Slashdot Mirror
Electric Shavers Rot Your Brain
Damek writes "According to UW researchers, prolonged exposure to low-level magnetic fields, similar to those emitted by such common household devices as blow dryers, electric blankets and razors, can damage brain cell DNA. The damage appears to be cumulative, so you'd best get rid of your electric razors & blankets ASAP! The full study is available online now. No word yet for Cell Phone users' brains..."
Wouldn't this only be a problem if you use these devices every day directly in contact with your skull? I mean, is the range really that far reaching? If the range really is that far reaching, what about power tools and such? Of course, I can think of a few people [McBride] I'd like to have power tools come in direct contact with their skull, but that's beside the point.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Personally I'm not concerned, my tinfoil hat doubles as a Faraday cage.
Trolling is a art,
I'd say that apoptosis is better characterized as "natural cell death". It's a natural and essential part of the cell's life cycle, and certainly isn't as alarming as the article's tone suggests.
In fact, we have a word for cells that don't undergo apoptosis: Cancer.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
How does staring at a monitor for 10-14 hours a day affect your brain? Not good is my guess.
Hmmmm. Let's see: Electric shaver in the morning, RF access through security to my labs, Bluetooth synching, 802.11b & g for my internet access and music streaming, television, radio, microwave oven, cell phone..........Oh man, I'm screwed. :-)
But at least I got rid of most of the CRTs in my life.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
So not only am I more manly for using a straight razor...I'm also less likely to have brain rot!
Now if I could just find some more tissues before pass out from bloodloss....
The anti-salmon
"No word yet for Cell Phone users' brains..."
I'm sure someone will prove its existence, eventually.
:P
So thats how homer got the way he is
its the BLOW DRYERS.
It seems as if the new results fly in the face of the ever heard chant from the mobile industry: "No results from any study proves danger".
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FisterBelvedere -- Putting a whole new meaning to "streaks on the china" since 1996.
What about headphones? If something powered only by a couple of AA batteries causes damage, how about my headphones with two silver dollar sized speakers in them?
uggg...
Sitting in front of an electron gun in a building full of wires... we're never exposed to magnetic fields...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
..when she told me not to sit to close to the TV
I used to work for a guy who buzzed the stubble off his face like twice a day. He was a real hustler and he thought he got more sales if he was all bay smooth I guess. But he was dumber than a bag of hammers. I guess now i know why.
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
When electric cars become widespread, we'll all be fucked!
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
What about living directly under a ~40kV power line?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Blond joke here someplace.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Well, looks like you've been using electric razors & electric blankets far too long :)
Free XBox, PS2
They're low-level magnetic fields. Headphones, speakers, etc etc.
Electric shavers have been around long enough that if they caused and serios damage (besides pulling the hair out of my face instead of cutting it) we would have heard about it by now.
The darkness... controls the music. The music... controls the soul.
no blow dryers and razors?
Now I understand why Richard Stallman is so smart.
So, I'll need to upgrade my tinfoil hat to a full tinfoil helmet?
You probably shouldn't click this.
does anyone else think of those socker moms in minivans blowdrying their hair while putting on lipstick?
p r m t h s
OK, there's a previous study that used a really strong field for 2 hours, and it caused damage. Now they used a low-level field for 24 (and 48 hours) and it caused damage. How exactly does that get extrapolated to a low-level field for 3 minutes a day over a long period of time causing damage?
-Todd
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
How could anyone buy this rubbish, it's simply beyond my comprehension!
This thoughtful message brought to you courtesy of a long time Philishave user.
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:my4Dripx_igJ: ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2004/6355/abstract.pdf+&hl= en&ie=UTF-8
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
After reading the abstract and a small portion of this article which seems difficult for me (a nonbiologist) to parse, I am left with a major concern. Is this good science? What I mean by this is that we have to be careful about how we determine causality. Is this a good random sample? What are the determining factors that make this causal link? I'm sure the research methods state this, but if anyone has a layman's assessment of this study.
The hair salon never can get my hair right.
I, for one, welcome our new lobotomized and clean shaven overlords.
Better known as an Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie
I KNEW IT
I knew I had been getting progressively dumber, although I was trying to forget certain things anyways, like my exwife.
I often wondered about damage from electronic devices, although like a previous poster said, would the electric waves really be able to travel through the skull?
This reminds me of Johnny Nemonic, where they had a whole disease (Beleive it was called NRS) that would effect peoples nervous systems. I really wouldnt be that suprised if we saw something like that in the future.
Those who trade in their freedom for security, deserve neither.
Hair-dryers? How many minutes a day are you exposed to a hair-dryer? I think the slashdot crowd needs more information on what levels of magnetic fields are given off by their 21" CRT.
...and I remember the NEJM article back in what...'92 that definitively proved that electric razors cause leukemia...now this...better dump that Norelco stock...
It turns them into mush?
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
"People should do what they can to limit their exposure to as little as possible, especially in relation to electrical appliances that are used very close to the body."
No, not even this is going to get women to give up their vibrators.
The typical hand held razor is bigger than a rat so unless you are using a 6' Braun or an attic-fan sized blowdryer, I speculate that you just might survive unscathed.
People are worried about using a blow dryer for 10 minutes a day. HA! Being a network administrator I sit 10 feet from 13 servers for 9-10 hours a day. I just lost my train of thought...
I love the implicit commentary here that Slashdot readers are men and therefore do not own blow dryers.
These are rats exposed to 60Hz AC EMF at 0.1 to 0.5mT for two hours (continuous). Also studied were rats exposed to 60Hz AC EMF at 0.1mT for 24 hours (continuous).
So I suppose, as an analog ....
Go lie down in an MRI for a couple days straight. If you don't go deaf from the noise (they're loud), then you might see similar results. Oh, and don't wear deodorant ... it contains aluminium which will cause it to be dragged through your arm... ouch.
Not that I'm saying there may well be something in this ... but how many of us even use the shaver/hairdryer for 2 continuous hours in a sitting? It may well be (and is likely) that the effects are not cumulative, but are actually acute trauma scenarios. For instance, you can assert that dropping a grain of dust on your foot 5 times a day for 10 years would make for the same mass as, say, dropping a car on said foot. However, the problem then comes in saying, "therefore, the two are analogous - we will see the same damage from the dust as we would with the car".
It just does not follow.
Also, let us note that when the article discusses 'apoptosis' (which, indeed, may be called natural cell death - where a cell simply stops living and breaks down its DNA in response to some trigger), it points out that the incidence of apoptosis and necrosis were increased by a statistically significant amount by the presence of magnetic fields.
All in all, kiddies, take yer vitamin E and melatonin regularly if you use a cell phone or blow drier. You should be all right then.. :)
Thinking outside my Head
You are making the assumption that people on /. shave, use hair dryers, or any type of personal grooming.
Fight Spammers!
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
tell my pet rat to stay away from hair dryers!
I use a dual G5 shaver every morning, and the g/f always points out how I missed something here, something there, and it gets consecutively worse - I keep missing more and more.
And here I thought it was just because I was hungover.
First Beer
Then Drugs
Now this
We've senn this over and over and it get refuted over and over. WE're used to living in magnetic fields, we evolved inside of ahuge magentic field that is prone to very large fluxes. Ever heard of a Class 5 Geomagnetic Storm? When you can see the Aurora Borealis at my latitude? (42 Degrees, [52 Magnetic]).
I was still in elementry school when I first heard about this kind of worry warting and even then I was sufficiently skilled in the scientific method to look at the data, and find some show stopping flaw with the expiriment.
[I'm probably going to get modded troll for this part].
The whole "magnetic fields harm you" concept is bad science, just like global warming is very wobbly science. These two issues are getting to about the level of "Creation Science" in my book when it comes to credibility.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
So every time I rip my face apart with my patented 24 blade manual razor and loose pint after pint of blood, I'm killing less brain-cells right?
Oh bugger, I just drooled into the keyboard again.....
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
In related news, TV images of Ryan Seacrest have been found to emit low levels of magnetic fields to viewer's brains.
I mean, what, do they think it's going to make people fail English?
According to the abstract, rats that were fed melatonin or Vitamin E weren't affected. So all you have to do is remember to take your vitamins in the morning before you shave or blow dry your hair. (Do not take melatonin in the morning - it's often used as a sleep aid.)
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
Just don't pay attention to the fact that the same people who say that always use headsets/earpieces with their cell phones.
Fight Spammers!
I knew I shouldn't get ready in the morning under my blanket.
I wonder if that includes sitting in front of a CRT for 12 hours a day? I know I end up in front of one a good bit. Nice big 21" monsters that weigh a ton.
You shave for maybe 5 minutes very second day, or perhaps even less often. With prsonal music you have speakers next to, or even inside, your ears for hours on end. Class, what is more likely to cause problems?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
RTFA. This study relates to 60Hz magnetic fields.
