a theory circulates that an electrical substation near their stadium is emitting EMFs that weaken players, causing more injuries.
• Internet Frenzy: Social media, blogs, and meme pages amplify the substation conspiracy, fueled by visible headlines, player anecdotes, and misinterpretations of health studies.

Quote – Pablo Torre (05:20):
“There’s this big, massive electrical substation sitting right next to their practice facility and their stadium… The thought is that these EMF waves from the electrical substation are making the 49ers players less healthy and more at risk of injuries.”

2. Meet the Originator: Peter Anthony Cowan (10:37)

• Background: Peter is a Bay Area local, self-taught wellness advocate, and former hacker with no formal scientific credentials.
• Inspiration: Triggered by ex-49er John Feliciano joking about the “power plant” (actually a substation) on air.
• Method: Peter visits Levi’s Stadium, measures EMF levels (up to 50 milligauss), and publishes his suspicions in widely-shared Substacks and social posts.
• Viral Impact: His post explodes, catching attention from fans, players, NFL insiders—even Joe Rogan.

Quote – Peter Cowan (22:03):
“I open up my computer and it’s at 500,000 views. And I'm just shocked. This post will eventually reach more than 22 million views.”

3. Understanding EMFs and the Science (24:09)

• Expert Input: Dr. Ken Karapeides, Assistant Director at the Australian Radiation Protection Nuclear Safety Agency, provides foundational knowledge:
  • EMFs from substations are everywhere—emitted by all household electrical devices.
  • The highest readings Peter found (up to 50 milligauss) are far below safety thresholds (2,000 milligauss for the general public).
• Clarification: Most experiments linking EMFs to health issues are done on cells or animals and results are mixed—for every study suggesting harm, there's another suggesting neutral or even beneficial effects.
• Statistical Flaws: Cited human studies have substantial methodological problems—poor control of confounding variables, incomplete exposure measurements, and unexplained missing data.

Quote – Dr. Karapeides (26:54):
“50 milligauss is higher than what’s normally encountered. However, it is still much, much lower than the limit. The limit for the general public is 2,000 milligauss.”

4. Debunking the Evidence (32:11)

• Critical Review: The few human studies provided by Peter are shown to be unreliable due to:
  • Using job titles rather than true exposure metrics.
  • Statistical inconsistencies and unexplained data gaps.
  • Failing to control for factors like job stress, shift work, and burnout.
• No Real-World Link: Robust studies in people (not just cells/rats) don’t support a connection between EMFs at substation levels and health problems like oxidative stress, tendon/collagen breakdown, or injury risk.

Quote – Wendy Zuckerman (34:11):
“When you look at all the tables, the numbers don’t add up. Just silly things like that. It’s a really big red flag.”

5. The ‘Cancer’ Question—Are EMFs Dangerous? (42:19)

• WHO Classification: In 2001, the World Health Organization did label extremely low frequency EMFs as "possibly carcinogenic" (Group 2B), based on some statistical correlation with childhood leukemia.
  • However, the increased risk is tiny: maybe 6 cases in 13 million children (Germany example).
  • No evidence links EMFs from substations to other cancers or health issues.

Quote – Wendy Zuckerman (44:16):
“Some research suggests that power lines and substations could maybe explain 1 to 4% of childhood leukemias out there... Far from everyone living near a power line is going to get leukemia, far, far from it.”

6. Fact-Checking the Substation Timeline (46:08)

• Misreported Facts: Widely shared articles reference a 2014 substation expansion as a turning point for 49ers’ injuries—but research uncovers confusion between two different substations.
  • The Mission Substation that was upgraded is more than a mile from Levi’s Stadium.
  • The substation nearest the stadium hasn't had any significant recent expansion or step-change in power usage correlating with injury spikes.

Quote – Rose Rimlar (48:58):
“It’s not the same one… It’s like a mile away, which is really far in the world of electromagnetic radiation, because that field drops off extremely quickly with distance.”

7. The Injury Statistical Reality (52:15)

• Expert Analysis: Dr. Zachary Binney, sports epidemiologist and data scientist:
  • The 49ers are slightly above average in number of player injuries, far from the worst.
  • Only when specifically measuring lost games by starters do the 49ers top the list over the past decade—but only by a small margin, not enough to warrant supernatural explanations.
  • Randomness, playstyle, coaching practices, and other human factors are far likelier explanations.

Quote – Dr. Binney (53:21):
“So if you’re just talking about the raw number of injuries, like the number of players getting hurt, they actually don’t. They’re a little bit above average… Over the past decade, if you are looking at games lost due to all injuries… the Giants lead the way. San Francisco is second.”

8. Alternative Explanations & The Comfort of Conspiracy (56:36, 58:09)

• Alternative Causes:
  • Training practices, coaching style, “callus building” regimens, culture, and sheer randomness are more logical reasons for injury patterns.
  • Injuries are part of football and vary team to team; statistical flukes will occur.
• Human Need for Stories:
  The appeal of blaming the substation lies in our desire for simple answers to complex, random phenomenon—wanting a “deep story” for comfort.

Quote – Wendy Zuckerman (58:18):
“I think part of the reason that theories like the substation thrive is because it gives you a singular thing to blame and it gives you comfort and it gives us something to focus on. But the truth is that sometimes just happens and injuries just happen.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Kendrick Bourne, 49ers Player (09:26):
  “I kind of buy it. I’m a conspiracy theorist, so I don't know, bro. Our grass is brown on that side and the soccer field on the other side is green. So that kind of trips me out a little bit.”

• Dr. Karapeides, on EMF Safety (28:07):
  “From experiments, [seeing starry lights in your eyes from EMFs] can happen when people are exposed to more than 50,000 milligauss.”

• Wendy Zuckerman, on Weak Studies (37:23):
  "So both of these studies are examples of… they're just rubbish."

• Dr. Karapeides, on Playing for 49ers (38:55):
  “I would be ecstatic. Imagine how much money I could make… No, I wouldn’t be worried [about my Achilles].”

