Studies Find Harm From Cellular and Wi-Fi Signals 474
Over the years we've discussed the possible health risks of cellphone and other microwave radiation: studies from Israel and Sweden indicating a link between cellphone use and cancer, one from England exonerating cell towers as a cause of "microwave radiation sensitivity," and a recent 30-year Swedish study that found no link to cancer. The question won't go away though. Reader Artifice_Eternity writes "I've always tended to dismiss claims of toxicity from cell phone and Wi-Fi signals as reflecting ignorance about microwave radiation. However, this GQ article cites American and European studies going back decades that have found some level of biological harm caused by these signals. Why haven't they gained more attention? Quoting: 'Industry-funded studies seem to reflect the result of corporate strong-arming. Lai reviewed 350 studies and found that about half showed bioeffects from EM radiation emitted by cell phones. But when he took into consideration the funding sources for those 350 studies, the results changed dramatically. Only 25 percent of the studies paid for by the industry showed effects, compared with 75 percent of those studies that were independently funded.'"
WooHoo! I'm safe! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:WooHoo! I'm safe! (Score:4, Funny)
867-5309
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
As if anyone's going to share a phone number online, this isn't a credit card we're talking about.
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All the noise, and we all know you won't come through. I'd view, just for the entertainment value, as long as it wasn't a pay site trap.
Re:WooHoo! I'm safe! (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously an imposter.
Re:WooHoo! I'm safe! (Score:5, Insightful)
He was doubting that a hardcore Slashdot reader has any female acquaintances, not that the AC was you.
Re:WooHoo! I'm safe! (Score:4, Funny)
Ethan, seriously. How much will it take for you NOT to post a porn of you and a "female" "acquaintance" online?
I'm willing to start a collection right now.
I understand that you plan to wear masks, but believe me, seeing your face is not our biggest concern. Good lord, man - think of the children! If god forbid some young girl should accidentally stumble upon the video while googling "ethanol + fuel + internal + combustion" for a school project, it might put her off men for life. And if a young boy were to see it, well, it would also put him off men for life.
Regarding the "masks"... You're not a furfag, are you? I mean, if this video shows you with a bunny head on, I may have to hunt you down.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:WooHoo! I'm safe! (Score:4, Funny)
You wish. Put your phone close to a CRT monitor and a analog radio receiver (powered on), and watch both go *bzzt*bzzt* from time to time. ;)
Now imagine the same going on in your pocket, close to your balls... aaah, what's the point... you don't need them anyway. ;)
GQ? (Score:5, Funny)
I know I always go to Gentleman's Quarterly for my journal articles regarding the dangers of electromagnetic radiation exposure.
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They still sell the Enquirer? I haven't actually SEEN a copy in ages.
They still exist, including online [nationalenquirer.com]. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that the reason tabloids are still around is that people BUY them. That's the real tragedy. Remember that cultural crap doesn't exist in a vacuum - people create a market for it. (This is ss even true in politics [slate.com].)
Wait - I get it. Man evolves slowly, because he retarded. Or, at least experiencing retarded evolution.
Shhhhhhh! You'll anger Sarah Palin. Better call it mentally challenged evolution.
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If someone will believe that there is a half human half bat boy flying around in mexico then they will believe anything.
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Who would know better if cellphones cause cancer (Score:2)
... than an anonymous neurosurgeon?
Did I miss something?
I couldn't find one reference to a study published in a peer-reviewed journal in the last 10 years that claimed to rule out association.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As I said, unreputable sources. :)
You can find someone who will assert just about anything. It reminds me of my BBS days. As CPU speeds approached 33Mhz, there was a discussion on FidoNet (if I recall correctly), where a few people were terribly insistent that computers would never exceed 100Mhz. Not that it couldn't happen, but when it did, it would be hazardous to be around, the power consumption would be impossibly high, and it would effectively destroy VHF and FM broadc
"independently funded"? (Score:5, Informative)
Or "in part funded by opponents of radiation"?
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:5, Informative)
The energy of a 2GHz cell-phone photon is about 0.00001 eV. Cell-phone photons cannot cause a chemical change.
Here's the QM version in more detail http://www.who.int/peh-emf/meetings/archive/valberg_bsw.pdf [who.int]:
"A repeatable, explicit, and predictive mechanism capable of producing biologically significant responses (modulation dependent or not) from low-level RF fields has not been found." You can accept quantum mechanics as a valid standard, or you can base your understanding upon who provided the funding.
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, possible doesn't mean practical. The probability of 2 GHz being that perfect frequency, of denaturing a single type of tumor suppressant protein causing unchecked DNA replication, and that replication introducing a cancerous change is negligibly low. Plus, researchers would've sounded the alarm ages ago if a common/well studied cancer like SCC increased in incidence in a specific area of the body. Deeper tissue wouldn't get as much radiation exposure, and a non-skin cancer on the thigh is kinda rare (blood vessel, muscle, bone, and fat cancers have prevalences of ~.1% - 1%).