60Hz: Cell phones operate in the several GHz band. Wireless networks do too. Microwave ovens are at an even higher frequency( and besides, are always surrounded by an effective faraday cage ).
Magnetic fields: radio waves( cell, wireless )and microwaves are electromagnetic radiation, which are decidedly different from magnatic fields.
This study has ZERO bearing on the effects of high-frequency non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, so next time read the article before posting your ill-informed luddite drivel.
Why I laugh?
are not that mitotically active in the adult brain anyway. The Glial cells continue to divide, etc... but the neurons themselves are largely established by childhood, and their numbers steadily go downhill over the course of your life.
That's not to say that neurons don't develop new connections and synapses... they do (otherwise learning could not take place)... they just don't divide much. The implication here is that since they don't divide, they are unlikely to become neoplastic, or pass on their damaged DNA.
Apart from the apoptosis angle, I'm not sure how much clinical relevance this research actually has.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
In related news, DARPA funds research to eliminate the North and South pole.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
In the study, the researchers discovered that rats exposed to a 60-hertz field for 24 hours showed significant DNA damage
In Europe we have 50 Hz fields. *sighs in relief*
I did a science fair project on this back in 1989. I was in 7th grade. Back then they called them ELF's (Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic waves). If you want to see something cool, take a florescent light bulb and walk under some high tension power lines. Just a not all electrical devices including computers emit these.
God, you'd think peer reviewed scientific journals would publish articles written by people with some concept of basic scientific method. Even if it is a journal published by the US government.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
If you were to shave (with anything) for 24 hours straight, you'd probably manage to give yourself a skin graft.
However, the average man likely shaves for 24 hours total each year (or so, depends on how long you take), yet doesn't experience side effects requiring a trip to the hospital.
I expect the same will be shown for this study.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Magnetic Field-Induced DNA Strand Breaks in Brain Cells of the Rat
How many rats have you seen use an electric shaver? Maybe for once it is a little different for humans. But I know a big "rat" they can test it on. His name is Bush (Flamebait tinfoil hat on).
Here is what Robert Park (author of "Voodoo Science") has to say
http://www.aps.org/WN/
-and-
http://www.aps.org/WN/WN97/wn070497.cfm
In fact, he devotes a whole chapter in the aforementioned book regarding the complete lack of evidence regarding EMF as a health risk. I use the chapter and this topic of research when teaching stats and epidemiology classes as an example of bad science, misused statistics, and causation vs. correlation.
jeff
... why the stereotypical *nix guru has a full, woolly beard and a (now probably grey) pony-tail?
wonder no more
Hmm,
...
I'm getting this weird vision.
Well maybe the rat likes it
This Henry Lai dude has shouted the wolf too many times. I do not believe him anymore. He has tried to prove that cell phones and power lines and everything related to electricity is dangerous and is going to kill us all. Believe if you want, but in the meantime, check the page about cell phones.
Just a few days after I got my first cell I used to hear ringing noises, and now, after a couple of years my leg trembles from time to time. This cant be good.
We have been remodeling our house, and found the old circuit breaker panel improperly wired. The Neutral (white wire) was hardwired to the ground inside the panel. Now, having neutral grounded is normal for a MAIN DISCONNECT panel, but not for a SUB panel. If you have more than one panel, some are going to be SUB panels, and ground and neutral should be isolated from each other.
Anyway, since neutral was grounded in the breaker panel, it means all the return current in the house was balancing between the ground and neutral wires to get back to the main disconnect panel. Now, sending current over wires makes voltage, and in this case, that voltage is seen on every grounded item in the house!! Electrical fields everywhere.
Normally with 120V AC currents in your house, current on hot equals current on neutral, and the net RF field balance of a circuit in use is ZERO. (Try and clamp on ammeter to confirm this..) But if your ground and neutral are improper, it can make all kinds of wires have fields.
Thought it was written No word yet from Cell Phone users' brains.... What a relief!
People ask my why I have a beard. Up until now, I've just said, "Because I hate shaving." Now, I get to add scientific legitimacy to my disdain!
I can add this to my otherwise perfect day:
* Cool, sunny day: check.
* A long lunch away from work, including beer: check.
* An upcoming evening of gaming: check.
* Got laid this morning, and will again tonight: check.
* New reason to avoid shaving: check.
Life is sweet.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
mobile phones operate at frequencies many millions of times higher than the fields used in this study. cellular damage from exposure to low-frequency fields (if real) would surely be mediated by a different effect than cellular damage from exposure to high-frequency fields (if real).
i am skeptical of this study because a friend of mine who works in biomagnetics assures me that the effects of high B-fields on human tissue were carefully invesigated prior to the approval of MRI macines for use in biomedical imaging. any ill effects due to low-frequency or DC fields would have been found at that time. of course this is just hearsay and i am not qualified (or inclined) to assess this particular study on it's scientific merit! : )
So put plainly if we were either to consume 30 tons of sacrin in one sitting or duct tape our microwave to our forhead and leave it running for 60 days then we are doomed... gotta love testing with rats.
Need cheap, customized, and quality bandwidth or hosting on any business scale? Visit www.ENetpresence.com
I worked as a tech on General Atomic's Double III fusion reactor project in San Diego for about 2 years. The magnetic containment and ohmic heating coils put out ~240 KiloGauss during a 'burn'. The displays on all the CRTs in the control room would collapse due to the huge magnetic field. No one I knew experienced _any_ effects. I just laugh when I see the late nite TV ads for magnetic 'healing' bracelets.
Slashdot's name? When my compiler sees
to your mind than Professor X:
;)
One significant implication of this is that certain types of cells with higher iron content - such as brain cells - may be more susceptible to damage from electromagnetic fields.
I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed...
Ummm...Shouldn't we be more concerned of all the people getting cancer and dying due to our petrolium based culture?
Look at all the black grit and dust covering everything. I think that contributes a hell of alot more to decreasing our lifespan then a stupid electric razor.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
If people have to worry about razors and blow dryers , id like to see the damage of a geek staring at a monitor 24/7 ;-)
So that's wonderful... Here I am in my office which sits above some high voltage transformers which I know emits a field around 60Hz. I just had it measured and there are hot spots up to 700mG at floor level, and about 200mG at chest level. Sheesh... and I thought the monitors were the only things that were affected by this stuff.
:(
Needless to say... I'm moving
What about electric alarm clocks, clock radios, stereos, etc. sitting on your headboard or bedside table a mere foot from your head? If this is a problem, I'm already doomed because I've had an electric alarm clock by my head since I was 12, and I'm in my mid 30s now!!
And what qualifies as prolonged? Are some people so shaggy that they are using electric razors for hours on end? and not only that, but the only thing in an electric razor is a recharchable battery, maybe some electronics for charging said battery, and a motor and wires and switch. Millions of devices have these things in them, and humanity as a whole isn't getting stupider by the second (although sometimes it does seem that way). Scientists who make brilliant discoveries (and geeks in general) tend to have more of these devices, and these people represent the smartest people that humanity has to offer.
I think this may be a case of a study finding some correlation where there really shouldn't be any, or just bad methods overall. I'm currently taking part in a medical study, and if nothing else i've learned that there a ton of ways for the participants and doctors to skew the results. Designing a good study is essential, but actually carrying it out properly is the tough part.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Here is where these kind of risk studies often go astray. We go looking for a problem (one likely to alarm the public), say our research has found one, then propose some dubious mechanism that was never part of the original study. Without some cause to explain the results, the results look dubious. Proposing a cause, even an outlandish one, seems to add substance to the study (at least to the general public).
The real trick would be nailing down the cause of the damage -- most likely experimental error in this case.
It all smacks of "fund my study" type research.
Letter To Iran
What about my electric toothbrush!?
Auto-check your UK lottery lines
Huh, guess that explains why hairdressers always seem to be such dingbats :)
(Laugh -- it's a joke!)
-JT
Where did the article get references to common household appliances? The study talks about 24-48 hour exposures on rats... I definitely don't blow dry my hair for 24 hours. And from reading the research it looks like taking vitamins could prevent this. I would be more interested in the effects of sitting in front of a monitor all day than shaving my face. Or how about those ion hairdryers that are becoming more common? Sometimes I think the media is just here to whip us up into hysteria... oh wait nevermind they are. Thanks for that scorcher there slashdot.
Magnetic Field-Induced DNA Strand Breaks in Brain Cells of the Rat
Did they taught the rat to operate an electric shaver or they shaved it until it went nuts?
You shave for maybe 5 minutes very second day, or perhaps even less often. With prsonal music you have speakers next to, or even inside, your ears for hours on end.
People sleep all night, often every night, with electric blankets warming their bodies, and if it's cold they tuck their heads under the covers too. I'd think that'd be an even greater risk than the headphones.
Scientists have discovered a link between breathing and cancer.
The study determined that those test subjects that breathed had a small chance to contract cancer, but 100% of those test subjects that didn't breath showed no new cancer outbreaks.