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Main Theory Introduction: 05:05
• Meet Peter Cowan: 10:37
• Player Anecdotes: 09:26, 10:11
• Expert: Dr. Karapeides on EMFs: 24:09, 26:54, 38:55
• Analysis of Viral Studies: 32:11–37:23
• The Cancer Question: 42:19
• Timeline Fact-Check (Substation Myth): 46:08
• Data Reality: Dr. Binney on Injuries: 52:15
• Conclusion/Round-up: 58:09–60:01

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Conclusion: What’s Fact, What’s Not

• No Scientific Evidence connects the 49ers’ injuries to EMFs from the substation.
• Injury Rates: Slightly above league average, but not extreme.
• Substation Claims: Based on misreporting, wrong timelines, and confusion between facilities.
• EMF Worries: The science does not support health risks at exposure levels found near the 49ers or in typical environments.
• Cancer Link: Minuscule, not established for adults, and not relevant at stadium-adjacent exposures.
• Real Explanations: Factors like coaching practices, training intensity, and randomness dominate.
• Conspiracy Appeal: We yearn for simple, blameable answers—often when the truth is random and complex.

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Final Word

Wendy Zuckerman:
“Bottom line, we could safely say this substation, the evidence just isn’t there that that is to blame for the injuries the 49ers have had.” (59:46)

Pablo Torre:
“This feels comprehensive in a way that a blowout loss tends to feel in this very American game. And also, I kind of feel dizzy. So the full NFL experience.” (60:01)

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For NFL fans, science buffs, and the conspiracy-curious alike, this episode demonstrates how genuine investigation—anchored in science—can unravel viral myths, restoring the focus on facts over fads.

Transcript

[A]

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and this is Science Versus Today on the show, a weird medical mystery that whipped the Internet into a complete frenzy. And we at Science Versus went so deep to get to the truth behind this mystery that I I know the Internet says this all the time, but I am telling you, we found out things that no one else is talking about and we did all of this with the show. Pablo Torre Finds Out They're a team of Pulitzer Prize winning sports journalists. So let's just jump in. You're going to meet the fabulous Pablo Torre.

[B]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're going to find out what this sound is. Right after this. This episode is brought to you by

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this is Foreign territory for me. Not merely the fact that you're across the world in Australia. Wendy Zuckerman. And thank you for doing this by the way.

[A]

Ah, thanks for having me.

[B]

This is all a little strange. The studio is not my studio. You're a person I'm only really getting to know in the course of this very different kind of episode. I should explain for our audience who is just meeting you now. Who. Who are you exactly?

[A]

I'm the host of Science Versus, which is a podcast that for 10 years has been taking things on the Internet, Whether it's a diet or a new drug that everyone's saying you should take. And we really interrogate it. We've won fancy awards. Audiences really trust us. We did an episode on the fertility cliff and people had babies as a result of it public. So they sent us photos of children. So that's. That's.

[B]

You brought life into the world.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

That needs to lead any resume. I am responsible for untold numbers of pregnancies.

[A]

That's right. Elon Musk would be very proud of me. So.

[B]

And I want to acknowledge that you are a. An NFL fan. Question mark.

[A]

Look, if I had to choose a sport with a strange oblong shaped ball, it would have to be Aussie rules football. That's all I'm saying there.

[B]

So you're a football fan in a different sense. And I fell into a trap already. Great, Wonderful.

[A]

If I say footy in reference to NFL, I apologize in advance.

[B]

But a consistent thing about the mission of this show that you're kindly doing with me today in this collaboration with yours is that we use journalism to solve mysteries.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And the mystery that we have been flooded by here at Pablo Torre finds out. The thing that we have been requested over and over again to investigate is a globally viral mystery that has clearly hit your shores in Australia. Oh, yes, we are talking about The San Francisco 49ers, one of the most iconic franchises in the NFL in American football that also happens to be plagued by injuries in a way that has made me contemplate what the I'm supposed to believe anymore.

[A]

This was a wild one. When you guys came to us and said, can you help us solve this? You know, I may not be into NFL, but oh boy, am I into science and into cracking mysteries just like this.

[B]

Well, as you know, it's been another 49ers season plagued by the injury bug and the There's a wild theory circulating on social media that attempts to explain what's going on. The theory's pretty straightforward. The 49ers have a high number of injuries compared to the rest of the league. And there's this big, massive electrical substation sitting right next to their practice facility and their stadium. Every camp highlight has the massive substation in the background. And all you see now is the substation. The thought is that these EMF waves from the electrical substation are making the 49ers players less healthy and more at risk of injuries.

[A]

This question about what is hurting the 49ers, why do they have all these injuries? Could it be the substation? That is right down our alley.

[B]

Add everything up across this entire 90 man roster and roughly 20 separate players are currently injured and unavailable to San Francisco in some capacity. I thought I was going to be able to just dismiss the substation theory as this nothing burger, which is what the general manager of the 49ers, John lynch himself has called it. Wendy, it basically was a big nothing burger. You know, we're safe. Like, we're in a safe place at work. The levels are they say that they've hired an independent scientist to conduct their own study. They've now categorically said there's nothing to see here. This substation injury theory is not a thing. The scientist has not yet been named and the raw data have not been published. And football fans, to say perhaps the most obvious part of this whole entire saga, they're not buying any of this. I don't know what the hell's going on, but the whole damn roster's injured again. Look, I didn't think there was anything to the electrical substation theory. Hell, I got to. I got to be honest. What is going on? The electrical substations, if you have one near any of your facilities, even just near your house, if there's one near your house, I'd be worried getting out of your car every single day. Okay, yeah, you would be.

[A]

There is way more to this story than simply the 49ers getting injured, that's for sure. And now people are saying, well, the World Health Organization says that this stuff coming from substations, these electromagnetic waves, possibly cause cancer. We're like, what is going on here? We really want to get to the bottom of this because we all have substations, yet many of us in our neighborhoods, there's one right down the road from me.

[B]

I don't know if the substation near you has the same rating on Google maps that the niners one does. The rating at last. Check here. 2.7 stars. As one guy wrote, quote, would not recommend this substation ruin my fantasy football career and ruined my life.

