School Uniform To Block Cell Phone Emissions

Foehg writes "ForeignPolicy.com reports, 'A Belarusian textile company has developed a special school uniform that protects kids from electromagnetic radiation emanating from their cellphones. The uniform features a dedicated pocket that can store the phone and make it safe for those who wear it.'" Now someone has to create an oven mitt that can protect you from the harmful radiation given off by your microwave oven.

Comments

This could be marginally useful to prevent ringing

[mr_mischief]

This is a pretty long string of "ifs", but it might be an idea for that Iowa schools that wants to use technical means to cut down on phone use during class.

• if it blocks the radiation effectively enough to prevent reception sufficiently
• if you require the kids to have their phone in it during class under normal circumstances
• if you're willing to enforce the rule
• if not all the kids are sufficiently sneaky to keep an unshielded phone from being found

... then this sort of Faraday enclosure, even if it's just a small separate bag and not part of the clothing, might fit the needs of schools that wish to prevent general disruption but still allow emergency use of the phones and to allow use of them between classes or at lunch.

Re:Great!

[barzok]

Cell phones in elementary school? Seriously?

Re:Overview site

[Eukariote]

The linked article talks about magnetic (not EM) fields at 60 Hz. Looks like it would relate more to the power grid than to cell phones, if at all.

There is a relation. What the experiments at 60 Hz show is that EM fields with very low photon energies (the photon energy is proportional to the frequency) can still cause biochemically appreciable effects such as DNA breakage.

The main reason that microwave-frequency EM radiation (which cell phones emit) has been claimed to be safe, at least in the low-power non-heating range, is that microwave photon energy is still way too low to break chemical bonds. This claim has been refuted by the 60 Hz results since they show that DNA breakage is definitely possible in the low-photon-energy regime, presumably by an indirect mechanism.

Re:This could be marginally useful to prevent ring

[jhol13]

if it blocks the radiation effectively enough to prevent reception sufficiently

I would not wear even if it did do that.

Reason: when phone is about to lose (or loses) contact with BTS the phone will increase TX power in order to avoid that. This can easily make situation (radiation dose) even worse.

Re:I think this could be potentially good.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's maybe understandable, given the poor understanding most people have of the physics involved and the fear we've instilled in the general public about "radiation", but it *is* unreasonable because cell phones don't generate ionizing radiation, at least not as a functional part of their operation, so they aren't even vaguely comparable to Chernobyl.

And given the more than 100 years of commercial radio use -- much of that use at significantly higher power levels than any modern cell phone generates -- it seems unlikely that "mobile phone radiation" will cause any sort of lasting damage, especially to children. Not to mention the thousands of years of exposure humans have had to the day-star's wide-spectrum irradiation, which exposes children and adults to much more radiated power than any cell phone, and with much greater frequency.

/ Not really expecting to dispel irrational fears with reason