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Study Links Cell Phones to DNA Damage
Amit Malhotra was one of several readers to point out a story running on numerous sites about a study linking cell phone use to DNA Damage. Of course, a recent gammaworld campaign has served to remind me that mutations are almost always beneficial, so there is nothign to fear.
The super speed and x-ray vision are great superpowers.
Maybe one of the effects of these mutations could be better spelling...
recent gammaworld campaign has served to remind me that mutations are almost always beneficial
Any one have a link? I find this extremely hard to believe.
Now all those Valley Girls who use cell phones all the time will get super powers.
"We have to, like, go save the president, you know. hee hee! *Laser Beam Eye Sound Effects*"
Just a boy doing unproffesional IT work that's way above his head.
you have to die of something...
but do you think this will make people stop using their damned cell phones? no way, they need to figure out a way to make them less harmful yes, but what incentive will they have to do that if this isn't hard fact.
remember teh craze a few years ago when they thought it gave you cancer? how many scares are we going to have. do people realize how many radio waves go through your body every single day? i am sure sitting infront of a computer monitor each day is a bit worse than me using my cell.
They // lawyers // need a new cow.
The pharmaceuticals, fastfood, and cell phone companies have money. They are nice big cows waiting for the right amount of scaremongering to generate up public concern. The big lie works well here, keep repeating it, getting it into newspapers, internet chain letters, and voila!
So what if there are any possible beneifts, if there is a negative its a horror! Think of the children, the elderly, the dienfranchiesed. These huge evil corporations slowing killing us for a profit.
So, who files the class-action suit first?
* NO I did not RTFA - it died already.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This has been postulated ror years now. God knows what we're doing to ourselves with technology.
Can you tumor me now? Good.
There's not nearly enough information here.
I'd like to see them cone down the exact wavelengths that are purported to be problematic. It may be only a certain portion of that band that causes enough resonance in the DNA molecule to break the molecular bonds. The EM spectrum is large... and this could be a very wavelength-specific phenomenon.
For example, everyone knows that Ultraviolet radiation is harmful to humans... it causes sunburns, skin cancer, etc. However, clinical effects within the ultraviolet range of the EM spectrum (consisting of UVA, UVB, and UVC in order of increasing frequency) vary significantly. UVA will tan your skin, but isn't terribly harmful otherwise. UVB, and part of UVC will cause Ultraviolet Keratitis ("welder's eye" or "snow blindness"), and UVC is the worst for causing skin cancer (UVB causes cancer too, but UVC is worse).
We frankly need much more information... particularly a bit more specifcity about what wavelengths of Cell phone radiation cause DNA damage. A shift of only 20-30 nanometers in the UV range can make a big difference in clinical effects... who knows where the sweet spot is in the cell band?
I'm not throwing away my cellphone until I know more... a LOT more.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
It's interesting that they don't offer up an explanation for the cellular damage. Last time I checked, microwaves were non-ionizing. The worst you should experience from a cell phone might be a little heat. I'm skeptical, as usual. Remember the scare about power lines? About alar? Remember a couple years back when there was a study that showed that heated carbohydrates can produce a cancer-causing chemical (I forget the name)? Wine was bad for you, then it was good, then it was bad, and now it's good again. There's a new study every year that shows something from the modern world kills us. Well, last time I checked, living in a modern society generally means you're going to live 40 years or more beyond what someone in a primitive society could expect. So even if everything is bad for you, it's more than balanced out by the things that are good.
My observations suggest that they merely destroy the part of the brain that regulates manners.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In a separate announcement in Hong Kong, where consumers tend to spend more time talking on a mobile phone than in Europe, a German company called G-Hanz introduced a new type of mobile phone which it claimed had no harmful radiation, as a result of shorter bursts of the radio signal.
(Additional reporting by Doug Young in Hong Kong)
Everyone seems to have an agenda in the news these days. Is there no such thing anymore as a news release not trying to sell something or push an agenda?
Gamma world!