[A]

I really want to know what substation he does recommend.

[B]

But the thing that felt harder to dismiss than all of this was the cascade of articles and headlines and posts about data about how the injury rates for this team are in fact, an outlier. And not just that they're. They're the worst in the league by far. And you go through your memory banks as a football fan and you're like, okay, there was the time that Dre Greenlaw, Dre Greenlaw getting ready to run onto the field after that punt, who's the star linebacker for the Niners, just snapped his Achilles while untouched in the super bowl and he planted his left foot. And it looks, and I don't want to speculate, but it looked like it could have been an Achilles injury, that it may have just popped as he was running onto the field. And then there's the time that Jimmy Garoppolo, the quarterback towards ACL in 2018. There's a time that defensive lineman Nick Bosa tore his ACL in 2020. There's a time that the quarterback Brock purdy, tore his UCL in 2023. Brandon Auk, the wide receiver, he had an ACL and an MCL tear in 2024. And if you go and talk to these players, the guys who work in the shadow of said substation with a terrible rating, one of them being wide receiver Kendrick Bourne, they also want answers.

[A]

What the hell is going on with all the injuries that the NERS have every year?

[B]

Power plant.

[A]

Do you buy that?

[B]

I kind of buy it. I'm a conspiracy theorist, so I don't know, bro. Our grass is brown on that side and the soccer field on the other side is green. So that kind of trips me out a little bit. Yeah. And in case you think that the grass is always greener theory is unique to Kendrick Bourne, here is Harvard educated fullback Kyle Juszczyk on the same subject. It's one of those things that it's just so hard to say because the science is not clear behind it. And I'm very much just like a science driven person and I want to see the numbers and the statistics and I mean, is it a coincidence that, you know, that we've led the NFL in injuries for the last, like, decade? I want to see what someone who truly understands that field, what they have to say about it and just be curious to know.

[A]

Well, welcome to the party.

[B]

That is us. That is us. So, Wendy, this whole thing, I believe, started with a guy.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

The person, the human being who's actually behind the viral post and headline that has started all of this. My name is Peter Anthony Cowan and I run my own wellness business and environmental health is really my focus. And Peter Cowan, as a matter of, I think just journalistic rigor, I want to know what his deal is.

[A]

Yes, yes, I did as well. So Peter Cowan, he grew up in the Bay Area, so he's always been a casual 49ers fan.

[B]

I don't know the names of the positions, really. I just. I watch these beautiful angles and motions, and it's like ballet to me.

[A]

And by the way, he's a musician, and he actually wrote this and recorded it. This is Peter.

[B]

We're listening to Peter Cowan tinkling the ivories right now.

[A]

That's correct. This is Peter. So he's watching this ballet of football, and he starts seeing his beautiful prima ballerinas getting injured. The 49ers in particular are getting hammered with injuries, always having this trouble. And somewhere along the way, Peter stumbles across a radio interview on a local Bay Area sports station that he likes to listen to. And it's an interview with ex 49ers player John Feliciano.

[B]

This is September 2025. It's 95.7 the game in San Francisco, and John Feliciano is the guest for 49er fans. Where it seems like, and actually the data suggests it doesn't seem like it's fact. Usually and Almost always, the 49ers are one of the most injured teams in the league.

[A]

And the hosts are talking about all of these injuries that the 49ers are getting.

[B]

And it's gotten to the point where

[A]

people are like, it can't just be dumb luck.

[B]

Like, there's gotta be something to it. We used to joke that it was the power plant the behind the practice fields.

[A]

It's important to say that it's not a power plant near the 49ers site.

[B]

Okay, so please explain the difference between a substation and a power plant.

[A]

So a power plant generates the energy, creates the energy, and then it transmits it over to a substation. What it does is it converts the voltage into a voltage that then your house can use, basically. So it changes the voltage and then transmits that electricity to your home or your business so that you can power your heater, your lights, your computer. Any form of electricity in your home is basically coming from electricity that's come through a substation. This really stops Peter in his tracks is because he is worried that substations emit electromagnetic fields. And basically these fields are waves of electric and magnetic energy that move together. And Peter wonders, what if John Feliciano is right? What if those fields are harming the players and increasing their risk of getting injured? Because it's not just that the substation is close to the practice field, it's also that the stadium that the players play at, Levi's Stadium, it's also so close.

[B]

And when you go up, you walk up the back steps, you're looking Right over the substation. It's just you can hear it buzzing and stuff. And so how much buzzing are we really talking about?

[A]

Great question. We actually sent a reporter to the site, and look, she went to the loudest point that she could find, and here's what she sent us.

[B]

I feel like data centers have been absorbing a lot of the criticism for just ungodly noises emitted by electrical facilities. I feel like the substation is rightfully now in the conversation.

[A]

I mean, it's not birds tweeting. It's not a nice sound, that's for sure.

[B]

It's not piano and ballet.

[A]

And so Peter can't get this idea out of his mind. Could this substation be causing the injuries?

[B]

Right.

[A]

So I think it's really important to know about Peter's backstory here, which is actually fascinating.

[B]

I like to start with this one. I dropped out of high school and I went on to become a hacker. I was into coding.

[A]

You would have been an early hacker. You would have done well, I imagine.

[B]

Yeah, we did. And I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations for wire fraud is only 25 years. Years. So I think I'm good. No, it was. It. It was the 90s, man. Like, it was a wild west. Yeah.

[A]

The statute of limitations for wire fraud is actually only five years. So Peter is absolutely fine.

[B]

This is very reassuring.

[A]

So bigger picture. Peter is not a scientist, per se, but he grew up, moved on from hacking, and then eventually went down a path that many hackers from the 90s went down, which is you get into software engineering. He did end up working for a wireless networking company. And he starts writing firmware for WI fi routers, just like the WI fi router that you might have at your home. And WI fi, by the way, also emits electromagnetic waves.