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:4, Informative)
Protein folding relies heavily on very lower energy Van der Waals interactions, ionic interactions, and even the hydration shell. Theoretically, the perfect type of low energy radiation could denature tumor suppressant proteins in a nucleated keratinocyte and generate a squamous cell carcinoma.
That said, possible doesn't mean practical. The probability of 2 GHz being that perfect frequency, of denaturing a single type of tumor suppressant protein causing unchecked DNA replication, and that replication introducing a cancerous change is negligibly low. Plus, researchers would've sounded the alarm ages ago if a common/well studied cancer like SCC increased in incidence in a specific area of the body. Deeper tissue wouldn't get as much radiation exposure, and a non-skin cancer on the thigh is kinda rare (blood vessel, muscle, bone, and fat cancers have prevalences of ~.1% - 1%).
That is an interesting theory. But in support of your skepticism as to the likeliness of it being reality, I'll bring up a couple other related molecular/protein facts for readers:
-The denaturation of tumor-suppressor proteins would have to occur not on one or several, but a large number of those within the cell to degrade the suppression signal enough to disable it; and since the 'damage' is only temporal, the denaturation would have to occur continuously and also to its daughter cells as well so as to maintain the tumor growth. Genetic damage (as previously shown to be physically impossible) to the suppressor genes is the only way to truly disable the gene in the cell and its progeny.
-Chaperonin-60 (HSP60/GroESL) is present in sufficient quantity to maintain proper folding of denatured proteins in the cell and so I would suggest that not only would the rate of denaturation have to be large enough to encumber proper suppression signaling, but it would also have to overcome the repair activity of HSP60. (Maybe the radiation also denatures the chaperonin, but that's just getting so improbable its hard to even consider talking about).
-I don't want to assume too much here, but testing cell phone strength EM radiation on protein folding is not too difficult to have been done by now. I really want to assume it has been done and the results were null... I don't want to search the pubs tonight...
-So, assuming that the EM radiation *can* affect protein folding, and assuming the hypothetical fact that it would have to happen to many proteins --- if this were the case, we would likely see the effects of denatured proteins in other observable areas. Nearly everything going on in the cell and in the body is controlled, communicated, and mediated by proteins. Many proteins are active in real time and encumbering their function by denaturation (by any means, including the hypothetical) should have some form of physiological or psychologically observable changes. Lets take insulin for an example, but lets also assume that thousands of proteins are just as relevant. With insulin, loss of function results in lowered glucose uptake into the cells and so the blood retains glucose. If EM waves were denaturing insulin in any real way, blood glucose levels should be observable and diabetic-like symptoms might likely arise. This is not the case... I'm not sure how many readers are aware of the complexity of proteins and their complex functions in the body, but there are basically thousands of examples that could be imagined wherein a significant denaturing of proteins would result in some observable outcome.
-Humans (and other life forms) came into existence and evolved in the presence of all kinds of EM radiation from the sun, the big bang, etc. If EM radiation's ability to denature proteins was significant to persistence of life on earth, life would have evolved in ways that were not susceptible to that radiation.
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Humans are notorious for not knowing the cause of something, imagining a cause, and then sharing and believing that supposed 'cause' as fact. I won't outright deny the possibility that cell phone EM radiation may cause damage to our bodies, but with what we know it is very very highly unlikely.
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Re:"independently funded"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a great PROTIP for everyone out there discussing this topic:
Hmm... Interesting how this is a really good analogy to the “terrorist ‘threat’”, compared to e.g. car accidents, and bad things the own government does...
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing (Score:3, Interesting)
The energy of a carbon bond is a few electron volts. IOW, that much energy is needed to cause a chemical change in the molecule. The energy of a 2GHz cell-phone photon is about 0.00001 eV. Cell-phone photons cannot cause a chemical change.
Where do you get the idea from that the only thing that can cause cancer is changes in chemical bonds?
In fact, anything that alters regulatory mechanisms within the cell might cause cancer. A lot of the structure and function of cells are determined by electrical fields,
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:5, Informative)
Electrical energy adsorption from a low energy photon is not small. It is zero. A million such photons and it is still zero.
Quantum mechanics baby.
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:4, Informative)
Okay let's see.
A mobile phone can emit about a 1 watt. So say you talk for t about of time, so 1 watt * t joules of energy.
The energy of each photon from a mobile phone would be, E = hf = h * 900 MHz.
So number of photons emitted is: t / (h*900Mhz).
The cross section area is about 10^50, so, roughly, you'd need to talk for .. about 10^18 years. Far far longer than the age of the universe.
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't work that way. If the photon doesn't have enough energy to put the molecule into a new state, it simply doesn't get absorbed. There's no difference between one not being absorbed and a billion. Saying that more photons = more energy is like saying that if you have a bunch of red lights and point them all at the same place, they turn blue.
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:5, Interesting)
For cell phone radiation and carbon bonds, that is an excellent approximation, but it is not generally true. There is such a thing as two photon excitation, where for example two 1 eV photons cause a 2 eV transition. In my lab we often observe two and three photon excitation using high power lasers and a sensitive spectrometer, though it is much less likely than single photon excitation. One would need to wait a very long time to observe million photon excitation.