Hmmm, guess I've gotta rethink putting my cell phone in my pocket eh? Fortunately, my kids came before I started doing that! So I guess that means...errr, forgot where I was, nevermind!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
actually - this study seems to be anything but conclusive. The researchers of course need 4-5 more years to figure out if they really actually figured out anything to begin with.
Another case of people reading the headline and news blurb and not the underlying information.
Bluetooth has a far lower transmission power.
IIRC GSM permits up to a 2W transmission (if you are far from a base station), bluetooth is nearer 1mW, so it should cause less damage.
Of course people forget the whole inverse cubed relationship between power and distance, so the same people that complain about the effects of base stations near their house expose themselves to thousands of times more radation by using cellphones themselves.
Actually, it should have been obvious there would be some effects, and how the parent poster got marked flamebait, when all you have to do is stick your phone in your jeans pocket for a few weeks to see the cumulative effect (sore muscle tissue near the antenna due to radiation "cooking").
Still: ... on animals and human volunteers."
Because of the lab set-up, the researchers said the study did not prove any health risks. But they added that "the genotoxic and phenotypic effects clearly require further studies
So the point remains, it has still not been proven dangerous.
DNA breaks all the time in cells (think thousands per day for each cell in the body) but since we are in fact using the double-stranded DNA (think RAID 0), it can be repaired rather easily. And even if it can't that still does not mean that you will get cancer and die a slow death.
Nothing to see here people, move along...
Here is yet another example of releasing findings by press release. This is amazingly irresponsible, since it looks like the study involved irradiating cells in a dish. Not applicable to human exposure at all ...
Here are my favorite quotes:
Because of the lab set-up, the researchers said the study did not prove any health risks.
and
"We don't want to create a panic, but it is good to take precautions," he said, adding that additional research could take another four or five years.
In other words, I need more funding to support my sketchy research that may or may not be applicable to human exposure - sheesh.
Conduct the radiation up to your head? Its radiation, from the word radiate! It goes out in all directions! Radiation (at least certain types) needs thick lead to block it. Other types are stopped by your skin. Now why in the world would radiation be conducted by a wire? It would either pass through the wire or be stopped by it.
;).
However, there might be a few other good reasons for not putting a radiation-emitting device in your pants
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
If CT was fired for every spelling mistake, he'd personally be responsible for approximately 85% of the unemployed statistics.
to remind me that mutations are almost always beneficial
Most mutations are harmful, or neutral at best. To use the watchmaker analogy, chipping away at the gears of your watch is more likely to break something than to make your watch into an atomic clock.
Give me liberty, or a ham sandwich!
See me at: www.flubu.com
Forget the tin-foil hat stuff - the only two solutions are either shield the head or place the transmitter in a relatively remote location. Cell phone manufactueres need only create a phone in two pieces with the high power rf part seperate from the handset. You could place the rf unit only a short distance away (like the back window of your car or on top of the cube wall) and field strength drops dramatically. Link between the handset and the rf unit can be wired or something like bluetooth but will likely be manufacturer proprietary. Forget the science, just sell what people want, whether their wants are based on facts or not.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
The study looked at frequencies in the 8xx MHz range (GSM bands), so it's not clear if it also extends to Bluetooth, which works at 2.45 GHz. Presumably the risk is that at the MHz range DNA tends to continuous shatter and rebuild itself, and occasionally mutations occur. It's not clear that this also happens at frequencies in the GHz range too, but it's notable that Bluetooth uses amplitudes orders of magnitude weaker than cell phones. That's because Bluetooth has a range of only a few meters, whereas cell phones have a range of several KM.
Note that if the GHz range is also risky, your home cordless phone is also going to be a risk. OTOH, I believe it's also the case that the signal it emits is a lot weaker than a cell phone.
