During Sunday’s playoff win, 49ers tight end George Kittle tore his Achilles.

When 49ers tight end George Kittle tore his Achilles during Sunday’s playoff win over the Eagles, he became the latest San Francisco star player to suffer a major injury — and brought a viral conspiracy theory back into the spotlight. 

Kittle’s injury led to countless people on X circulating the theory that low-frequency radiation from an electrical substation near Levi’s Stadium and the 49ers practice fields might have contributed to the team’s injuries.

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But experts in radiation say there’s no proof to back up that theory.

“Scientists do not consider power lines or cellphones or radar installations to be damaging,” Gayle Woloschak, a professor of radiology oncology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told SFGATE.

To help clear up public misconceptions, Woloschak explained that electromagnetic radiation has two general types, one with very high energy and the other with low energy.

Human sources of the strong type, called “ionizing” radiation, include nuclear reactors and weapons. This kind of radiation can indeed break DNA and cause cancer, such as people experienced following the atomic bombings in World War II.

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But the other type, “non-ionizing” radiation, is extremely weak comparatively. And in modern times, everyone from NFL stars to........

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