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually if you do point red lights at a point, some (very few I admit, but still non-zero) of them will "turn blue", since blue is almost the same energy as two photons. It's called two-photon absorption. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-photon_absorption [wikipedia.org]
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:5, Informative)
What about 1 million cell phone photons?
I'll agree that the electromagnetic absorpotion due to a single photon is small.
But a cell phone release more than 1 photon, and the total energy and absorpotion of the electromagnetic wave is much larger than one photon.
And might be sufficient to cause heating of tissue and other effects given a sufficient period of direct exposure to a sufficiently strong cell signal.
It makes no difference. This is a fundamental result that was explained by [wikipedia.org] Einstein about a hundred years ago!
This is basic, TV documentary level quantum mechanics. Two photons that are too weak individually do NOT add up to a strong photon, contrary to naive expectations based on classic mechanics, where two weak waves can add up to a bigger wave.
The way to think about it is this: The ability of a photon to break apart molecular bonds is based on either heating or excitation. Heating is classical, but the power levels used by cell phones are far way too weak for this to occur, and humans are water cooled [wikipedia.org]. Excitation is quantum mechanical, and there is a cut-off based on the wavelength of light. Adding two photons will not change their wavelength. Any number of microwave photons added together will not become a UV photon.
People take far more damage from the Sun than all other sources combined. If you want something to panic about, be more concerned about the huge unshielded fusion reactor that's bathing you in ionizing radiation with a power of hundreds of watts per square.
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:4, Funny)
If you want something to panic about, be more concerned about the huge unshielded fusion reactor that's bathing you in ionizing radiation with a power of hundreds of watts per square.
Hundreds of watts per square...? Square what?
Or do you actually mean, per square, as in, per slashdotter?
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:4, Informative)
It was obviously incorrect in that usage, but "per square" can in fact be part of a unit. When you're measuring the resistance of a thin film of material, you do it in ohms per square [wikipedia.org]. Every square of any size has the same resistance. You can picture the width as parallel resistors, and the length as resistors in series, and the effects cancel out.
Re:Basic physics guys (Score:4, Funny)
Re:"independently funded"? (Score:4, Informative)
Water in your microwave certainly is effected by the field even if each photon has low energy.
but then again, a microwave works around 750 watts, whats the watt of a common mobile phone again?
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First, there's often a potential of 100+kV across your body. Just try rubbing your socks on the carpet some time. It's not really a big deal.
Second, the electric chair uses AC power. Edison used that as selling point for DC power. And it's a terribly ineffective way to kill people. In practice it works by putting so much power into a person that they cannot dissipate it -- essentially cooking them -- not because of any lower-power electric effects. You might make people lose muscle control or even conscious
Re:A couple of questions... (Score:5, Informative)
That's ludicrous. Organic molecules are constantly being bent and deformed due to thermal collisions.
The basal metabolism of the human body is roughly 120 watts. A couple of sit ups releases far more thermal energy than could be adsorbed by the body from a cell phone.
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Stop trying to pass off a bad strawman argument as if it were truly based in logic and fact. The energy of the photons in the UV part of the spectrum of the Sun is FAR greater than anything generated by a cellphone.
It's not the number of photons, it's their energy, but I suspect you knew that already.
Anti-science groups fund studies too. (Score:5, Insightful)
Although it can be fair to argue about whether or not the industry studies are biased, I think it goes the other way too.
There are A LOT of people out there who are 'convinced' that cell phones and wi-fi cause cancer. And it doesn't matter how many studies you show them that it doesn't, they just won't believe you.
And if you consider that many of these so-called 'independent' studies are in fact paid for by fringe anti-science groups, then perhaps their results are aren't as unbiased as they would have you believe.
Re:Anti-science groups fund studies too. (Score:4, Funny)
And if you consider that many of these so-called 'independent' studies are in fact paid for by fringe anti-science groups, then perhaps their results are aren't as unbiased as they would have you believe.
That seems strange - I'm having trouble imaging what an anti-science directed study would consist of. And how unbiased would they have you believe their study is, if it's anti-science by definition? It seems like they would want to show off their own maximizing of bias if it's really anti-science.
Re:Anti-science groups fund studies too. (Score:5, Funny)
And if you consider that many of these so-called 'independent' studies are in fact paid for by fringe anti-science groups, then perhaps their results are aren't as unbiased as they would have you believe.
That seems strange - I'm having trouble imaging what an anti-science directed study would consist of. And how unbiased would they have you believe their study is, if it's anti-science by definition? It seems like they would want to show off their own maximizing of bias if it's really anti-science.
Check with the people behind these sites for some excellent examples:
http://www.creationstudies.org/ [creationstudies.org]
http://www.creationbiology.org/ [creationbiology.org]
http://www.icr.org/ [icr.org]
http://theflatearthsociety.org/ [theflatearthsociety.org]
Modded funny (Score:2)
As a side note, of the above links, The Flat Earth Society is merely satire and most people on the forums are actually very intelligent.