If radio waves caused DNA breaks, then we should see lots of tentacled zombies walking out of taxicabs, radio stations, TV stations, cruise-ships, diathermy clinics, radio shacks, microwave oven companies, airline pilots, airport birds, aircraft carrier deck crews, TV reporters, NIST personnel, base-jumpers, helicopter pilots, metal-forging shops, police, fire, utility workers. Cell site repairpersons, microwave signal repeater tower workers, cell-phone testers, walkie-talkie repairfolk, CB radio aficionados, FM and TV tower painters. TV tower red flashy light bulb changers, Pierce Brosnan (fought at the focal point of the Arcibo dish in some paltrily above average Bond movie) If the damage was proportional to the absorbed dose we should see about one out of 23 cell phone users with huge tumors by their ears, smaller suppurating pustules down their cheeks, and just raw purplish open sores over the rest of their heads. I must be hanging around with the wrong crowd.
They can't make it through the atmosphere, at least, not to sea level That's not to say that there isn't plenty of radiation that does make it through the atmosphere (eg, visible light).
There are reasons why there aren't any ground based x-ray observatories -- they're all space based, such as Chandra and Yohkoh
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
except the failure to be able to read or write
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
The biggest things about all of the 'you are going to die' studies is what are the actual odds of getting the negative effects? One in 10? One in 1000?, One million?
Everytime the news says that if you do something you like doing, you increase your risk of such a horrible side effect that even though it would be more likely that you win the lottery, you immediately change your lifestyle to avoid it at all costs.
But put it in perspective. Lets say the odds of getting a harmful side effect from a cell phone is 2%. One statistic pegs driving a car as the leading cause of death for people aged 6 - 27.
Will you put away your cell phone, but contine driving? Everyone knows there are risks driving, but we take it as a reasonable risk because we are aware of the perils involved (bad drivers, weather, etc).
As soon as somebody says that xxxx has a severe side effect, we can't make an informed judgement about it because the media focuses on the horrible death we are all about to receive. Its their job to keep you interested by raising the alarm about evertying
--There isn't anything good in this world that isn't immoral, harmful, or fattening.
We did not evolve with a microwave transmitters straped to our heads so guess what? Its bad for you. If we had developed in a setting with high levels of this form of radtion our DNA repair mechanisms would be undoubtly able to deal with it; but such is not the case.
Also, most critical damage will result in either programed cell death (apoptosis) when the cell figures out its scewed or death by necrosis when the cell has been too damged to do anything. The third alternative would be cancer. If anyone is hoping to get a useful mutation that you can pass on to your kids I suggest holding the phone as close as possible to your gonads while in use. If you are lucky your sperm progenator cells (or eggs for the ladies) will pick up the useful mutation and pass it on.
If the rest of us are lucky you will just be sterilized.
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
ONLY ionizing radiation can cause dna breakage
Cell phones do NOT emit ionizing radiation, and therefore they can not cause dna breakage and cancer (byproduct of dna breakage). The article does mention SAR of non-ionizing radiation, but those levels are too low to even move molecules.
Non-ionizing radiation is also not cumulative.
This study is spreading FUD.
" In a separate announcement in Hong Kong, where consumers tend to spend more time talking on a mobile phone than in Europe, a German company called G-Hanz introduced a new type of mobile phone which it claimed had no harmful radiation, as a result of shorter bursts of the radio signal."
Non-ionizing radiation is not cumlative, and would not make a difference if the signal was sent in shorter bursts.
I wouldn't be suprised if this research company in Germany is tied to this G-Hanz company (also in Germany)
The cell phone industry issued an internal memo discouraging employees from using the term 'mutation', and instead having them call it 'unanticipated DNA improvements'
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
What this study did was what every good study does. It leaves the researchers at an impasse that can only be crossed with more funding.
This is a good example of an excellent study. The results are very important, millions could die horrible deaths and it effects just about every one on the planet. What's a few more million for an extended study when so much is at stake.
I don't have a sig
In other words, no news here, move along.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
If you wrapped a cellphone in ham, would it no longer work?
I don't know that, but I'm sure your phone would no longer be kosher...
