A video claims to show that radiation from a cell phone ringing can set steel wool on fire.
This video appeared on YouTube at the end of December and has since raised questions:
Does a cell phone really emit that much radiation? Then can it set me on fire too? Do I even have steel wool in my body? What insights can be drawn from the supposed experiment? How did you even come up with this idea?
This video is about:
After the steel wool is arranged in a circle, a smartphone is placed in the center and called. Seconds later you can see small flames rising from the steel wool.
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The source
The video was published by the YouTube channel “ ViralVideoLab ,” which has the slogan “ Too impossible to be real? “, in German: “ Too impossible to be true? “.
This slogan should be viewed as a little wink, because the channel's videos actually quite often show things that are actually too impossible, but at least amusing. In 2018, for example, they published a video showing ants running in circles around a cell phone, which we declared to be fake .
But maybe this video is different? Let's take a closer look at the video!
The slow motion
Youtube conveniently offers you the option of playing a video at reduced speed, which reveals an interesting detail in the steel wool cell phone video:

The flames appear almost out of nowhere. In slow motion you can see that they don't flicker out of the steel wool at first small and then getting bigger, but rather they fade in slowly and then start to flicker.
In the picture on the left you can already see the flame weakly, but already in its original size, in the middle picture you can see half the flame, and in the right picture you can see the fully faded flame.
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Colleagues' attempt
The colleagues at Snopes wanted to know more precisely and carried out the experiment themselves. You can see the groundbreaking result here:
As you can see, you see nothing, the experiment is incomprehensible.
Conclusion
The name of the YouTube channel is also the program in the literal sense: a laboratory for viral videos. Combined with their slogan and the video analysis, you shouldn't take the videos too seriously. They're consistently amusing, but there's also a lot of digital trickery involved!
Also interesting:
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