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you have never argued with a deeply religious person have you?
It is like arguing with idiots on the internet. doesn't matter if your right it is all some one else's fault.
My personal favorite time was arguing with someone shortly after 9/11 that the f-22 and yF-23 were in fact real planes that were built and under development, and no amount of articles, logic, or truth would make them believe it. They kept saying they were alien designed.
Re:Anti-science groups fund studies too. (Score:5, Insightful)
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The problem is that an advanced technology does not contain information to infer the intermediate stages.
Take semiconductors, for instance. The first transistor was patented in 1947, by coincidence the year of the alleged UFO crash in New Mexico. Some conspiracy theorists have used this coincidence to claim that semiconductors were reverse engineered from alien technology. But there is a catch.
There is absolutely nothing in a modern semiconductor that could have been used to accelerate the development of th
Re:Anti-science groups fund studies too. (Score:5, Insightful)
>There are A LOT of people out there who are 'convinced' that cell phones and wi-fi cause cancer.
In fact there are lots of people who claim to show symptoms (dizziness, depression, anxiety, pain, etc) when exposed to wifi or cell radio. The kicker is that they only claim this when they know they are being exposed to wifi/cell, not when they are actually exposed.
I really think the next version of the DSM should have an entry for 'radio phobia.' These poor people are simply mentally ill and need help from professionals. They dont need bullshit studies validating their illness.
Re:Anti-science groups fund studies too. (Score:5, Informative)
The rat organ toxicity from GMOs study posted here on Slashdot last week was funded by Greenpeace. Total junk science too - meta study using shady statistical methods published in a non-refereed journal.
Biased Reports? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wonder if replies such as this are an automatic reply, and if a study really confirms that cellular and WiFi signals increase the chances of cancer, without skewing the tests, would the responses on Slashdot be the same? I was about to make one like your before looking at the article, and then I thought, whoa, what if the studies were correctly executed? While I'm absolutely unconvinced that there is a link between cancer rates and microwave signals in cell phones and other wireless networks, but if a stu
Re:Biased Reports? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah right, the Big Money Hippies will be exposed for influencing the studies done by the poor little oil and energy conglomerates.
The fact that you think global warming is a fraud is a good case study in how money can buy science, and can especially buy people's perceptions of science.
Re:Biased Reports? (Score:4, Insightful)
When the big names on one side of the debate turn out to be engaged in avoiding freedom-of-information requests, carrying on back-channel actions like squeezing people out of journals, and making ridiculous claims about Himalayan glaciers, it weakens their case. That doesn't mean global warming isn't happening; it's just the story of the boy who cried wolf.
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If big business was constantly hammering you with endless FOI requests designed to cost you time and money, why wouldn't you avoid them?
Re:Biased Reports? (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that climate scientists who are part of the IPCC pointed out the doggy Himalayan paragraph and the IPCC prominently acknowledged the error [www.ipcc.ch] on thier main report page strengthens their claims of scientific rigour. The rest just feeds the never ending appetite humans have for witch burning and gossip. It doesn't help that we no longer get news and opinion, we get the two rolled together into a multi-channel, multi-media, web-enabled, 24x7 display of ignorance and hubris.
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Yeah right, the Big Money Hippies will be exposed for influencing the studies done by the poor little oil and energy conglomerates.
The fact that you think global warming is a fraud is a good case study in how money can buy science, and can especially buy people's perceptions of science.
Al Gore was worth 2 million before he started warning people about manbearpig now he's worth 100million because he sells manbearpig repellent.
Re:Biased Reports? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not quite sure I understand. So you're saying either Hippies were pushing for global warming or... Nobody was?!
Those are some crazy choices and I'd like to see how you ruled out every other person and motivation on the planet and were left with hippies.
First I'd like to point out that the way academia is funded and the political and social pressures within can motivate scientists to come to incorrect consensus. Hey if you're climatologist and your options are to side with the man-made global warming consensus to continue to get funding, or denounce it, lose funding and be ostracized and fired; you have a pretty strong reason to say you see the man made connection.
Also, I think you are completely missing the real big money and big power interests behind pushing global warming. Governments are SALIVATING at the proposition of a new way to exercise power over people with all the new carbon regulations. Downright jumping over themselves to start taxing. It puts them in an incredible position of power and control. What aspect of your life do you think does not depend on some sort of carbon exchange and release many times over? The only thing I can think of is growing plants and you better sure as hell not intend on eating them.
And don't forget the big corporations who are also dying for "carbon trading" like the financial industry. In fact don't forget big corporations, full stop. This is another way for the big boys to keep small business from ever posing a threat. Another way to squash your smaller competitor in a non-competitive manner and prevent a functioning capitalist system.
In fact, even proponents of global governance, population control, eugenics and entities interested in creating a more powerful world bank have seized on to this issue to further progress their causes. Look at the club of rome [wikipedia.org]. When you have dodgy science about to command this much power every loonie wants in on the action. And don't tell me it's not dodgy, every prediction and every model ever made by a global warming supporter has always proven wrong and al gore's little film was not worthy of even being called science there were so many convenient errors.