Good news: The study says that the brain cell damage effects were negated by use of "free radical scavengers" like melatonin!
Bad news: Now I have to worry about falling asleep on the freeway!
... but can someone explain why brain cells need DNA to begin with? I know they need the corresponding RNA to build protiens and whatnot, but isn't the DNA only used for cell reproduction, something that brain cells don't do in mature humans?
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
Because all magnetic fields are dipole fields at best, the field drops with the cube of distance, not the square of distance. So, it is even harder to get that field into your skull.
This is because there is no such thing as a "magnetic charge" like there is for electric charge.
(note to pedants: magnetic monopoles are too exotic to comment on, assuming they exist.)
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
"According to other researchers, prolonged exposure to normal gravity fields, similar to those experienced on such common planets as earth, the moon and mars, can also kill you. The damage appears to be cumulative, so you'd best get off that planet ASAP! The effect is commonly called 'aging'.
The full study is available online now. No word yet for black holes habitants' brains..."
I'd rather be sailing...
I may be wrong (IANABio) but I read that brain cells don't divide or die after childhood anyway. So what damage can this actually do?
Of course there are probably better explanations for most/all of these things, but as it stands, there is no universally accepted explanation for any of these things. Could it be that our environment is now saturated with EM radiation? Maybe.
you are partially right, some cancer cells undergo apoptosis... while other cancer cells have mutations that fight actively against it.
Apoptosis is also characterized as "programmed cell death," something common during development. Apoptosis of some tissues is absolutely required, particularly vestigial structures that form during your early embryology (this happen in many species, not just humans).
It should be noted that apoptosis is not simply rampant cell-suicide... it's actually a well-described and orderly process. Rampant cell membrane destruction, particularly in the brain (we see this with larger strokes) leads to the release of all kinds of inflammatory mediators... leading to swelling, damage to surrounding cells... all bad things. Nice, orderly apoptosis prevents much of this.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Those tinfoil hats aren't looking quite so silly now, are they?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the universe isn't really out to get you...
-spc
The free radicals do the damage, so just consume foods with antioxidants and everything will be fine.
Crisis averted.
The authority of the public safety issued a warning to the civilian population not to pick up any of those electric razors because they are booby traps, thanks be to allah. They have started making studies saying those electric razors are killing brain cells, but they are not killing brain cells at all, they are booby traps to kill the children. There are no razors killing brain cells here in Iraq, allah be praised. I triple gauruntee that you will find no dead brain cells caused by electric razors here in Iraq. Death to the infidels! As usual, I can tell you that we do not have any razor blades causing brain damage, and I do not know why they were sold last week. We will give the Americans death and a shoe.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Since many superheroes are transmogrified in similar circumstances to these, I've settled myself among a cornucopia of low voltage devices in the hope that the DNA "damage" gives me telepathic powers.
If it works, I won't need to type the rest of...
boakes.org
On a separate note, it's getting increasingly difficult for people who want to avoid antiperspirant on (perhaps ill-founded) fears of aluminum damage to one's body. Particularly for women; my girlfriend literally can't find any deodorants for women any more.
....if this affects the DNA in, oh I don't know, the "nether" regions of the human body. I mean, I do plan on having kids someday, provided I ever hook up with a woman (ANY WOMAN). Please respond immediately as my razor finished recharging and I'm kind o in the middle of something.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
That, and I like the fact that if I take care of my straight razor, I'll probably need to buy another one in, oh, 50-75 years. The one I'm using now was manufactured around 1895 and I picked it up at a flea market for $3. Shaves great.
I've only found one downside. If you're in a real hurry and try to rush a shave, you'll end up looking like you were in a knife fight ^_^
Moral of the story: spend an extra 3 minutes and take your time.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
Apoptosis is NOT an essential part of a cell's life cycle. There are plenty of cells that do not apoptose - stem cells, for instance. Cancer does not refer to unlimited cell proliferation - rather, it refers to unregulated cell proliferation.
...
Basically, there are two ways that a cell can die: apoptosis, where the cell responds to injury and then systematically takes itself apart and necrosis, a messy process where the cells die suddenly and release their inside contents. These are not mutually exclusive - frequently cells show signs of both processes.
In necrosis, there tends to be a lot of cell refuse that can react with the immune system and can create a lot of problems (autoimmune reactions, inflammation, etc.). However, apoptosis tends to be much cleaner, since the cell contents remain in membrane packets that are much easier to be cleaned up. This is why cells with a finite life span, such as white blood cells, tend to use apoptosis, rahter than necrosis, to die.
However, stimulating apoptosis in normal cells is definitely a "bad thing" since the cells are no longer there to function.
Having said that, the kind of exposures in the mentioned study seem to be a little too high to have any direct impact on human disease
I find this whole study to be flawed. I mean, really, when are rats gonna use electric razors or blow dryers in the "real world"? C'mon!
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Rubbish.
Just in case the Slashdot filter requires a more verbose commentary on this point: Total rubbish.
we're doomed.
Isn't a rat's skull much thinner than a human's? Wouldn't a thicker skull protect your brain better than a thinner one? If they really wanted to compare the effects on humans, they should have put helmets on the rats.
ayottesoftware.com
"Exposure to a 60-Hz magnetic field at 0.01 mT for 24 hrs caused a significant increase in DNA single and double strand breaks."
If this is true, just imagine what the 4T used by the MRI scanner at your local hospital will do to you.
Man this article just cracked me up.
Transporter
I'm going to be wearing a hockey mask when I go off on everyone...
"Now let's go back to that building...thingie... where our beds and TV... is."
Conspiracy theorists would have no problems with this, since electromagnetic radiation has immense problems getting through conductive material. Just make sure you ground your tin foil hat and you're safe!
This, by the way, is why cellphones don't work underground / in tunnels...except in movies.
Most people get the majory of their EMF exposure from their alarm clocks. While it's not quite as strong as a hair dryer or electric shaver, you're exposed to it for about 8 hours every day instead of 5 minutes.
wonder how many mri's they did on the mice to determine this......;)
How about a cordless razor operating off of a battery? Woudn't that be direct current w/out an alternating magnetic field?
-Nick
Eletric...ra-zors...rot...my....wha....?
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
We all should be brain dead by now.
oh wait...
You can't handle the truth.
If you are a male who not only owns a blow dryer but uses it, you have bigger problems than potential brain damage. =P
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
...mind erasing kits.
'you already have one!'
I know.
He who fights with Monkeys must take it upon himself not to become a Monkey.
A tinfoil hat will have a limited and frequency dependent benefit. try mu-metal instead!
"If it uses electricy, is a chemical, or anything that is not found in nature in any way, it kills you slowly."
Now that thats over with, Let me die a slow, happy death.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
I've always had this sadistic fantasy that 40 years after eating microwaved food you die.
Hell, pretty much anything becomes paramagnetic if you have strong enough fields. Some things have stronger diamagnetic properties than others though.
Aluminum is actually fairly paramagnetic, if I recall.
Back in 1997 a group even levitated a frog in a 16 Tesla field. How fun is that?
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
how is that a downside?
The article abstract states that a field strenth of 0.01 mT (millitesla) applied over 24 hours caused a significant increease in DNA strand breaks.
The Earth has a magnetic field with a strength that varies between 20,000 nT and 70,000 nT (nanotesla, the unit usually used.) Converting nT to mT using my few undamaged brain cells gives a background field strength for the planetary magnetic field of 0.02-0.07 mT. The lower numbers are found near the equator and increase with latitude.
Using an electic shaver or hair dryer for five minutes a day would increase exposure by a factor o 0.0007, given the ranges for them found on several sites. You might be better off leaving the Earth's magnetic field altogether except for that nasty cosmic radiation it protects you from.
Magnetic field, gamma radiation, take your pick.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
After seeing the way that biology is discussed around here - I have an inkling of what my IT related posts look like. Yuck!
The article says that the effect is cumulative, but cumulative in what sense? It would seem they were speaking about time. Personally, I would think they could have gotten much more interesting data then they seem to have gathered... For instance, with respect to cumulativity, they determined that if you leave the same amount of power and such for twice as long, it breaks more... that's a waste of a couple of rats. I mean, duh? More interesting would be, what about *lower* power for longer time? What about itermittant exposure? These things would have been far more practically useful for those of us (okay, in any industrialized country and especially on /. it's *all* of us...) who can't exactly avoid magnetic fields entirely.
Also, what's the strength of the fields generated by various every-day items, and how do they compare to those used in the research?
Yes, shaving is all about moral ;-)
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
Aren't the Earths electromagenetic fields more pronounced at the Northern and Southern magnetic poles?
Is this why there is so much depression in Finland or is it the lack of light, or diet?
Are folk going to live longer in Africa because there is less in the way of EM waves passing through them. Or will their life expectancy and quality of life be reduced, compared to developed countries, which appear to predominate further North/South?
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
I use Sonicare every day for at least 4 minutes per day. Since this is only a battery powered device, would it have any danger? I am of course talking about the cumulative effect over say 20 or 30 years.
