system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Can microwaves harm you if you stand close to them while they are cooking food?

When I was younger, my mother would always tell me to stay away from the microwave oven when it was on, as she was convinced it would give you cancer if you were near it while it was cooking food. I took physics, biology, and chemistry in college, however, and there was never any mention of harm caused by microwave ovens.

Was this just paranoia on my mother's part? Or is there some sort of scientific evidence that microwaves can be harmful to the human body?
gpt
The microwave oven is perfectly safe to stand next to. The metal cage you see lining the inside of the microwave is a Faraday cage that prevents the electromagnetic radiation from getting out. Don't worry about the holes you see in the metal cage, their size is specifically designed to increase its effectiveness at the frequency that the microwave operates at (2.4GHz), so nothing harmful will get out.