Of course, not everyone is on board. The oil companies probably don't like this, only because it is the *perception* that their business is the only one that deals in carbon. Don't worry though, if they get their wish and convince us to switch to a hydrogen economy we can drive our fuel cell cars blissfully unaware that the only way to make that hydrogen economically is to use their hydrocarbons. Oh and as a bonus we can pay them to keep using their fueling infrastructure.
The bottom line is this, there are many more well proven pollution causes to champion and many many more worthwhile humanitarian causes to fight for. There are wars right now killing millions of people. Disease killing millions when prevention and cure is available. Starvation, rape, slave trafficking. Look at the damn pollution we've slung into the seas. You can't even eat fish more than once a month now without getting high mercury and dioxin levels. So you've got to be kidding me focusing on this, an issue that is FAR from settled and trying to introduce taxation and control by force.
And you're giving me this line about hippies....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The issue is significantly settled among those that are educated in relative studies. The seriousness of the implications of AGW is far greater than any of those examples you made, but you would have to have a relative education to understand why.
I don't listen to arguments about AGW from the ignorant and while the science I trust is written by qualified people whose qualifications are published and verifiable, the skeptics and critics are by-and-large NOT qualified.
What qualifications do you have? Before
Re:Biased Reports? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah right. How many governments have actually done this so far? Even those commie pinko liberal hippy tax happy eurotrash ones seem to be a bit tardy about this.
Come on, they've had over 20 years so far to actually do this. It only took a fraction of that time for Warsaw Pact countries to shift from communism to democracies, or the UK to shift from a democracy to a surveillance based police state, or South Africa to dismantle aparthied, or the Chinese to transform into raving captialists etc.
So far, the main responses from governments seem to be along the lines of pretending it doesn't exist, hoping it goes away, stalling, waiting for everyone else to do something instead, rejecting it outright, or talking big but doing nothing etc etc.
Re:Biased Reports? (Score:4, Insightful)
So two decades after this thing started hitting the radar and one decade after some major UN agreement was signed, the EC is actually starting to enforce something and dismissing many member states plans for being too loose? And these are the tax happy tree hugging commie states to boot. What jack booted carbon thuggery has the rest of the world been doing to "exercise power over the people"?
That first decade was spent ignoring the issue, the second was spent bitching about how it would kill everyones economies. And now some limp wristed pinko countries have just implemented namby pamby trading schemes for large emitters because taxes ended up seeming a bit too harsh in the end.
Wow, you'd think if (as you claim) those nasty governments really had been salivating over their power trips that whole time they could've easily come up with something properly draconian by now. After all, the third reich came and went in less time than that.
Why would they want to bother with this complicated unpopular science stuff, when they can be more popular by using the terrorist bogeyman to get all the draconian power they want over ordinary people anyway?
Re:Biased Reports? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that you think global warming is a real is a good case study in how money can buy science, and can especially buy people's perceptions of science.
See? Two can play that game.
Lol. The odds that money bought off pretty much all of the relevantly educated people in the field... as compared to having bought the very few fringe-skeptics with relevant educations... is pretty frikking low.
So low, actually, that there aren't two sides to the game at all.
But, just as your skepticism is fueled, any discussion or argument that doesn't agree with your preconceived beliefs will not suffice. Your disbelief = your god = your faith. Good luck with that; I just wish you didn't stand in the way of rational progress and truth in the world.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
corporations in the green industry
What is this 'green industry' and where can I invest?
Solar panels
Organic Foods
Clean Energy developing companies
recycling companies
------
I'm excited about JC Venter's / Exxon's algal-fuel production that will be started this year with a seed plant in the bay area and then ramped up to large scale production next year.
Confirmation bias. (Score:2, Insightful)
The /. demographic sees it as fact that studies funded by the oil industry regarding environmental effects are to be dismissed out-of-hand.
This same demographic sees it as fact that studies funded by the tech industry regarding biological effects are to be accepted out-of-hand.
We like our echo chambers just like everyone else.
Now cue the nerds screaming about RF radiation is harmless, and always has been, and always will be:
Re:Confirmation bias. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it is because there's quite a few actual scientists in the relevant fields posting on Slashdot. Or maybe it's the fact that you expect people to make decisions solely on whom created the stufy rather than 1) evidence 2) rational explanation of the results. CO2 is a known greenhouse gas and is the major causal agent behind the climate change we're seeing right now. Microwaves OTOH are not capable of breaking molecular bonds found in cells.
--A biochemist
Re:Confirmation bias. (Score:4, Informative)
RF radiation, at the extremely low levels of energy that wifi and cell signals use, is harmless to humans, always has been, and always will be.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This same demographic sees it as fact that studies funded by the tech industry regarding biological effects are to be accepted out-of-hand."
