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NYC Subway Cell Service, No Cell-Related Cancer

Luke PiWalker wrote to mention a CNN article discussing a bid process for offering cell phone service to NYC subway stations. The contract is only to wire up stations; moving trains will not have service. Those New Yorkers will also be safe from their phones, as the BBC reports on a study indicating cell phones don't cause cancer. From that article, submitted to us by Dan Hope: "She acknowledged that there appeared to be an increased risk among brain cancer sufferers on the side of the head where they held the phone. The team, however, did not put this down to a causal link, because almost exactly the same decreased risk was seen on the other side of the head, leaving no overall increase risk of tumours for mobile phone users. Instead, they blamed biased reporting from brain tumour sufferers who knew what side of the head their tumours were on."

9 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. Above ground by friedo · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's worth noting that a good 40% or so of what we call The Subway is actually above ground, on elevated and surface lines, and you can blab on your cell all you want while riding.

    1. Re:Above ground by IANAAC · · Score: 2, Informative
      Yeah but most idiots that move to New York from out-of-town think that Manhattan is the only borough of New York and they are afraid to go to Brooklyn or Queens or The Bronx for fear of getting lost.

      Most life-long Manhattan dwellers think the same way.

    2. Re:Above ground by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2, Informative

      True, but the 40% of the NYC subway system which is above-ground also tends to be in more outlying areas of the system, and therefore less-traveled and sometimes less-populated areas.

      A train's time spent above ground may also be quite brief, as is the case on the F line in Brooklyn, where it runs underground to Carroll Street, goes elevated for only 2 stations in order to pass over the Gowanus Canal, and then returns underground for several more stations. A short "hi, I'm on my way" call might be possible during the period spend aboveground, but a longer conversation usually is not.

  2. If it isn't the cellphone that kills, its the AIR by digitaldc · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to Swedish scientists, people should be more worried about the subway air they breathe, than their cell phone use.

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
  3. Leaky Coax by RingDev · · Score: 4, Informative

    Leaky Coax would likely be a cheap way to handle it. You would still need "towers" at regular intervals, but then you run a copper line along the train line for each antena. This is a pretty common trick in large buildings. You let the carrier install antenas on your roof line and drop leaky coax off one of them so that the signal inside the building is just as strong as the signal outside. The expencive part would be getting the pipe to support the volume. I road the DC blue line a few times during rush hour, there are ALOT of people in a very small area. Running that many people on one antena might not work so well, expecially when they are all getting handed off every 45 seconds. You might need some type of redundant line of antenas to handle the call volume, hand offs, and load balancing. And then likely a fiber line to carry the data from the antenas back to the junction. -Rick -Rick

    --
    "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
  4. read about it here (pdf) by digitaldc · · Score: 2, Informative

    You can read how they wire tunnels for cell phones here:
    PDF file warning!
    http://www.adc.com/Library/Literature/100557.pdf?r efer=promotion&c=digivance

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
  5. Re:The Truth cannot save you now by swilver · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think people learned from the tabacco industry not to believe everything the corporate world says.

  6. Powerwatch is a company, not a nonprofit. by Nephroth · · Score: 4, Informative
    If you have a look at the powerwatch website, you'll notice two sections that are rather interesting: catalog and price list.

    They sell worthless junk along the same lines as aluminum foil hats, and magic-crystal healing devices. They aren't protecting people from EMF, they are getting rich of scaring people into believing that it's going to destroy them and their families.

    They completely disregard the fact that we have been, and continue to be bombarded by radiation from natural sources such as the sun, celestial events, and the Earth's magnetic core. Making our homes into faraday cages just means that we won't be bombarded by EMF in our houses, but wait! Every single electronic device emits some amount of EMF, from your toaster, to your microwave, to your vibrator, it's all going to emit some amount of EMF and you really can't escape it without becoming a Luddite and living in a sealed hovel in some remote location.

    It's also important to note that there are different kinds of radiation, at its purest definition, it's the transmission of energy via waves. In that case, sound is radiation, ripples in water, also radiation. What most people confuse, however, is electromagnetic radiation versus particle radiation. Electromagnetic radiation is the oscillation of magnetic fields, particle radiation is caused by nuclear decay and the two are quite different. Electrons moving around is a lot less invasive than a red hot proton ripping through the nuclei of your cells which leads us to how cancer is caused by radiation. Particle radiation, caused by nuclear decay, shoots off ions at high velocities which actually shoot through your body and kill cells. Sometimes, in the process of doing this, they will damage the nucleus of a cell but not so much that the cell dies, just enough to mangle its DNA. This can cause faulty reproduction of this cell which can, in turn, cause tumors, or even cancerous growths. This kind of radiation is fundamentally different from the kind of radiation that makes your microwave and even oven (yes, heat is radiation!) work.

    It's this lexical confusion that throws a lot of people off, yes it's radiation, no it's not dangerous unless at very high energy levels. And even then, it just cooks you like so much hot dogs. You don't grow tumors, you don't get cancer, you don't turn into a hideous fly-man, you just pop like a big water-ballon.

    --
    Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
  7. Re:*mutters* by electronym · · Score: 2, Informative

    Huh? I think you're remembering this wrong. There's no tunnel or train involved in this scene; he's placing the calls from the motel room. "Hello, operator? Oh that's right, you have punch in the numbers nowadays.... Eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-nine... wait, that's not right. Damn you Tommy Tutone!"