No wonder these guys were so smart!
-.-- -.-- --..
One fish / Two fish / Red fish / Blue fish
ShyaOS - Think Differently!
> prolonged exposure to low-level magnetic fields,
> similar to those emitted by such common household
> devices as blow dryers
So that explains women.
Lying on an electric blanket while it is on is stupid, and you get what you deserve. I know several people who have luckily noticed the small fire developing before they fell asleep. Older blankets are even more of a risk.
Meh.
If electric motors, bleeding electric motors are harmful, we may as well all give up and move back into our great^1000 grandparent's caves.
Next dire warning, please.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
...University of Wisconsin, you insensitive clod!
that research (which I was aware of, BTW) is almost all animal studies dealing with rats and mice.
To my knowledge, there has never been a human study that has demonstrated ongoing widespread neurogenesis in the adult brain... It would be great if it existed, because it would make recovery from traumatic brain injury much more feasible.
Regarding the formation of new memories; human neurons in the adult brain generally form new connections (synapses) rather than mitotically dividing to form new neurons. Your brain is slowly rotting away... but it's a long process, and you've got lots of time
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
First off, I'm an RF Engineer. 2nd, I know an RF Engineer who specializes in RF and EM biohazzard. Don't just take my word on it concerning the following information - please go ahead and double check it with what information you can find.
This supposed damage from low-level EM fields has been a concern and a wife's tale for quite some time. Cellphones that are close to people's heads and electric blankets have often been the center of the discussions.
But think about the MRI machines, where there are absolutely huge magnetic fields concentrated around someone's skull, where the brain tissue is housed. Does getting an MRI cause huge amounts of brain damage? Don't you think we would have found such correlations prior to now if there were some?
I've heard stories of people coming out of MRI machines "seeing stars" briefly - that would make some sense because the brain works via electromagnetic impulses, which are effected by strong magnetic fields. I haven't heard of permanent damage resulting from exposure.
Hair dryers and personal Shavers? Come on. No.
Electric blankets are a bit more diffult to dismiss, since they do create an EM field covering a person's body, and at 60 Hz. Cellphones far from cell stations transmit more power, and right next to a person's head.
However: the only thing that has been shown to conclusively disrupt DNA is ionizing radiation such as that of radioactive materials or ultraviolet light. (As can be shown of instances of skin cancer in the case of UV, and cancer from radiation - even though it's also used as a treatment for cancer - for the very same reasons). Those are things to be concerned about.
RF energy such as that in cellphones has been found to be safe except for the heating created by the RF energy, the very principles behind the microwave oven. [Which concentrates 1,000 watts into a metal cage with a small amount of food in it - a very different scenario than a very low power cellphone next to a quite large meaty object in open air.]
There are areas where people work where CRT monitors do not function due to the magnetic fields in the vicinity. I.E. we're talking more than 1 gauss [yes, 1,000 mili gauss] of magnetic field. Hint: THEY LIVE, and they're working in that environment every day. [Think about broadcasting stations, or power stations, etc, etc.]
This will eventually be shown to be mostly bunk.
Hmm they may have found the missing link!
Pure BS, of course, just like this 'research'.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
the article said it caused this in RATS. last time I checked, i'm not a rat. sure, we may be similar, in ways, but I can kill a rat by stepping on it. I think I'm a bit more sturdy, and if the electromagnetic effect hurts my brain, its nowhere near as harmful to mine as it wouold be to an organism with a brain the size of a peanut.
*not overly concerned*
It is not a static magnetic field. A 60 Hz magnetic field is also a 60 Hz electric field. The radiation field from a dipole drops of with the inverse of distance squared. The intensity drops off with the fourth power.
It has been a few years since I studied this material. Please let me know if I am in error.
constitute most of my explosive injury knowledge, and some of those can strip the flesh right off the bone.
But on the subject of traumatic amputations... I've seen many bones splintered by the impact of whatever instrument took off the limb (mostly industrial and agricultural accidents... but on that topic, have you seen what some of that agricultural power-take-off equipment can do? Yikes...)
You know, it's probably more a statement of philosophy than an actual fighting technique, but it does get the point across.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
In college I took a physics class on E&M. Once I started learning about all the fields that surround an electric current...it scared me. Growing up in a cold enviroment, I used to sleep under an electric blanket. Not anymore. I just can't do it.
We, the unwilling,led by the unknowing,are doing the impossible for the ungrateful.--Author Unknown
I guess this explains why RMS has more doctorates than I do.
no electric razor and no blanket? Oh well, I guess I can just wrap up warm in my beard
...the electric field put out by my mon....mon thingy...this glowy thing next to my computer with the pretty pictures on it. Mon...mon something.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Well this does explain why talented *nix developers always have beards. My goatee probably tells them I'm a cadet.
"Derp de derp."
so, where are those who were so critical of bush after this article? shouldn't you be demanding he imposes some new regulations based on this new study? is he ignoring this for political reasons?!? damn his soft money contributors from pro-electric razor groups!!
I went through this once before a while back...
50/60Hz Magnetic and Electric fields seem to be rather imnical to living things.
At DC currents up to 10ma, you probably won't notice.
At AC currents at 50/60Hz up to 10ma, your muscles will start twitching in an odd manner...
At DC currents up to 1A, you'll get a zap not unlike sticking your tounge to a 9v battery proportionate to the current involved.
At AC currents at 50/60Hz up to 1A you'll have painful muscle contractions such that you can't let go if you grabbed the line with your hand(s) and if the conduction path is through your heart it'll stop it outright.
Higher currents in DC can burn/cauterize tissue.
Higher currents in AC can do the same, along with the consequence of stopping your heart or causing fibrillations if the conduction path is through your heart.
Magnetic fields are likely to have similar ill effects on tissues (as it stands, they KNOW that it increases tumor growth these days...).
Cell phones, GSM/TDMA/CDMA mobile phones, Microwave ovens, etc. use completely different frequencies with completely different consequences- there's been several studies that indicate that the RF power from a digital mobile phone may actually increase your intelligence by a negligible, but still measurable result.
The studies aren't analogous because the frequencies are completely different.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
No I'm not kidding.
7 .j pgl itey ouknow/id24.html
t =VIBRATORS
e s.html
There used to be shavers that relied on the user using a squeezing action to pump a ratchet gear which kept an internal flywheel working.
They were manufactured by "Viceroy". I was given a broken one to play with when I was a kid. I was fascinated by it.
http://www.fixyourshaver.com/images/Viceroy_193
http://bakelite_world_2001.tripod.com/itsbake
Is there as causal link between women using vibrators and medical problems?
Anyway, before items such as those we may have seen on television appeared e.g. as found here: http://www.toysforusonline.com/productlstR.cfm?ca
there were clockwork alternatives, as theis article explains, (diagram half way down page):
http://www.libidomag.com/nakedbrunch/main
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
Just because people who listen to headphones or cellphones all day act like complete imbeciles behind the wheel doesn't mean they're actually suffering brain damage. I mean, It's just as likely they had the brain damage done by network television programming at an early age.
I always knew those guys who operated the NMR were crazy. ;)
For the uninitiated, the NMR is like an MRI for our samples. It uses a very high Gauss field, though you can set up a computer about 10-15 feet away from it, so the fields are not that much of a problem.
Dammit.
It is not a static magnetic field. A 60 Hz magnetic field is also a 60 Hz electric field. The radiation field from a dipole drops of with the inverse of distance squared. The intensity drops off with the fourth power.
It has been a few years since I studied this material. Please let me know if I am in error.
I believe you are. It's quadripole fields that fall off with inverse fourth.
Dipole fields fall off with the inverse cube, as I recall. Inverse square for the individual poles, pluse an extra inverse first-power for the separation between the poles. (Quadripole fields get an extra inverse first-power for the separation for their component dipoles in the other dimension.)
Let's assume for now that the leakage from the motor is mostly a dipole field. (CAN'T be a monopole. B-) ) For a DC field, or the "near field" of an AC field, the dipole field dominates - and it falls off inverse cube. Get two inches from the shaver and the field is 1/8th what it was at one inch. Four inches makes it 1/64th, and so on. Falls off REALLY fast with distance.
As you get farther out the changing magnetic field creates a changing electric field that in turn supports the changing magnetic field (as long as they're both propagating at lightspeed). Then you have an electromagnetic wave, detached from its launcher. This falls off with inverse square.
Under a quarter wavelength the near-field is so dominant you can pretty much ignore the far-field. Over a wavelenghth or so away the situation is reversed (unless your driving element is large compared to a quarter wavelength).
So what's the wavelength of 60 HZ? About three thousand miles.
I don't think we need to worry about the far field. B-)
So figure inverse cube falloff - or faster if the motor's magnetic leakage has more than two poles.
(This is why you need to get REALLY CLOSE to a magnet to erase your credit cards.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Our hair dryers won't blow your mind"
or something like that...