So what, I see little difference between greenpeace, the heartland institue and the discovery institute, I do not dissmisses then "out of hand" I dismiss them because they are all anti-science. They are all capable of getting t
I know I'm safe... (Score:3, Funny)
Caveat Emptor (Score:2)
Re:Caveat Emptor (Score:4, Informative)
Any waiter that wants a tip.
Just use bluetooth (Score:2)
and keep your cellphone away from your balls. Let everyone else find out if it causes brain cancer.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Bluetooth is just another version of wifi.
The bluetooth frequencies range from 2.402GHz to 2.480GHz
Just the power output is different.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes from my understanding bluetooth and wifi are harmless, the main reasonable health debate revolves around cellphone radiation risk.
Re: (Score:2)
Matters not (Score:5, Insightful)
It matters not one whit how many studies show result X. What matters is what is shown by peer-reviewed studies done under controlled circumstances and having a significant sample size.
For example 100 studies done shoddily using sample sizes of 3, 4, and 6 subjects do not outweigh one ten-year study across 1,000 subjects.
Now just on general principles, if one watt of radio energy was harmful, you'd think that people like RF welders, tower steeplejacks, plasma researchers, and radar disk repairers wolsd be covered in suppurating pustules. But they're not. Even people whose heads are hit by 100 watts of much stronger photons (sunbathers, cowboys), they do just fine.
So I suggest you use GQ to check up on the latest fashions, maybe not so much on the best science.
Re:Matters not (Score:4, Insightful)
"For example 100 studies done shoddily using sample sizes of 3, 4, and 6 subjects do not outweigh one ten-year study across 1,000 subjects."
Depends. If one of those 100 shoddy studies gets me the $50M research grant and the ten-year study does not then the shoddy study wins.
Re:Matters not (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I mostly agree with you but be careful before using sunbathing as an example. UV light can over a very long period of time increase the risk of skin cancer. The reason is that UV light is capable of breaking molecular bonds while the microwave bands used in a multitude of applications are far far too low in energy to do anything of the sort.
MODULATIONS ARE EATING MY BRAIN (Score:5, Informative)
The article mentions "modulations" over and over again as if they are some sort of evil force messing with your head.
Roughly speaking, modulations are changes in the energy at the sidebands of the carrier where the information is carried. Old cell phones were pure frequency modulation, the digital ones use a different scheme. But from you're brain's perspective, it shouldn't mean more than a slight change in the total energy being radiate at 2.4 GHz or whatever. The idea that your brain is affected by "modulations" seems extremely specious.
The fact that you're warming up your brain slightly when you hold the cell phone to your ear for a long time might have some sort of long term effect, I dunno, but I'm not too afraid of modulations.
Re:MODULATIONS ARE EATING MY BRAIN (Score:5, Insightful)
If any warming caused by holding a cell phone near your head caused sufficient warming to actually cause damage in the long term, then exercise of any sort would kill you dead a lot quicker than a cell phone could possibly be responsible for. A two or three degree Fahrenheit increase in body temperature is completely normal during exercise and even this is larger than a cell phone is capable of doing.
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I think if that warming was a problem then living where it gets to be 95 degrees outside in the shade for 6 months out of the year would have had more of an effect by now. As it stands the biggest one is a desensitization to seeing grown men riding the bus to work in animal suits.
If there's an effect, it's small. (Score:5, Insightful)
The GQ article with a cell phone next to a pack of cigarettes couldn't be more misleading. We hear about "such and such % increased risk of this", "such and such % increased risk of that". But these numbers are meaningless in assessing behavior changes unless you know the baseline risk.
So here's some numbers. The article starts off with cigarettes, so what's the risk of lung cancer between smokers and non-smokers?
Well, according to wikipedia [wikipedia.org], For Men it's 1.3% for non-smokers, and 17% for smokers. Wow!
Let's compare that to Brain cancer (all types). According to the National Cancer institute [cancer.gov] it's .6% for everyone. The Swedish study from 2006 found a 240% increase. So that's 1.44% risk.
So it seems quite obvious to me that even the most alarming study only showed a small increased health risk from cell phone use, and others have shown none. Compare that to smoking, which has been consistent in showing risk over the years, and an ENORMOUS risk. Oh, and for smoking that's JUST the lung cancer risk. We all should know about the other increased health risks associated with it.
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Well, according to wikipedia [wikipedia.org], For Men it's 1.3% for non-smokers, and 17% for smokers. Wow!
Wow, yeah! I don't think I ever remember seeing that number, I just assumed from all the hype that it was "small but measurable" and didn't see the benefits to bother starting smoking. But I definitely think that if there had been posters around school with just that number (or a big tar-colored six-sided die), a lot of my peers would also have not bothered starting.
EXPOSURE: 1 hour of cellphone=lifetime with WiFi (Score:5, Informative)
There is a huge difference between a cellphone and WiFi. First, a cellphone can transmit up to 5 Watts. I can actually hear noise induced in my computer speakers every 10 minutes if the cellphone is nearby when it does it automatic call-home.
WiFi is typically limited to 20mW.