[B]

Yeah, I should say there's a whole, like, world of people who turn off their WI fi at night because they're worried about the waves. And Christian McCaffrey, who's to start running back for the Niners, is apparently one of these people. He's talked about this very publicly. Turning your WI fi off at night is, you know, does it help? I don't know. Someone said it will. It can't hurt. So let me try. That's really my thought. Am I now worried? As we proceed through this story about my own WI fi?

[A]

Peter did. Peter did start worrying about the electromagnetic waves being emitted from his WI fi. He told us he had some medical issues that doctors couldn't really explain. It was stuff like panic attacks, difficulty sleeping, cold Sweats, shakes. And he started thinking, could it be from the WI FI router? Could it be from electromagnetic waves more generally?

[B]

And so I started looking into literature and realizing, ah, there's actually more to it than that. And so the idea is that we are increasing the amount of free radicals, which long term creates more oxidative stress. And that's, that's the thing he's saying, is that, okay, what if these EMF waves coming from WI FI and substations and stuff, what if they, through oxidative stress, were the things attacking the tendons of these athletes, of these San Francisco 49ers players?

[A]

This is exactly where Peter is going. So he starts thinking that this oxidative stress could weaken collagen. Collagen is as a protein. It's also found in tendons and ligaments. It's super, super important. So if indeed electromagnetic waves are weakening collagen, then that could increase the risk of tendon ligament injuries. And he ultimately decides to go to the practice area and measure the electromagnetic waves.

[B]

Okay, we're here at Levi's Stadium.

[A]

And so towards the end of last year, he drives up to the substation parks nearby, and he starts measuring.

[B]

So this is as close as I could get, but even right here, I'm reading almost nine milligauss. Definitely concern.

[A]

This is what he told us.

[B]

Well, first I started measuring just to kind of see what I was dealing with, and I started finding elevated fields all over the place. The reading I had was between 8.5 and 9 milligauss. So the first thing I'm thinking when I see that is that's way higher than I would want to be exposed to. And so a milligauss as a unit of measurement, that is a lot.

[A]

Normally, if you're just on your couch, say, you'd be exposed to about 1 or 2 milligauss. So 8 or 9. It is higher than normal. And at one point, he actually measures 50 milligauss coming off what's called a feeder line, which he thinks is running underground from the substation under the stadium.

[B]

Now, I'm just a guy who's learning about what a milligauss is in the last two minutes, right? But 50 feels like a ton to use another unit of measurement.

[A]

Peter reckons he's onto something here. He thinks kind of this is evidence now that the 49ers are getting pummeled with these dangerous electromagnetic waves. This is a piece in the puzzle here.

[B]

Now, this is where I gotta say that, like, the owner of the San Francisco 49ers, Jed York has been asked about the substation and his go to response is this thing has been around for years, right? I mean, this is something that predates all this certain like run of injuries that we've been describing, Right? I mean, this has been around since the 80s when they were like winning titles very healthily.

[A]

It hasn't been around since the 80s. Another fact check there. Even though it has been widely reported that we fact checked it. But it has been around for decades. I think it was there since 2005. So Peter had thought about this and he read that the substation actually expanded in 2014. And this has been reported widely.

[B]

As we know, there were renovations done on this substation in 2014. It's officially called the Mission Substation and

[A]

it's in the New York Times, espn, cbs. And so now Peter figures, you know, bada bing, bada boom, substation expands. 2014 starts emitting more of these electromagnetic waves. And that is around the time when people are talking about that the 49ers start getting more and more injured, right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So Peter writes all of this in a series of substacks, citing scientific evidence to back up his claim and noting that since 2014, the 49ers have been decimated by injuries. I'll quote Peter substack here, suffering, quote, far more full Achilles and patellar tendon ruptures than league average, end quote. He says along with, you know, nasty hamstring and calf tears. He wrote these kinds of injuries, quote, unquote, turned into an annual rite of passage, end quote. For the 49ers.

[B]

Yeah, this was sort of their identity.

[A]

And then in January this year, Peter presses publish along with posting it on X. And then he told me, funnily enough, he actually doesn't think that much about the post. He celebrates this Irish tradition called Little Christmas on January 6, hangs out with his kids.

[B]

I just like that. There's another tradition on January 6th that is not the one I think of at this point. Shout out to Little Christmas, the rebrand.

[A]

We could take the rebrand back. Exactly. But eventually Peter does check to see how his post is doing.

[B]

And I open up my computer and it's at 500,000 views. And I'm just shocked.

[A]

This post will eventually reach more than 22 million views. It just completely blows up. Yes, you've got Joe Rogan talking about it.

[B]

So that's where the electrical substation is and there's the field. I mean, cut the shit. Whoa. That's. That can't. It's literally radiating onto them. That can't be good.

[A]

You've got players reaching out to Peter himself, the NFL responding.

[B]

What I would tell you, Eric, because it deals with allegedly, you know, the health and safety of our players. I think you have to look into everything.

[A]

And so the 49ers hiring the independent scientist and you and me, Pablo, spending months of our lives trying to get to the bottom of this. And Peter told us that actually what is driving him are studies that he reckons are connecting power lines and substations to our health more generally, including things like childhood leukemia.

[B]

Did I get into this field because I was concerned about athletes snapping their tendons? Not really. I'm more concerned about oxidative stress, mitochondrial damage in general, contributing to just a sea of chronic diseases across the population, across the world. Yeah. And I gotta say, I appreciate Peter's concern. My issue is just that he's, again, not an insult. He's just not a scientist.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

At all.

[A]

So I think it's time to talk to a scientist. So we spoke to a handful, probably more researchers. But one guy I I want to introduce you to now is Dr. Ken Karapeides.

[B]

Okay, so my name is Ken Karapeides. I'm the Assistant Director of Health Impact Assessment at the Australian Radiation Protection Nuclear Safety Agency, and I'm also the Vice Chair of the International Commission on Non Ionizing Radiation Protection.