>Of course people forget the whole inverse cubed relationship between power and distance
In case anyone's wondering about this...
Yes, your memory is fine, "inverse square" is what you've always heard. BUT...
The inverse square law is for radiation in empty space with nothing to absorb it. In a cluttered real-world environment cell-phone signals drop off iwth distance a lot faster than inverse square. There are models of this so complicated that they're named after their inventors, but inverse cube is an OK approximation for some purposes.
This is silly, they just have cause and effect backwards. The real truth is that only mutants use their cell phones that much.
I peel myself off of the monitor or the computer on my lap.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
That game was loads of fun. What a blast from the past to hear about GammaWorld again. I remember one of my characters was a psychic panther with body armor and mounted weapons. Wild stuff.
Note the icon for this story -- an analog land-line telephone (Western or ITT 500, ca. 1961). No risk because the part you stick up to your head is just a speaker and a microphone in a piece of hollow plastic, and even the desk unit is pretty simple.
Same holds true for more modern landline phones, such as 2500 and Trimline, and even the fancier digital landline sets you sometimes see in offices.
While I use cellular occasionally -- I keep the phone in a fanny pack, at great risk to my reproductive health -- I by and large stick to the land lines, not only for safety and convenience, but also for clarity.
study linking cell phone use to DNA Damage.
Well, that explains alot. It explains why people run red lights, why people use ambulances and fire trucks on emergency runs to get into and out traffic, and why the fuck people driving SUV's don't pay attention while talking on their goddamn cell phones. It has mutated the DNA in their brains into one giant asshole.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
If the person talking on a cellphone is talking too loudly, then it's the fact that the person is talking too loudly that is annoying. The fact that the person just so happens to be talking on a cellphone while doing it is irrelevant.
I've occasionally been around people who simply talk too loudly to other people.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
People seem to talk louder on cell phones than when talking to one another. Also, I remember reading an article that said it is easier for us to tune out a conversation when we hear both sides of it than when we are hearing only one side. Apparently, a natural reaction is to try to piece together the other side of the conversation.
What bothers me most though is the damn Nextels. These people having their walkie-talkie conversations on speaker phone, punctuating ever sentence with a chirp piss me off. There are times when I've wished they would literally drop dead.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
The wavelength of cell phones frequencies are of the order of magnitude of 10-30 cm in vacuum. In any other material, they are lower (by reasonable factors, depending on the material, e.g. 3). Now I am not saying there cannot possibly be any bad effect, but I would be highly surprised if these waves brought DNA (very small, microns or so?) into resonance.
Optical frequencies are orders of magnitude away from cell phone frequencies, UV even more.
Z (didn't read TFA)
But then the previous case could also be good as well though. The most widely held theory about the difference between males and females is that a huge segment of chromatim simply broke off and the resulting organism was able to thrive. I could see why 99.9999% of them would have negative results (since you have several million energy waves hitting the chromatim at a time,) as opposed to the 90% of natural mutations. But I would guess that there should still exist the possibility that a mutation triggered by high energy waves could provide some benefit (although I would strongly advise against exposing yourself to high energy radiation if you wanted to become superman.)
'Course I am not an expert in biology.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Not entirely. Wired phones feedback part of the signal from the microphone to the earpiece. This audio feedback is a side-effect of simple analog phone design, but it also serves to help you know the line is live, and help you regulate your volume because you can hear yourself well, and so you assume the other person can hear you.
Cellphones don't provide this feedback. Thus one of the clues you get on a wireline phone is missing. Some people seem to need this clue to help them regulate their volume and some people don't.
Another way that cellphones differ is in audio quality. In general, if you can't hear someone well, you increase the volume at which you speak - this is something we learn when we're very young. Poor cellphone codecs and poor signal strength contribute to the feeling that the other person can't hear you very well, so subconciously you speak louder. Again, different people are affected by this differently, but the effect is pretty common.
So cellphones really are different from wired phones, although not everyone is affected by those differences in the same way.