Also, a cellphone is pressed against your head, while Wifi is usually 1 m away. With area of sphere = 4PiR^2, the Wifi will have an energy flux of 1mWm^-2, and a cellphone will have 40Wm^-2 or 30,000x that. You could use bluetooth to reduce your cellphone exposure
BTW, a microwave is allowed to leak 1Wm^2.
Bottom line, 1 hour of cellphone exposure = a lifetime with WiFi.
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There is a huge difference between a cellphone and WiFi. First, a cellphone can transmit up to 5 Watts. I can actually hear noise induced in my computer speakers every 10 minutes if the cellphone is nearby when it does it automatic call-home.
Interestingly enough, I have noticed that on 3G this feedback has completely stopped. Unfortunately, I suspect that's no indicator of decreased power usage - only a change in frequency.
Re:EXPOSURE: 1 hour of cellphone=lifetime with WiF (Score:4, Interesting)
Something to keep in mind, as smart phones become more common, so is WIFI radiation exposure right next to your head. That's going to be roughly 4x as much TX power right next to your ear where the skull is less likely to stop it all.
I'm just say'n...
Re:EXPOSURE: 1 hour of cellphone=lifetime with WiF (Score:5, Informative)
FWIW, I'm a GSM RF Engineer. Two issues with your post:
In the US, phones are limited to 1 W max for 1900 MHz (aka PCS) transmission, and 2 W for 850 MHz.
The interference you hear on your speakers isn't due to the amount of power being transmited, but it's actually caused by the modulation of the signals being transmitted. That modulation occurs at 217 Hz....which is audible.
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It's Crap and Here's Why (Score:5, Informative)
(1) Based on the standard rules of statistical acceptance, a study only has to reach requires a 95% confidence level. That means that 1 in every 20 identical studies will produce a false positive merely by chance. When you have an area of study in which thousands of studies have been done over decades you end up with hundreds of studies reporting positive results just by chance.
(2) Statistical meta analysis of studies is largely nonsense unless your talking about a field in which nearly identical studies are done over and over again. Usually, when these meta studies hit the media you find they they equally weight to every study regardless of presumed rigor of the studies. In this case, the gold standard is the Swedish study that followed tens of thousands of people over decades. How to you compare that to a study that just data mined a few hundred medical records?
(3) Exposure to all types of radio range radiation has increased by literally millions of times since WWII. We know spend something close to 3% of our entire energy budget generating radio signals. Yet, in the last 50+ years, cancers rates have not increased and indeed most likely have fallen (especially when you exclude cigarette smoking.
(4) A a sociological matter, just because a study is not linked to an industry does not mean that the researchers or the people funding them are some how impartial or operating from nobel motives. A lot of people outside of industry have both inherent biases as well as professional and monetary incentive to distort science. Academic today tilt strongly to the left side of the political spectrum and many believe in the post modernist concept that every one has a moral obligation to use whatever power they have, such as that held by respected scientist, to advance their political beliefs. They are inherently hostile to the economically productive. Politicians have incentives to create crises to protect voters from. Trial lawyers stand to make hundreds of millions on law suits and they fund "studies" to contaminate the jury pool. Even competing industries can use studies to undermine competitors.
We should remember that science has its reputation because it produces the same answer regardless of the individual motives of the people who create it. When someone begins the question the motives of researchers, they are making an implicit statement that they have no science to back their position up and that they must instead fall back to human factors. If you have solid science, then you don't need to smear people's motives and call their integrity into question.
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Yes, I agree with you. Unfortunately it is the sort of crap that gets published on Slashdot.
Rat organs affected by GMO - check.
Vermont Nuquelar plant going to kill us all - check.
Cell phone radiation causes cancer - yup.
I am waiting now for a vaccine causes autism article to balance out the Lancet story from last week...
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It is fair to say that the vast majority hold center-left political views, but this usually doesn't mean outright hostility to capitalism,
In fact, let's go further. Many scientists hold patents which they think may make them money (a very capitalistic goal). Most that I know are sufficiently affluent to be pretty well invested in the stock market or in various businesses. Attacking the economy is not something that most academics are interested in, we benefit from the status quo more than the average person does. The only people I seem to hear making the claim otherwise are right-wing pundits who seem to want to cast doubt on the honesty
Environmentalism is a religion (Score:3, Insightful)
Watch the WiFi protesters have a field day (Score:5, Funny)
I'm fairly sure we'll get this study used a lot in the near future.
Like my neighbor, who recently nearly beat my door down to inform me that if I don't turn off my WiFi AP she'll call the police because she gets headaches from my radiation. Then the cellphone in her pocket rang...
Re:Watch the WiFi protesters have a field day (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hysteria meets technology. Blunt and simple. It's like Brain said when he tried his insurance fraud.
Brain: I'll claim the microwave made me into what I am today.
Pinky: Why that?
Brain: Because nobody knows how it works.
People don't know how something works, but if hysteria is mixed into it, especially if they're at least a touch hypochondriac, you really have a volatile mix that makes them go ballistic on anything that might have any ill effect on them. Add a bit of "I don't need it and it might have a nonzero chance of harming me, so you must not have it either" and we're set.