[A]

He has never received money from industry. This is something that people who are sceptical of electromagnetic waves worry about. Big tech getting their paws into the research. Ken really knows his stuff here. He has spent more than 20 years researching, reading the studies on whether the kinds of electromagnetic waves being emitted from substations, power lines, also the WI fi in your home. Weather is dangerous and you need to worry about it. One of the first things he said is it is really important to know whether these waves are dangerous or not, because they're obviously not just near the 49ers practice area, they're all around us

[B]

because we're surrounded by electrical things. I mean, in this room right now, we're, you know, we've got. So it's ubiquitous, you know, you're never not exposed to.

[A]

So right now you, Pablo, you've got electrical stuff all around you, your laptop, the microphone, everything. So these kinds of electromagnetic waves that are coming off the substation, they're really long, they're called extremely low frequency electromagnetic waves. And they are also getting emitted from the electrical equipment around you and in your home. So the lights, the computer, the microphone, your tv, electric blankets, everything is emitting these electromagnetic waves.

[B]

So as somebody who is sleeping on top of his cell phone most nights, it sticks to me, and I have to peel it off when I wake up in the morning.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Is this an issue? Am I in danger?

[A]

Okay, so that is the question I asked Ken. What happens when these waves waft through our body?

[B]

They are creating little currents inside our body everywhere.

[A]

Little currents?

[B]

Correct. Little currents, but they're really low, so you don't actually feel them.

[A]

So electromagnetic fields tickle ions in our body, and this actually makes little currents. But like Ken said, right now, you and I, we can't feel them.

[B]

But if the current is high enough, you get electrostimulation. It's.

[A]

What does it feel like? Have you had it done?

[B]

No, because the power level, it's like getting electrocuted, basically.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

So if, you know, if you touch a live. I mean, it hasn't happened to me. I don't know if it's happened to you.

[A]

No. But I've seen Jurassic park, so I know.

[B]

So in other words, like, the Jurassic park test is, if I touch this thing and it's not shocking me, am I. Okay? Like, what does it mean? Given that Peter with his gauss meter was recording, you know, a 50 milligauss rating.

[A]

So I asked him, what about the 50 milligauss? Is that. Is that high? How worried should we be here?

[B]

So 50 milligrams is higher than what's normally encountered. However, it is still below much, much lower than the limit. So the limit for the General Public is 2,000 milligrams.

[A]

Whoa. Oh, okay. And what happens at 2,000?

[B]

Well, nothing happens at 2,000 milligauss.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because the safety fact is built within the limit. So this is. This is. This is an enormous development for my numeracy around the milligauss.

[A]

You were worried that 50 milligauss was a s ton for narrative tension purposes. I didn't reveal that. Actually, 50 milligauss is not particularly high.

[B]

Thank you for not calling me out for being an idiot.

[A]

No, I mean.

[B]

Well, that's so many more milligauss before we have to worry about.

[A]

Yes. One thing that we know can happen when you put the power up, when you crank it up too high of these kinds of electromagnetic waves is that they can stimulate cells in your retina, and you can get kind of stars in your eyes, you know, when you rub your eyes and you see those little white thingies. So from experiments that can happen when people are exposed to more than 50,000 milligauss.

[B]

Okay. Significantly more.

[A]

That's a thousand times more than the highest point that Peter measured, then you want to go even higher. You've got nerve stimulation where you might feel a bit tingly or twitchy. That's happening at hundreds of thousands of milligauss.

[B]

And so this now brings to again, 49ers general manager John lynch, who, when he announced this independent study by an independent scientist that has very few details publicly otherwise, he did say, you know, we're safe. Like, we're. We're in a safe place of work. The levels are, I think I read in there, 400 times less than unsafe zones. And so it's. And I guess, Wendy, if you're taking that at face value, he's saying that whatever your threshold is for safe, we're 400 times below whatever that would be.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And so to this, Peter would say, I don't like these levels because they're not including perhaps more subtle effects like

[B]

oxidative stress, the erosion of our tendons and ligaments with the collagen stuff from before.

[A]

That's Peter's argument. And so then my question became, and I think it's a good question, is, so what do we know about whether electromagnetic waves at this power level, this thereabouts, can actually cause oxidative stress? And you can go online right now and find scores of studies showing that electromagnetic waves at this basic power level, they do increase oxidative stress. These are the kinds of studies that Peter is pointing to and that he's worried about. The issue is they are not studies in people.

[B]

Wait a minute. What are we studying, Wendy?

[A]

We are studying cells. A cell in a dish. What these studies do is they take a cell, a blood cell, maybe sperm, and then they will expose it to electromagnetic waves and then measure for markers of oxidative stress. And sometimes they say, yes, look, we found it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But the thing is, you can also find studies that find the exact opposite. They'll do basically the same thing and find that now it lowers oxidative stress. These electromagnetic waves are helpful.

[B]

So you're saying that this is bad, but it's also good.

[A]

What I'm saying is you need to be careful when you're looking at science and that you don't cherry pick your data. So what you find is that people who really are worried about electromagnetic waves, they will dismiss the studies that show, look, it's actually helpful. They collect the studies that show that it's harmful and say, look at all this data. But the broader point is that these are studies in cells, and cells are not people. Even you take a study in rats. And if we think about, say, you know, drug development, we're constantly curing cancer in rats. And then you take that, whatever chemical they're testing and you try it out in humans, and the chance it's gonna work is

[B]

what I'm. What I'm finding out is that the lab rat has it pretty good.

[A]

The lab rat has it so bad,

[B]

along the line, the lab rat has it better than us people.

[A]

But I think the broader point is you really need to look at studies in people if you want to make a claim like electromagnetic waves are harming collagen, increasing the risk of injuries, increasing oxidative stress. The cell studies, the animal studies, they can help you out, but you need the studies in people. I did ask Peter what studies do you have in people that really prove your point that these waves cause oxidative stress. And he sent us a couple of papers, and I want to go through them a little deeply here.

[B]

So you want to grade some papers right now?

[A]

No, I want to have some fun with science, Pablo. So, all right. Study one comes from India. And basically what the researchers did is they got people that worked at a substation, they were doing maintenance or installing power lines. Then they took some blood samples from them, measured markers of oxidative stress inside their blood, and found that workers installing the power lines had higher levels of oxidative stress than a group of admin workers.

