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."

Comments

The Other Way Around?

[Bimo_Dude]

Maybe the reaearchers have this whole brain tumor thing backwards.

Instead of:
"Cell phones cause brain tumors," they could look into "Brain tumors cause cell phones."

Maybe people who already have a tumor in the side of their head are naturally attracted to using that side to hold their phone.

Above ground

[friedo]

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.

Choose your hemisphere wisely

[ExRex]

So, now that you can choose which side of your brain is more likely to get a tumor, decide which hemisphere you need more and use the other ear for your cellphone.
Logical. Artistic. Logical? Artistic? Logical! Artistic!
Choices, choices.

Re:cooking the numbers

[lisaparratt]

C. Cell phones don't cause cancer.

Re:How hard would it be?

[Biomechanical]

Actually, servicing a subway train would not require antenna's all along the tunnels.

You put a cell-receiver in the train, and run communication signals from the train through radio signals out the tracks, the same as you can control model trains on a DCC setup railway, or do IP over powerlines.

Leaky Coax

[RingDev]

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

Re:Cell Phone Triggered Bombs

[maxwell demon]

Since a good number of bombs are triggered by clocks, maybe we should forbid private clocks.

Re:Oh hell.

[afabbro]

When they get obnoxious, I just participate in their conversation.

Obnoxious Cell Phone User: "Dude did you hear about Heather and Mack?"

Me, over his shoulder: "Is Mack banging Heather?"

OCPU: "Excuse me?"

Me: "Oh, sorry, your voice was so loud I thought you were talking to me."

OCPU: "...so, anyway, Heather and Mack...(talks a while and then he gets loud again)...yeah, man, they were in the hot tub for two hours."

Me: "I hear that Mack's member was shriveled up like a prune from the hot water."

OCPU: "Dude, I'm not talking to you!"

Me: "Then stop shouting how Mack is sodomizing Heather in the jacuzzi."

Powerwatch is a company, not a nonprofit.

[Nephroth]

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.