Insulation. (Score:3, Interesting)
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These "studies" cut both ways. Greenpeace for example funded the preposterous Rat Organ study that was posted here last week.
The best and most time tested answer is independent review. Which pretty much works in the long run.
meta-analysis of random studies! (Score:3, Informative)
(2) it's a meta-analysis of a veritable zoo of studies. About the only things the subject studies have in common is that most of them involve humans and most involve RF! This is not a valid application of these statistical techniques!
(3) the so-called conclusions of the meta-analysis look at opinions on factors in the subject studies which were not controlled let alone investigated and measured according to a set of standards -- opinions on funding.
And somehow I don't think this paper was subject to peer review, although I'm not familiar with their review process...
"Independently funded" doesn't mean "unbiased" (Score:3, Insightful)
I was going to RTFA but it's densely packed in an unfriendly typeface and when I opened it up, I immediately saw warning signs of conspiracy-mongering (Hey, this guy publishes an "investigative newsletter" called Microwave News! And he has a doctorate in environmental policy from MIT! That means if he says that the science is 100% solid about cell phones causing harm, he must be right, because God knows no one who got a doctorate at MIT ever got convinced of some cockamamie theory and started "investigative newsletters" to pursue some non-existent threat!) and research fail ("The "hearing," however, didn't happen via normal sound waves perceived through the ear. It occurred somewhere in the brain itself, as EM waves interacted with the brain's cells, which generate tiny electrical fields." First of all, any time someone mentions the Frey effect, 80% of the time you're about to hear schizophrenic ranting about government mind control transmissions. Second of all, the author seems to have made up the theory that the Frey effect happens because of EM waves interacting with brain cells; it seems quite inconsistent with Frey's own findings that there were some individuals who could not hear sounds around the frequency of 5Kc who also could not hear the "rf sounds". If the Frey effect bypassed the ear and directly stimulated the brain, why would anyone who had a brain be unable to detect this stimulus? Why would the people who were unable to detect this stimulus also be those with known deficiencies in their ears? Coincidence?)
Anyways, I suspected that what I would find in the article was a situation similar to the Myung meta-review of cell-phone/cancer studies [sciencebasedmedicine.org], where the author declared that even though the overall review of the chosen studies had failed to establish any sort of convincing evidence that cell phones caused cancer, a "sub-group" of "high-quality" studies established a "significant positive association". What the meta-review may have failed to call attention to, however, was that seven out of the eight "high-quality" studies were all done by the same researchers, a group led by Dr. Lennart Hardell, and that Hardell is frequently retained as an expert witness in lawsuits against cell-phone companies. I wouldn't be surprised if at least 75% of the "independently funded" studies in the GQ article are also by researchers who profit handsomely from testifying in similar lawsuits. People talk about how they can't trust any studies done by "industry", but they're naive to think that litigation itself is not an industry.
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This guy's post was modded "Insightful"?
Are you kidding me? He spent his entire post justifying (poorly) why he didn't read the article.
And yes, I happen to know what I am talking about because I've put in the effort of reading tons of stuff, much of which I find disagreeable in the extreme. (At the moment, I'm working up the balls to dive into Ayn Rand's, "The Fountainhead".) -Why do I do this to myself? Because while reading and listening to people's arguments, I regularly find that despite the tone o
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Your own response really casts doubt on your claims.
You claim that even when you read things you disagree with, you generally find "a nugget or two of useful information I didn't know about previously and from which I can benefit either directly or through researching further", and proceed to go into a long comical diatribe based on the implicit assumption this one brief "interaction" of ours entirely sums up our entire beings. Oh, yes, I'm sure you know everything about my information processing habits ba
funding realities (Score:5, Interesting)
Over the coming years I worked thru a Comp Sci degree, Post Grad work, and more in GIS(info in Geographic Info Systems). All the while also doing part time work back at the old dept teaching German Lit. I have been out of academia and in the industry for 15 years now.
But the Comp Sci gave me research exposure to the Food Research Industry.
Research, scholorships, and funding in the Arts we almost pure in their implementation. Food research and funding was rotten to the core. I have been on the recieving end of table thumping food industry ceo's. You are then told to bend over, take it, then go inform relevant parties of desired outcomes.
Thank christ I am out of that sewer.
In todays world I can only imagine what jewels lie in the communications gold veins and how that drives research.
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Hate to break it to you, but power lines emit RF too. That's why this is a joke: all alternating currents emit RF.
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Your brain's awash in radiation all the time, with a higher energy per photon than what you get from a cell phone, and with much more of it.
If you leave a transistor radio playing on top of a baseboard radiator which has been cranked up for the winter, the same will be true. But the radio, due to its design characteristics, is only going to respond to the wavelengths transmitted by the radio tower miles away. But if you put the radio next to an electronic device which outputs noise which falls within its range of reception, then you'll get static.
The problem is that the brain responds in some very weird ways to a range of modulated signals de