...remember good 'ol times when IP used to mean Internet Protocol....
In Soviet Russia, they shave YOU!
Jonathanjk.com
I wonder what the magetic fields from my '04 Prius' electric motor is doing? Also, has anyone else noticed their cassette tapes have a 2 week half life?
You're going to die anyways...
"Aieee my brain is rotting!!!" - Well tough shit.
Is this the reason Tesla had that funny haircut?
My faith is expressed through Nihilism. Do you understand?
There is no statistical test which is valid for small groups of inbred mice. Particularly when trying to extend those results to humans.
Saying that "Electrical shavers make your brain rot" off of significant but not astoundingly skewed results in a single study involving 16 mice is a little bit premature.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I had often wondered why folks were wearing tin foil - alumin(i)um foil - hats. When a heavy duty steel one would do the trick on more levels. I guess it is easier to go to the supermarket for your anti conspiracy gear than the metal shop.
Well, at my last job I had 4 21" monitors in front of me. I guess I'm screwed.... :-/
Not if it's 10 Tesla. Found that out the hard way. ;)
What I can't hear you...
I try to keep my cellphone as far away from head as possible
Joe: These magnetic fields are sucking away my electrons.
Billy: Are you sure?
Joe: I'm positive!
Strictly speaking, those words belong to Chris Knight, the character, not Val Kilmer, the actor. (If Kilmer played President Kennedy, you wouldn't give Kilmer credit for saying, "Ask not what your country can do for you...")
I haven't read the paper yet, but I checked ISI for the journal's impact factor: 3.4 This would suck in neuroscience, but in environmental science that makes it #2 right behind GLOBAL BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES (3.9)
Yeah, and this was the only way I found to actually lose in Monkey Island.... at the part where you are underwater, wait 10 minutes. All other puzzles in the game were not fatal.
these no longer work?
Well, there goes my theory on the extinction of the sasquatch! Damn!
Is this the same thing as the magnetic fields by power lines and/or transformers?
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Maybe I should just disconnect myself from the so called grid, move out into the country and orienteer in the dark for entertainment. All I'll need is matches and a compass ... (?) .... AAAAIIIRRRGGH !!!
My God, I'm doomed....
Dean G.
I can't find tin foil at the supermarket. will aluminum foil do?
The effect noted in the article is hypothesized to be caused by a Fenton reaction. This is the reaction of iron with other materials to form radicals. In this case it would be to form oxidizing radicals, such as hyperoxide species. These cause oxidative stress and damage if they're too concentrated. This was discussed in a recent /. article on high EM fields (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/ 09/1223246&tid=). Their hypothesis comes from the fact that they used oxidizer scrubbers, like vitamin E, to prevent the effect. Oxidative stress is blamed for causing Parkinson's and other apoptosis based disorders, arthritis and non-viral immunosuppression (chronic fatigue/immune deficiency syndrome).
As I said then, we're sadly ignorant about the effects of water in its various conditions and products due to external forces, on our systems. We're starting to find out a lot of answers, good and bad, are focused on water. In this respect, this article makes perfect sense.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Rats are not little people.
Next on the list, that alarm clock on my headboard that I sleep next to for 5-6 hours a day. Not that I'll be sad to see it go.
What's this say for products like the BioMag underlay and pillow that millions of people in Australia and New Zealand use?
-- DuckWing
As far as creating new pathways or generating new cells, I wasn't talking about the formation of new memories but actually keeping those memories longer then the lifetime of the cells.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
OK.. I'm looking at this... and I REALLY don't know very much about cell biology, but I have to ask.. they seem to be really, really worried about DNA being damaged by this. Except as far as I am aware, brain cells never reproduce or divide. Is this correct, and if so, why would I worry about the DNA being damaged if Mitosis is never going to happen? Unless, like, you're shaving the head of a two week old baby or something.
The implication I guess is that cell breakdown and death occurs more quickly, but aren't you constantly losing brain cells at a breakneck pace anyway?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
What about living directly under a ~40kV power line?
I'd be more concerned with the electric field than the magnetic. And I'd be more concerned with ozone and ions from the coronoa discharge than with the electric field. But I wouldn't be very concerned about any of 'em.
There were some studies purporting to show problems. But one set turned out to be using faked data. Others neglected to account for the fact that living near substations or highlines is strongly correlated with lower income - which has LOTS of powerful nasty effects on health.
Even if there was an effect on cancer rate, I'd be more inclied to look for PCB exposure from leaking transformers or another chemical problem than some electrical phenomenon. Your body fluids are very conductive, which keeps the E-field low internally. And changing your orientation with respect to the earth's field as you walk around creates more delta-H than you're likely to get from power transmission equipment, unless you like to use distribution transformers for jungle-jims.
But if you DO live under a high-line, you might want to get an 8-foot fluorescent tube and wave it around in the yard. E-field under those, from end to end of a long tube, is often enough to ionize the mercury vapor and make it light up.
If it works, put a few of 'em in protective plastic covers (to avoid breakage) and plant them around your house for yard lights. B-) (The power company might accuse you of stealing their power. But a judge has already told 'em that if they can't keep it in their lines it's their tough luck when sombody salvages a bit of it.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Well, they say that the plural of anecdote is data
The Tao that can be spoken is not the one eternal Tao
So, am I better off using a battery-powered razor that vibrates at about 1000Hz?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
> As I've said elsewhere, your tinfoil hat won't do a damn thing to block a magnetic field, grounded or not. Come on, you can surely find a magnet and piece of foil somewhere in your house and perform the extremely simple and obvious experiment that proves this...
(Score:-1, No Freaking Sense of Humor)
"A Sharp Blade for a Sharp Mind!"
I'd say that apoptosis is better characterized as "natural cell death". It's a natural and essential part of the cell's life cycle, and certainly isn't as alarming as the article's tone suggests.
Yes and no. There are certainly cells that naturally undergo apoptosis (a.k.a. programmed cell death) in their life cycles. If not for apoptosis, we'd all have webbed fingers. But apoptosis also seems to function as an "emergency self destruct" circumstance in which something has gone catastrophically wrong with a cell. And just as in the movies, it's likely that occasionally something manages to push that big red button by mistake...
That's good news! All I need to do now is shave _before_ I go to bed!
don't shave.
If enithin kan gow rong it whil. (Murfey)
If u read the paper carefully, u will c that these arepretty difficultmeasurements; it is possiblethat there is no effect,and the "effect" they report is just some artifact, say an eager experimenter was not unbaised inmaking measuerments...inany event,ifit is true,it will be confirmed soon. the techique of lysing cells in agarose, and running these mini gels is fairly straightforward. However, measuring of these small absolute migration values (~ 100 microns,very small for biology) and smaller deltas, is pretty hairy,and the measuringof very small migration values,and evensmalleraverage differences is pretty hairy stuff.
There is much more to this article than just the potential dangers of lower level EMF. Very interesting to me is the suspected mechanism of the damage: Lai and Singh hypothesize that exposure to magnetic fields affects the balance of iron in certain cells, leading to an increase in free iron within the cell. That free iron undergoes a chemical reaction, which releases "free radicals," or charged atoms that attack cell structures, including DNA, lipids and proteins. The article also says that when the researchers controlled the free iron or when they neutralized the free radicals, the effects of the EMF were eliminated. Its seems to me that nutrition might play a role here. People who get good nutrition may not be as susceptible to this effect as people who don't or get too much iron.
That's true, but I got pretty freaked out when I thought Guybrush died when he fell off the cliff. Then he bounced back up and said, "Rubber tree." Me and my brother couldn't stop laughing. Then we saved.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Cue lengthy joke about Big Ole' Programmers' Beards.
Pop off the brushhead on a Sonicare toothbrush, and what do you see? Two little magnets. Son of a bitch! Two-minute exposures twice a day. Is anything good for you anymore?
Is this like when they inject rats daily, with three times their body-weight of caffeine, and then say that caffeine gives you cancer?
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
wasn't it a really big thing to attach magnets all over your body to make you feel better? technically isn't that a low-level magnetic wave? it was supposed to heal your arthritis and all sorts of stuff like that..if nothing else, it was supposed to project the resonant image of your digital self..oh wait, that's something else..
Those who can, do. Those who can't, go into business for themselves.
You must shit a solid gold brick when the wind starts to blow really hard....
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
The ovaries are further, but what about embryos, before a pregancy is detected? Only a few cells to screw up.
Theres plenty of magnetic field in computer monitors, especially the larger, no-brand types that does the degauss 'ting' thingy.
All the more reason to use shaving sticks, lower power cellphones, smaller speakers and keep away from the north and south poles.
If people are smart enough to spend 16 hours a day smack in front of monitors and still develop the Linux kernel, it cant be too bad.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
I dn thk cellfn usrs r afectd at al by ths phnomnn. TV rots ur brn.
To prevent ass rot, that is. Never mind living next to high-voltage power lines.
rat-sized razors in the test?