[B]

Which follows Peter's theory.

[A]

Follows Peter's theory, yes.

[B]

People are being dosed with EMF waves, and look what's happening.

[A]

Right, okay. But then if you actually read the guts of the paper, you go deeper than that, you know? Abstract.

[B]

Yeah, we're getting out the. All 22ft. We're examining all the angles of the play here.

[A]

You'll notice the researchers didn't actually measure how much of these electromagnetic waves anyone in this study was exposed to. And Ken said this is a problem. Cause instead, what they did is they just based it on someone's job title and made an assumption.

[B]

Sometimes somebody might have job title as maintenance, but they might. They might be the boss. Just work in the office, you know?

[A]

Right, yes.

[B]

So again, job titles are. People use it as a de facto. As a de facto measure of exposure. But studies have shown that they're really poor.

[A]

So Ken said that's a bad idea because we know from other research that you might have a job title that's like power line installer, but you're actually a manager and you sit in an office all day, or you might look like your admin staff. But actually you are on site all day.

[B]

Yeah. This is like how a podcast producer is not getting credit for actually being your therapist.

[A]

Similar. Yes. And then there are some bigger issues that Ken pointed out.

[B]

When you look at all the tables, the numbers don't add up. Oh, no, just silly things like that. It's a really big red flag that.

[A]

Yeah. Where are these missing people?

[B]

Where are all these missing numbers?

[A]

So in the abstract, for example, they tell you that there's 142 substation workers that they're studying. Then you start looking at the tables. They've only got blood samples for 130 workers. So you're like, where's the other 12? Maybe you couldn't get blood samples from them. Sure. But then you look at the actual things they were measuring in the blood, the so called markers of oxidative stress, and now all of a sudden you're losing more samples. There was, in one of them, there was only 117 workers. And without explanation in the paper of where are the missing numbers? It's tasting poisonous.

[B]

What you're saying is that it is conspicuous when a nice abstract summarizes neatly a phenomenon, but the numbers don't actually justify those findings.

[A]

That's exactly right.

[B]

I wouldn't be using this study even as a hypothesis. Okay, okay. Moving on to the other study. So that was the Indian story.

[A]

He's shaking head.

[B]

I just. You said you weren't grading papers and you guys are violently grading papers.

[A]

But we're also having fun with science, aren't we?

[B]

You are like football. Science can be violent and fun.

[A]

So this other paper, this is actually an error that you see in a lot of stuff online. Super important people understand it. This paper got power plant workers measured various markers of oxidative stress again. But then they went further and they also gave everyone a test to see how depressed and burnt out they were. Then they compared that data to hospital admin staff and ultimately reported that the power plant workers had higher rates of depression and what they called burnout syndrome. And they said this quote may be caused by exposure to magnetic fields, possibly from oxidative stress.

[B]

I am but a humble sociology major, but it does feel like correlation and causation not quite the same thing.

[A]

Yes, that's it. That's it. So we basically have no idea from a study like this if electromagnetic waves caused the depression and the burnout syndrome had anything to do with these symptoms. With a study like this where you're just capturing people at one point in time, it's actually impossible to make A claim like that. But there are things that you can do statistically to rule out what else might be causing the burnout. You know, are we sure it's the oxidative stress? Or perhaps. Could it be.

[B]

It could be that working in a power plant is actually quite, you know, it gives you a burnout.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, stressful.

[A]

It's stressful.

[B]

And you get, you know, quite a stressful job.

[A]

Yes. So, you know, and that then leads to oxidative stress in your body. Well, maybe nothing to do with the. Maybe electromagnetic waves.

[B]

So both of these studies are examples of. They're just rubbish.

[A]

Yeah. What should we do with them?

[B]

Not consider them.

[A]

Not even my mum would say, you can wipe your ass.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Maybe you should do that. I mean, I do like how the big insight is maybe your job just sucks.

[A]

In this case, the power plant workers were shift workers and the admin staff at the hospital weren't. There was so many things I could reach to before I go to EMF waves.

[B]

The confounding variables are also just lingering in the air somewhere.

[A]

Exactly. And meanwhile, we do have good quality studies where people have looked at power plant workers and substation workers and looked for various issues with their health, including cardiovascular issues, which is also related to oxidative stress, by the way. And they're really not finding much. And when you look at studies in people. Let's go to collagen. What we actually find is that if you use electromagnetic waves in this particular way, where you pulse them, you can actually boost collagen production, not harm it. The complete opposite to what this theory is. So here's Ken on that.

[B]

You gotta remember, when it comes to collagen, there's actually more studies showing an improvement.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

[B]

So there's actually more studies showing a therapeutic effect in.

[A]

So I asked Ken. Okay, so knowing what you know, would you feel comfortable playing football for the 49ers?

[B]

I would be ecstatic. Imagine how much money I could make. I could make way more money than sitting here talking about the adverse effects of.

[A]

What about your Achilles?

[B]

No, I wouldn't be worried.

[A]

I talked to Peter about. It's kind of more broadly that I just didn't think the evidence was there that substations were.

[B]

I mean, you said you'd wipe your ass with the studies. It's very gentle of you to now say that you approach Peter delicately with evidence, but you wiped your ass with his evidence.

[A]

I mean, look, the anus is a delicate tissue of the body, so Let me play a bit of Peter's response.

[B]

I'm not wedded to it being an emf. Honestly, I'm not like I would say that to a certain extent. I've staked my reputation on the fact that it needs more study, that it's important to look into it and that I am not certain of anything. I'm not. So I do want to be serious here for a second because it's really important. I love that you did this, that you went to him and said, hey, the evidence is lacking and you are the guy that we are all citing here. So how do you reconcile this?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And his answer is we need more study. And I suppose, like, it raises the follow up question of like, what about the thing he was caring about the most this whole time, the thing that he wanted us all to study and care about, which is the whole, you know, we might be getting cancer from this stuff. How about that part of it?

[A]

Here is where we actually do have good quality studies and it's not just garbage. And maybe we take a break. Is this halftime?

[B]

You're learning how football works so quickly.

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So you left us with a hell of a cliffhanger. Are we all getting cancer? I believe was the gist of what I was left wondering about what these electromagnetic waves are actually doing to us. So what should we know?

[A]

So all over the Internet right now is this claim that the World Health Organization has classified these electromagnetic waves as Possibly carcinogenic. And this is true. So over 20 years ago, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organization, did classify these waves as possibly carcinogenic, and they never reclassified them.

[B]

So, in fact, we should be worried about this.

[A]

Let me just explain everything because I really don't want people to be freaked out, so. So this all started in 1979, when a study came out showing that kids in Colorado who had died from childhood cancer, especially leukemia, were more likely to have lived near power lines and substations compared to other kids. But since then, since this time, 1979, long time ago, scientists took this very seriously and started researching it over and over again all around the world. And curiously, the link, it does keep popping up, and not all studies find it. It's important to say, and it's not a strong link. So it's not like everyone living near a power line is going to get leukemia, far, far from it. So some research suggests that power lines and substations could maybe explain 1 to 4% of childhood leukaemias out there. Another way to think about that number is a German researcher did this rough estimate saying that in a country like Germany, which has 13 million children at the time of this assessment, and it said out of those 13 million children, maybe six cases of childhood leukemia might be attributed to electromagnetic fields.

[B]

You have put a podcast host in a tricky position now, because one child, of course, suffering from this is way too many. That's my political position. I want that on the record, your honor. Yes, but at the same time, I'm doing the math of 6 in 13 million, and that is a small number.

[A]

Researchers don't see a connection between electromagnetic fields and any other type of cancer, by the way, not even adult leukemia. They have looked, and they cannot find a link here.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But let's go back to the 49ers. So I think one of my favorite kinds of, let's call it a conspiracy theory online is where you have a little bit of truth and then a whole lot of not truth. So we've got a seed of doubt here, but now it's time for our touchdown.

[B]

That was so painful. So smooth.

[A]

So thanks.

[B]

That segue.

[A]

So, all right. You know how one reason that this caught the Internet's attention is because of the timing of the substation getting an upgrade with when the 49ers injuries start ratcheting up right around 2014.

[B]

As we know, there were renovations done on this substation in 2014. It's officially called the mission substation and. Right. No. 2014 is the year that we've circled as like the turning point in all this.

[A]

Exactly, exactly, exactly. The timing is very, very important because if the substation didn't get an upgrade in 2014, then it really doesn't make sense why it could have ticked off these injuries.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So like I said, we fact check everything. And so senior producer of Science vs Rose Rimlar was looking into did the substation get an upgrade in 2014, as has been reported, ad nauseam. And this took Rose on one hell of an adventure. Come on down, Rose. Hello.

[B]

Hi, Pablo. Hello. I do like how this is a truly global operation you guys have running. Oh yeah, Wendy in Australia. Rose is now sitting next to me. What was your adventure?

[A]

All right. So widely reported that the substation was expanded in 2014.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I first googled that. Right. I came across these. This podcast saying exactly this. They called out a. The website for a contracting service who built a substation in Santa clara where the 49ers play in 2014.

[B]

The Mission substation and 60kV underground extension was the largest substation undertaken by Silicon Valley Power with three.

[A]

And I read that note about what they did when they built the substation and they said that they put in some of the equipment running under California's

[B]

Great America was installed along the maintenance road of California's Great America park, which had to remain open during construction. Extensive. So California Great America is the amusement park.

[A]

It's an amusement park. I had my senior ditch day there. I'm from the Bay Area, but that's neither here nor there. But it's not really that close to Levi's Stadium or the Practice Center.

[B]

No. I've never enjoyed the Panda Express there on a senior ditch day. But it does seem that Google Maps is making very clear. Not close.

[A]

No. So I was like, well then why would the lines go that far south to the substation that's right next door. Then I found a presentation by Silicon Valley Power. That's the utility that owns the substation and it has a map of all the different substations and the substation in question that was expanded.

[B]

Did you make this graphic? No, no.

[A]

I got this from the PowerPoint presentation. He looks so disgusted by this graphic. Look, they're not the Silicon Valley graphic design.

[B]

This is a bunch of triangles. Looks like they just. This is like made in like Microsoft Word.

[A]

Yeah. But I was so happy to find this because it actually names where all the substations are because there's substations everywhere. Right. So there's the one right next to Levi's Stadium, it clearly says it's called the nrs. Mostly it's called the Northern Receiving Station. But the one that we just read this whole thing about, like, oh, it was this big expansion. Da, da, da. The Mission Substation, it's way over there. So people were saying a substation upgraded in 2014, but it is a different substation. It's a different substation.

[B]

This admittedly terribly made graphic does make clear that the thing that apparently has expanded, which is called Mission Substation, is off in the bottom left hand corner and not at all the substation or either of the substations near Levi's Stadium.

[A]

It's not the same one.

[B]

How far away is that?

[A]

It's like a mile away, which is really far in the world of electromagnetic radiation, because that field drops off extremely quickly with distance. The final thing I can tell you, I did find, and Peter helped me with this. And by the way, Peter has been very gracious in like, you know, also working Peter this. And like, he's like, oh, yeah, I guess I did get that wrong because he wrote some of this stuff on the substack.

[B]

That's really encouraging that Peter is like working with the fact checkers to make sure that, like, yeah, I should admit that I didn't get this right.

[A]

And he actually found this graph. It's from a slide presentation about data center use in Silicon Valley, from Silicon Valley Power that shows basically the growth of the use of power and electricity in the area. And you can see it's going up. But what I would look for to explain some change that happened in 2014, I would look for some kind of inflection point in this graph, and I don't see that. So I think from all of this adventure we've learned that all of this reporting about the substation expanding, they were talking about the wrong substation. It's not the one near the 49ers. And you do not have a clear moment where power cranks up at the substation near the 49ers practice area. Bam. Injuries start plaguing the 49ers. We do not have that. And as we kept looking into the lore around this story, you know, it wasn't the Achilles tendons that were rupturing. It was the whole story here.