"skate the web"
It's proximity to nerds.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
My electric shaver has a Nicad battery that is charged by AC power, but the motor itself runs off of power from the DC battery. I'm not an EE major, but isn't having a DC current next to your head a lot different than having a 60 hz AC current running next to your head?
:-)
I'm just curious, because I just bought a nice electric shaver and I'd like to keep using it. I never use my shaver while it's plugged into the wall. I only plug it in about once a week to recharge it.
There is an increasing number of western medical doctors that are starting to believe that having electric fields near your body aren't health for you. One of my favorite doctors, Dr. Weil, who has a great website, by the way, recommends that you should get rid of the clock radio by your nightstand as well as any electric blankets in your house. It has also been proven that women who spend 8 hours a day in front of a CRT monitor during pregnancy have a higher rate of birth defects. Exposure to electromagnetic fields can't be that good for you, so I try to stay away from them...
Of course, I'm typing this from my Powerbook sitting on my lap while I sit on the couch, with the AC adapter plugged in and charging away... Maybe I shouldn't try to have kids for the next little while...
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
I brush my rat's teeth with an electric toothbrush everyday. I hope I'm not slowly killing it.
Like any self respecting techie, I have a full beard. It's funny... At work almost all the MS support people are clean shaven and all the UNIX admins have at least some amount of facial hair. Guess the steriotype is true.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
Or Rouge for that matter?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Mucus will kill ya too. But only is swallowed in very small quantities for a long time (like 80 years.)
All this discussion and nobody were thinking about use tinfoil hat while shaving?
oh god. Your brain cells must be affected already.
some numbers about the magnetic induction of simple devices:
fridge 0.5-1.7 0.01-0.25 0.01
washing machine 8-50 0.15-3 0.01-0.15
microwave oven 73-200 4-8 0.25-0.5
vacuum cleaner 200-800 2-20 0.13-2
hair dryer 8-2000 0.01-7 0.01-0.3
e. shaver 15-1500 0.08-9 0.01-0.3
So what you see is that a hair dryer, an electric shaver or an iron (not shown here) can cause _very_ strong magnetic field. The problem is you probably not used to use an iron next to your brain (3cm or such) but the shaver is _much_ stronger, because of the small distance.
Don't forget these are ELF fields , "extreme low frequency", so don't compare with radiation of a cell phone!
Aren't most electric razors these days battery powered? Mine is. So, I'm not using that 60Hz AC wall power.
But, I assume the electric motor emits an electric field. I wonder how that compares to the field in their study.
Where the hell did they get their control group? Rural Africa? Anywhere remote enough and poor enough to not be surrounded by electrical devices in this day and age would have standards of living so low that life expectancy wouldn't be that high for anyone anyway.
Well worth the risk if you ask me.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
At last a rational scientific explanation for observed facts ;)
Hey, c'mon. Are trying to tell me you don't shave your rats?
Hard to imagine that higher organisms would have evolved in a way that hinders survival in the environment which cause thier evolution...
When I was in Radio Shack a few months ago, I saw a sign posted that looked somewhat like this:
WARNING
Certain components sold
in this store, such as portable
CD players, contain lead, which can cause
cancer. You should wash your hands thorougly after
touching these materials.
Of course, it was a lot more formal than that (I don't exactly possess a degree in Lawyer Talk), but that was basically the gist of it.
Now, it's kind of hard to take an article like this seriously when stuff like this is being posted. How much risk, exactly, is there in getting lead poisoning from a portable CD player?
Defenestrate Windows...
There is at least one Nobel Prize, possibly more, in it for anyone who can demonstrate that non-ionizing radiation (especially with a 3,000-mile wavelength) can affect chemical bonds, in DNA or any other substance.
The 2.4GHz band? Yes, not a low-level magnetic field, but I run one 24/7 and it basically runs thru me while I sleep. Has _any_ research been done on this?
As far as cell phones, I use a hands-free as I'm a heavy user and I feel the side of my head that I hold the phone on heat up after 10-15 minutes.
Must-not-watch TV!
Don't these "scientists" know about SHRINKAGE??!! JEEZ! Anything will shrink when exposed to temperatures *that* cold!
These are definitely Alpha geeks, who've NEVER gone swimming on a cold day ;)
~m
"Yes, I have a Disaster Recovery Plan. It's called my Resume"
What does my brain care if its DNA is damaged, does that affect my thinking? Will i stop shaving with an electric razor? I dunno.
But, I guarantee I WILL stop shaving my genitals with an electric razor. No way do I want to damage any sperm swimming nearby.
Does a computer emit a 60-hertz field?
Have you Meta Meta Moderated lately?
Do those support IPv6?
If you have to strap your alarm clock to your head in order to wake up, you have bigger problems than EMF radiation...
so thats why we are only using 10% of our brains. some monkey a few million years ago had to go and electrocute him self.
Lizard "Never let them set limits on your mind!"
...that I don't shave ;)
From the looks of the study, the effects only occur if you're using these devices 24 hours a day for long periods of time. Unless you're a Hairy Man-Beast, one shouldn't worry.
Might want to add that little peice of knowledge to the existance of Santa Clause and ether.
Clarification: those two might not in fact be good examples of what you were trying to say.
Yes, but you will have to admint that it is the very BEST of the worst kind of junk science!
Basically, it has not been proven that small magnetic fields can influence chemical reactions. The energy of heat at room temperature is far, far more than the energy of a small magnetic field.
Magnetic fields have an effect on electrons. They have an effect on the nucleus. But the electrons are moving energetically already, due to room temperature heat, and no low-energy influence on the nucleus affects chemical activity.
Check out these conclusions: "The outcome of oxidative damage induced by magnetic fields will, thus, depend on various factors, including the oxidative status of the cell, capability of endogenous antioxidation enzymes and processes to counteract free radical build up, availability of exogenous antioxidants, iron homeostasis (a balance of iron influx, storage, and usage), the parameters of exposure (e.g., intensity and duration of exposure and possibly the waveform of the magnetic field), and whether the oxidative damage is cumulative."
There are many statements like this that are not supported by the experiment that was done.
First I heard that rats shave
I've been bearding my shave with electric shavers for years and I can say that's just b*llshit.
I am successful programmer, I do a lot of math and taking a hot shower really relaxes me 'cause a bubble baths are great so I jog at the park every morning right after the delicious dinner my wife makes for me, the time I save shaving my beard I think I need to get a job cause I've been unemployed for months and since then I got divorced.
If I were reviewing that paper, it would have gone on the trash heap. Statistical significant does not imply biological significance. They discuss the significance of the strength of the magnetic field, but say _nothing_ about the biological significance of the effect size (= how much further magnetically treated mouse DNA fragments diffused through the gell). Its quite possible that the increase in the probability of developing cancer is vanishingly small. Or maybe not. Can't tell from the paper.
Good point -- the study we're all talking about here specifically mentioned that melatonin suppresses the effect.
My co-worker's desk is perpedicular to mine. A few months' ago he re-positioned the CRT monitor on his desk in such a way that the back of the monitor was pointing directly at me ( distance of about 4'). Withing 2-3 weeks I started getting unexplained headaches. I asked him to move the monitor so it would not point directly at me. Within a few days the headaches disappeared.
The wires in your home have almost no net magnetic field from just a few inches away. The reason is that the supply (hot) and return (neutral) conductors are relatively very close together so that the fields cancel. GFCI breakers in your bathroom rely on this principle - when they sense a small field (usually 5mA imbalance) they trip. You can also try this with a clamp-on current meter. A co-worker built a magnetic field detector with an LED and a few thousand turns around some iron laminates (for making transformer cores). The LED would only light-up at 0.5 inch for 50Amps in a conductor pair. However it was bright at ~4 feet for 2000 Amps (return conductor was about 2 feet away).
Local News just reported Electric toothbrushes are good for you. Now I read this story that such electronics could be harmful. ARGHHHHHH!!!
As long as an electric motor is spinning, there is a magnitic field. The electric motors in your razor and toothbrush probably have permanent magnets that spin relative to the stator coils.
But I think the frequency will depend on the motor's spin rate times the number of stators, so it probably isn't a 60Hz field.
I used to work with MRI, and with a 1.5 Tesla magnet the effect of distance was quite important (people have been killed by objects pulled into the magneet).
anyway, we were told the force varied with the CUBE root of distance. according to this source, the drop-off depends on the nature of the source:
http://www.emfs.info/source_distance.asp
as for a deleterious effect on humans, i won't believe it until i see solid proof, preferably with some mechanism explained. distance is a good place to start -- if someone tells you a microwave oven is dangerous, ask them if they are threatened by their neighbor's? how about someone down the street? how about someone else using an electric razor? etc., etc. -- there is a lot to explore.
Well this just explains it all. So 'beautiful' people are 'dumber' because they probably spend more time grooming themselves (blondes with those hair dryers all the time).
Seriously though shaving for 2 minutes per day is a far cry from what these studies did. And on rats lol, so you put a shaver on a rat, wouldn't that be like having an 8 foot shaver on a human if scaled to size? Yes an 8 foot shaver shaking my whole body at 60Hz for 24 hours probably would do some damage, duh!
Save that manuvering for the logged in post. Sounds cool. But does it have "29 dimensions of compatibility"?
:p
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Better get into space fast. But wait we are not even safe there. Arrrg they are out to get us.
I think there's already been enough competent research based on human and primate studies to confirm beyond reasonable doubt that neurogenesis does occur in at least one region of the adult human brain, namely in the hippocampus , a region that is essential for learning .
Scroogle
A question is whether the DNA strand breaks induced by magnetic fields in our studies (Lai and Singh, 1997a, and this study) are biologically significant. The flux densities (0.01- 0.5 mT) used in our studies are within the levels that one could encounter in the environment. Household and office levels of extremely low frequency can vary from 0.01-1 T. Intermittent levels can reach more than 10 T. Levels near a power transmission line can be 10-30 T, whereas the magnetic flux density can vary between 0.1 and 1 mT near some electrical appliances (e.g., electric blankets, hair dryers). Much higher levels are expected in occupational exposures (Bernhardt 1985; Gauger 1984; Krause, 986; Tenforde and Kaune 1987). Looks like you shouldn't be blow drying your hair for hours on end. But were geeks and we don't do that. I'm going to keep my electric rasor. Who believes that brain damage stuff anyway? I sur.se0s9ejlz/l ,zx mxzlifmzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Oh man, if an electric razor can fry my brain cells, what can this giant 21" CRT do?
... until some greedy lawyers will start another class-suction based on their conclusions.
I remember seeing several announcements in the news where different experts were telling about cellphones being either harmful or not harmful.
It is pretty resentful to live in the world of so called "science" that first creates something, and then declares it harmful.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
... is, what about exposure to Large electromagnetic fields such as motors, power lines, cell phones, monitors, etc.... that's the question that scares the hell out of me...
Gravity!... It's not just a good idea... It's the Law!
Being a Ph.D. chemist this is one area I feel qualified to comment on. They are making claims that the magnetic field effect has to do with free radicals generated by iron. The first tip off that they have no clue is referencing the Fenton Reaction. This reaction has nothing to do with the area they are working in. It is using iron to catalyze the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. They are just picking some reaction that sounds like it may involve DNA damage and referencing it. This works because everyone reading it doesn't really understand the mechanics of the reaction.
Also they meantion several times that other studies with the same type of magnetic field only stronger have been not shown any DNA damage. If it is a chemically induced cleavage then more field strength MUST equal more damage. The fact that it doesn't makes the studies questionable.
In additoin to this, my understanding of DNA analysis is that DNA is pretty sensitive, it seems more reasonable that they are committing a systematic error in their data collection. The no name journal that this is published in also speaks to crappy research.
Sorry to say but science is full of quacks, unless it is in a top level journal take any findings with a grain of salt.
Organicsculpture.com
There is no evidence of widespread neurogenesis in the adult human brain. If you'd care to correct me on that point, please... be my guest.
There is some research to show that the olfactory bulb makes new neurons (perhaps accounting for ex-smokers ability to repair their damaged sense of smell over time), and the hippocampus as well... but those are very small, specific areas. Neurogenesis in the human brain has not been shown to occur in any areas beyond those two specific regions.
I realize you're just picking a nit... I'm just picking one in return.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
This isn't some statistical study where some big group in an uncontrolled environment shows some statistical anomaly. It's a straightforward experiment.
The main criticism of the study is that they need to try different field strengths, over at least a 1:10 range. If a clear relationship appears between field strength and DNA breaks, that provides a much stronger indication of a valid result.
Small amounts of saliva trickling down your throat causes cancer.
We are surrounded by EM fields in every part of our lives. Especially now a days, things like shavers are probably the least of our worries. Everyday for hours, we sit in front of TV's and monitors that have much stronger and sustained powerful EM waves. Not to mention that when we are at work, many times the back of a co-workers monitor is pointed right at us. Cathode Ray Tubes emit much stronger waves from behind and on the sides then from the direction you stare at. I'm not even sure whether such exposure is considered safe by the FCC.
Add to that a low but never ceasing EM field emitted by all the electrical lines running throughout buildings. Do you have a line running just 1 foot away from your head when you sleep? Probably yes. Hopefully it is not carrying a lot of current when you are asleep and the EM emissions are truly marginal, but it comes to show you just how exposed we really are.
Many here were saying how a DC shaver is not as dangerous as one plugged into an AC outlet. This is not true. At least it is not the DC/AC part the is making a difference. A battery powered device probably emits lower EM, but that is because it has less power going through it, as it is limited by how much charge we can store in a battery. In any case I doubt there is a big difference between the power consumption there.
Actually if you want to limit the amount of exposure you get, a safe bet would be to check the wattage a device is consuming (multiply the amperage by 120 volts if you can only find that). The more wattage goes through it, the more EM it will produce. Motors, heaters, and electromagnets are probably the worst culprits here.
In reality though, with all this EM to worry us, the bottom line is that its an unavoidable part of our world. Mostly, all this electrical activity make our live immensely better. So the benefits outweigh drawbacks. You can try to avoid some exposure. And eliminating cases like sitting with you head in the monitor or having ones back to you is probably the bast thing you can do. All other things are pretty marginal or can't be helped anyway. Let's hope that shielding all this EM becomes more realistic in the future, I don't see what else we can do.
In other news, new research has shown that research causes cancer in rats. More at 11...
RE : Don't you think we would have found such correlations prior to now if there were some ?
If you are mentioning... Sure and we can heal cancer and aids..
Damn we know less then nothing in the truth... and you know this..
As I had heared the constant magnetic field of akku driven,
dental care and rasing product's shuold be the worst..
cause the DC field is constant.. and dialysis occurs only with a constant DC field.
AC motors or current is changing with the frequency.. (Used in wireless,house wires...)
So we have permanent pole changes and the resulting field would be 0 dialyses would not occur !
They are even destroying tumors with DC current sources.
(Lol no proven damage...)
And near to us is a factory located that produces silicon (to produce semiconductors)
from sand... with big DC heating shelters.
Only driven by a DC source, and they have even to remove clocks..
or they would be destroyed by the magnetic field..
(And no we haden't found any proven damage.. ! lol)
Thinking about EMP weapons.. and HF-disturbtions from bypassing cars.
(I had sold my old 1800 VW Golf cause of headache from the injection HF noises and now living happy with my small opel)
Sorry I'm only a stupid italian...
There was information in the article that some medicine was weakening the effect. What exactly would that be ? Maybe we should take it
(power supplies/chargers are 50-60Hz).
If I remember correctly you could sort of lose by putting the piece of string in the large kettel on board of the ship. It disappeared and you could not use it later as a fuse for the cannon.
Man was I pissed when I found out...
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
During the 1998 ice storm in Montreal I used an el-cheapo hair dryer to keep warm while the electricity was out.
Interesting implications considering that my Noreico electric razor turns on when my cell phone laying next to it gets a call...
... that must mean I get twice the brain-fighting power!
I guess I'll be posting to Slashdot more often.
electrons are everywhere. it's a big
... if all this fusion
"hidden" sea and not localised to the atoms
nucleus AT ALL.
imagine a swimming pool being the
universal electron pool and the people
going for a swim being the atoms nucleus.
electrons don't belong to the atom AT ALL.
makes you wonder
is turning neutrons into protons, well where
is all the extra "negative" charge coming from?
every time helium is created more positive
charge exists in the univers. mewonders who
makes all these electrons to "equal" this out.
*yawn*.
maybe they'll figure this out someday.
and yes, the electron in your computer or
shaver or whatever is connected to the electron
on aldebaran (instantaniously).
I noticed that the study was carried out at 60Hz. Would it not have been more meaningful to carry out a study at 50Hz? After all, that is the frequency of the mains {though some continental trains use 16.66...Hz} ..... so you would expect 50Hz fields to be very prevalent what with power lines criss-crossing the country.
Anyway, the long term effect of anything that damages the health of a portion of the population will be that the susceptible individuals die off, leaving behind those who are immune to the effects to pass on the immunity gene. Eventually, it won't be a problem.