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[A]

Time to blow the whistle and it's time for you to meet Dr. Zachary Binney. He's an assistant professor of epidemiology and data science at Emory University in Atlanta and he has been looking into the injuries of the 49ers. Are you a 49ers fan?

[B]

I am not. I am a Miami Dolphins fan. God help me. So, been a dry couple of decades, especially relative to the Niners.

[A]

So Zach doesn't have pig skin in this game. He doesn't hold a 40 year grudge from when the Dolphins met the 49ers in the Super bowl in 1985. Don't say I didn't try to care about NFL. Pablo.

[B]

Yeah, thank you for doing research. There's so many more things to be depressed about if you're a Dolphins fan than losing to the Niners in 85.

[A]

Right. So Zach is the curator of FTN Fantasy's NFL Injury Database. It's this huge spreadsheet been tracking injuries in football stretching back to 2007. Basically, most football injuries have to get publicly reported, which is important for betting and fantasy football.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And so Zach and his team take those public reports and then pop them into a spreadsheet, including who got injured, their position, the kind of injury, yada, yada, yada. And so I just asked him, over the years, have the 49ers even had more injuries than other teams?

[B]

So if you're just talking about the raw number of injuries, like the number of players getting hurt, they actually don't. They're a little bit above average. Oh. But they actually don't have the most players, the most injuries happening. I just like Howard now. We're now realizing that everything about this story is a paper that needs to be regraded. It is a mess. It's bad.

[A]

And over the past decade, if you are looking at games lost due to all injuries, Zach said the Giants lead the way. San Francisco is second.

[B]

Yeah, I got to say, like, as, as a New Yorker, this feels like a missed opportunity for the Giants to also be deeply aggrieved.

[A]

Well, I mean, Zach said there's an obvious reason why no one seems to be crying about the Giants.

[B]

Frankly, there have also been a worse team over that time period. So I think fans don't feel as much pain when the players on a team that's already kind of struggling get hurt as they do when the Niners, who have competed for and in Super Bowls in the last decade, suffer these injuries. So how wrong is the data on the Niners then? Like, how do you even arrive at that mistaken conclusion?

[A]

I mean, I can hear fans saying, what? What is she talking about? Like, we know this. We know the 49ers are the worst. I've seen stats saying that. And so we looked around as well.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we contacted Aaron Schatz, who's the chief analytics officer at FTN Fantasy, and he said that when you change the way you analyze the stats and you adjust them so you just focus on the starting players, important players, you also consider if maybe a player is injured and they're going to be on the field, but they're not going to be playing at their best, if you start sort of adjusting for that sort of stuff, then the 49ers do look the worst over the last decade. But, and this is critical, it's not by a lot.

[B]

I should acknowledge, however, that it is pretty funny and, and admittedly quite suspicious that the 49ers, according to the Athletic earlier this year, are, quote, exploring a possible nearby relocation for their now infamous practice facility. Although the given reason there is that the Niners are running out of space at their current address, as opposed to running out of patience for memes about how the substation is looming over the practice field like the Eye of Sauron, which may not be great for attracting free agents, but in fairness to the substation, I suppose that stat Aaron Chatz was just referring to adjusted games lost, which gives more weight to losing starters due to injury. That statistic itself opens the door to other confounding variables, variables like, you know, playing time and other undeniably human decisions that put human ligaments in jeopardy.

[A]

There could be other much cleaner explanations like, I don't know, culture, coach, or both.

[B]

For instance, how many practices in a row 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan was mandating during training camp in 2025. Way to build your body to make it to a year is building that callus. All right, I really believe in three practices in a row as we go through camp. I can't always do it, all right, because the scheduling and stuff, but that's what our goal is. All right? The more we can practice three days in a row and fight through soreness and stuff is, the more you build that calorie. But this is yet another human decision that Kyle Shanahan now says is becoming a bit more relaxed because the 49ers are no longer practicing three days in a row, Kyle Shanahan is changing his mind. He's now limiting it to 2. Now, it is worth noting, of course, that the most narratively inconvenient variable of all in this story is fundamentally sheer randomness, as Shanahan himself is aware at this point, as well as anybody, given that he survived a now infamous car accident just last month. And while that accident in Palo Alto triggered even more jokes about the substation's power, it also raised lingering questions about human error and how lucky Kyle Shanahan is to have survived.

[A]

I do think at the backdrop of all of this is the randomness of life.

[B]

That is unsatisfying. Randy.

[A]

I find it super satisfying because I think part of the reason that theories like the substation thrive is because it gives you a singular thing to blame and it gives you comfort and it gives us this something to focus on. But the truth is that sometimes just happens and injuries just happen. And, you know, you look at the stats, the 32 teams, 16 of them are gonna be at the bottom half. That's just stats right there is this concept, Pablo, in psychology called the deep story. And it's basically the story that everyone believes, this emotional story that everyone's pulled into whether it's true or not. And so I think the deep story here is that the 49ers are plagued year after year after year with crazy amounts of injuries when really, when you look at the stats, they're not doing great. I'm not out here saying that like this is that they're the best in the league, healthiest in the league? Absolutely not. But they are not doing crazy bad crazy enough that we need to reach for substations to explain what's going on.

[B]

You are, as a non NFL expert, getting to explain the NFL in ways that might be cutting to the core of the psychology of the people who love America's foremost cultural institutions.

[A]

Doing my best. So I think, bottom line, we could safely say this substation, the evidence just isn't there that that is to blame for the injuries the 49ers have had.

[B]

This feels comprehensive in a way that a blowout loss tends to feel in this very American game. And also, I kind of feel dizzy. So the full NFL experience.

[A]

Yeah, we've done our job. We've hit you over the head with the facts.

[B]

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.

[A]

I hope you like this episode that we made with the team at Pablo Torre finds out. If you do share it with someone who into the NFL, into science, into Taylor Swift conspiracy theories about EMF waves, let people know. And I really do want to hear what you thought about this episode. So let us know. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. All the links are in the show notes.

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