Monstromart: Where shopping is a baffling ordeal
Ok so correct me if im wrong: We have limited, inconclusive or countering evidence about the way EMFs affect our health and we cant even predict how waves will react inside the fuselage of an airplane or with the equipment with enough confidence to make using things like shavers and phones legal. It probably happens that allot of frequencies of waves are OK, but certain frequencies or ranges are not (well we know this for sure because we know that microwaves at a certain frequency and strength will cook you and that x-rays, gamma-rays and a whole host of others are whats the word... not-good). If you plotted a function of frequency and 'harmfulness' you would probably get a pretty wild looking graph, then add wave interaction with other objects, defraction/usion, harmonics, the direction of the wind etc and you have total confusion - even if a wave is safe at one frequency and strength what if it enters your skull from a certain angle and bounces around inside and somehow creates something bad. Correct me if im talking total crap i didnt exactly pass physics with flying colours.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I thought it was a long lost and yet undiscovered Frank Zappa Album Title, afollowup effort to "Weasels Ripped My Flesh http://www.rykodisc.com/Catalog/dump/rykoalbums_58 5.asp
I shave with a blade, and the nearest thing I've come to an electric hairdrier is pointing the flexi-flue from my mobile air conditioner at my flowing locks.
.....
All the same, DNA damage isn't that big a deal. After all, DNA has error checking built-in, and small errors can be corrected transparently. Damaged DNA is most probably not viable, and therefore does not get reproduced. You'd have to damage a whole lot of DNA in one go to do real harm. Given the brain's rapid throughput of blood, it's more likely that the duff DNA will be dealt with long before enough of it gets together to form its own organism {i.e. a cancer}. In any case, for that to happen, you need every DNA molecule to be damaged in the same way {more likely with chemicals, I would have thought}, as opposed to random damage {more likely with radiation}.
It seems to me that the doom-and-gloom merchants want things to be bad for us
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Electric field rather than magnetic IIRC
l ts .pl?q=pylons+cancer
http://www.gorge.org/pylons/pix/tube.jpg
Despite the ability to light up fluorescent tubes and therefore demonstrate the significant movement of electrons there doesn't seem to be any good evidence that it causes problems. It keeps coming up every so often though:
http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/resu
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
This seems to solve (prove?) the age old mystery on why blondes are made fun of as being 'dumb'. i.e. the infamous 'Dumb Blonde' jokes.
:P
All this time they have been trying to make up for it with their good looks. If only they knew that blow drying their hair 20 times a day was the root of all their problems?
Hmmmn, Now would that be the darker roots or just the highlights?
OH somebody just make me shut up
...we have a 50Hz field surrounding us, not a 60Hz on which the research is based.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
The Fenton Reaction seemed way off base, as you said. In particular, I wondered, "What the heck is Hydrogen Peroxide doing in the brain in the first place?" On page 16 of the PDF, Lai writes,
Whether or not mitochondria really produce hydrogen peroxide is not something I know, but if they do, then it would seem to me that Lai may not be entirely off-base.
Also they meantion several times that other studies with the same type of magnetic field only stronger have been not shown any DNA damage. If it is a chemically induced cleavage then more field strength MUST equal more damage. The fact that it doesn't makes the studies questionable.
I only ran across two mentions of other studies in the article which claimed no DNA damage, but Lai explained that in both those studies, the cells had probably been in states where the mitochondria were inactive, thus producing no Hydrogen Peroxide for iron to react with. But I only gave the paper a cursory read, so perhaps I missed mention of other studies. What pages were you looking at?
-FL
From what I've read, it's not the carrier which counts; it's the modulated signal being carried which reacts best with brain chemistry.
I don't worry too much about the actual damage Lai is trying to demonstrate. What I do worry about are the non-destructive reactions which result from exposure. Several studies demonstrate that the blood/brain barrier becomes permeable under exposure, allowing a variety of impurities to pass into the brain, (prions anyone?), and according to another fascinating study, Lithium, the basis of many anti-depressant drugs, is excited and caused to react with the brains of test animals, causing a narcotic effect.
There's a lot of well researched material out there for anybody who feels like learning about the EM radiation we've been sold as safe for the last fifty years. People seem more zoned out than in days of old? Hard to gauge, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me.
-FL
...and say, "Don't use that electric shaver, the magnetism will kill you!", along with the old stand-bys of other varities like: "Your eyes will stick that way one day", and don't forget "some storks dropped you off at our house one day, and that's how children are made".
Aaaahh.... So that's why smart men have beards =].
The whole story reminds me of "Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders"...
Uhoh. The Martians strike back!
Okay, I'm looking around me right now, and there's one laptop computer, and 3 other PCs on my desk. Not to mention the desk lamps pretty close to my head. At least the PCs have metal cases, but the ones I'm going to work on later today have plastic housings.
I'm screwed...
No wonder I feel dumber every day.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Huh, that's interesting.. I guess it would just be a waste of their server space if they made a "slashdot" category.
ôó
"Trust" anti-odorant, also known as "Lavilin" in the USA.
Made by a company in Israel. Entirely natural ingredients, doesn't block pores. It's a white paste, and one application lasts for a week. (Yes, really.)
It's marketed at women, but I use it too 'cause I have sensitive skin.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Don't hit me with them negative waves so early in the morning.
- Oddball
Is like ordering a steak from McDonalds ....
If you're a smoker, don't let this worry you!
Physicis is not my strong point, but I'm wondering something.
Is this a new phenomena that hair dryers & razors rot your brain? Or have they always been this evil and we just noticed it or soemthing? Because haven't electric razors, and hair dryers, and other motorized implements been around for a few decades if not 50 - 60 years? Just that 50-60 years ago you'd get electrocuted if it got wet. Now it fries your brain?
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Another theory is that the beard keeps away most women which are a major source of distraction. :)
So, is Linus then not that great a hacker, somehow unaffected, or naturally beardless?
I had a sleep study done once. Figured out from that, I think, that I had sleep apnea. Of course, that was was about a decade ago, and my problems got so severe that I was "sleeping" most of the hours out of the day, so I don't remember a whole heck of a lot about it.
Anyway, I'd stay away from sleeping pills until you actually know what's wrong with your sleeping. See your doctor, and consider a sleep study if you think its warranted. Best to find a cure after you better know what ails you.
*honks*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
Ok, at this point in time, who isn't a cell phone user? Why not just talk about what cell phones might do or whatever, but it's like how in America politicians call everyone taxpayers. I'm so glad to be a sheep in their flock and doing nothing but paying taxes. Whatever
The study found out that 60 Hz rots the brain and we all know that 50 Hz is safe !
Another theory is that the beard keeps away most women which are a major source of distraction. :)
Actually, I found that my success with women improved after I grew a beard.
YMMV of course. Maybe it depends on what your beard happens to look like, how many animals build their nests in it, etc.
'There was an old man with a beard
Who said, "It is just as I feared:
Two owls and a hen,
Four larks and a wren,
Have all made their nests in my beard."'
Or something like that (Edward Lear).
We can't even build a lead box to save ourselves because that makes us sick too. Atleast I don't like any of those items because of the noise (aside from the heating blanket, I quite like that noise)
...it has been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
Yet you still post annoying, pompous messages on slashdot... sounds like a fucked up nerd to me... or is that fucked up asshole?
Regarding the formation of new memories; human neurons in the adult brain generally form new connections (synapses) rather than mitotically dividing to form new neurons
This is a correct statement. If you can show me where the storage of new memories is accomplished primarily by mitosis rather than new synapse formation, I'll be happy to retract the above statement. There does seem to be some mitosis in the Hippocampus, and the Hippocampus is involved in the formation of some types of memories (though not all), so there does appear to be correlation... but not necessarily causation. It would be interesting to see if anyone has tested new memory formation while simultaneously suppressing cell division in the Hippocampus... I've never come across any such research.
Some authors consider the Hippocampus to be an intermediate-term buffer prior to consolidation in long-term storage. Lesions of the hippocampus seriously hinder the formation of some new memories (spatial relationships), but not others (rote skills and procedures). It's also worth noting that older memories are often spared after hippocampal damage, lending credence to the theory that those memories are stored elsewhere (in areas of the neocortex where mitosis has not been shown to take place)
If you have links to post that shed further light on this topic, please share them.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Now we are faced with the hideous reality of beardless rodents possibly sporting MULLETS? Where is PETA when truly needed?
>Sig sig = new Sig();
:-)
I think the correct use would be
Sig *sig = new Sig();
making "sig" a pointer.
Lack of life
-- Make software not war
Assuming that you're using C++ and not Java (or similar), of course...
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
However: the only thing that has been shown to conclusively disrupt DNA is ionizing radiation such as that of radioactive materials or ultraviolet light.
:) Anyhow, you have to go through a tunnel past the reactor to get to the engine compartment.
:)
I wake up cold all the time. When I was out to sea, I used to get up and walk to the engine compartment for some coffee. The nukes had it wired to the vital bus. Your tax dollars at work
Are you trying to say there's a REASON for that sign warning "12 hours / day maximum exposure"?
That wall in the tunnel sure was toasty warm though <twitch>
"In the study, the researchers discovered that rats exposed to a 60-hertz field for 24 hours showed significant DNA damage"
Uh-oh. Where is my tinfoil hat?!?!?!?
"I realize you're just picking a nit... I'm just picking one in return."
That wasn't my motivation. Was it yours? If so, how petty.
"Your brain is slowly rotting away...but it's a long process, and you've got lots of time".
Why?
Scroogle