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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.

19 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. I think this could be potentially good. by BlueKitties · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If it also blocks transmission, then students can keep their cell phone on them without worrying about disrupting class or losing their phone.

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    "Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
    1. Re:I think this could be potentially good. by eln · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If it blocks transmission, none of the students will use it for its intended purpose, because they want to text their friends in the middle of the day regardless of the rules. They'll just keep their cell phones in another pocket.

    2. Re:I think this could be potentially good. by shentino · · Score: 2, Informative

      That would be semantics nazi you insensitive clod!

      Your geek card please.

  2. Great! by Vrallis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is great news for all of those students going to schools that permit them to carry cell phones.

    Wait, what?

    1. Re:Great! by KuNgFo0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The helicopter moms would probably throw a fit if they couldn't check up on their precious snowflakes.

    2. Re:Great! by barzok · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Cell phones in elementary school? Seriously?

    3. Re:Great! by ae1294 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No it's not. It's never about protecting the children.

    4. Re:Great! by FlickieStrife · · Score: 2, Funny

      Don't act so surprised. I live in Cleveland, and some elementary schools have flippin day cares.... for the STUDENTS!

    5. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The most effective way of reducing electromagnetic radiation from cellphones is to turn them off. The second most effective method is to install a femtocell in each classroom, allowing the cellphones to reduce the signal strength to almost nothing. A braindead method is to add lots of material which blocks cellphone transmissions, causing all cellphones to increase the output signal strength.

  3. This could be marginally useful to prevent ringing by mr_mischief · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  4. Is it me by SnarfQuest · · Score: 2, Funny

    Is it me, or is the scientific knowledge of these school officials even worse than the slashdot crowd?

    --
    Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
  5. WTH? by Dr_Ken · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you don't want the students to make/receive calls or text msgs why let 'em have phones with them at all? Wouldn't it be cheaper just order them left in their lockers? Paying for uniforms to block them seems overly complicated and expensive for the very little good it does. This seems more like a scam on the part of a company that wants to feed at the trough of the education bureaucracy. Or so it seems to me.

    --
    "If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff."
  6. This is a ploy by the battery manufacturers by jeffmeden · · Score: 5, Funny

    A faraday cage in a pocket; to block cell phone signals from reaching the phone? The phones will just crank their output power to the max in a selfless attempt to communicate, and in turn the battery will probably be dead by lunchtime. It's almost as if cellphones need some sort of onboard switch that allows you to selectively decide when it's ON or OFF... No, that's probably too futuristic for most people to comprehend anyway.

  7. Cellphones are officially safe though by mtthwbrnd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But cellphones are perfectly safe according to official doctrine. What is the problem here? Why do we need protecting from something that is officially safe. If they are unsafe then they should be banned.

  8. WOW by OrangeMonkey11 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is just another pointless protect our Children BS, why not just suggest every parents should bubble wrap their children before they leave the house

  9. Re:Okay, lets make this clear now. by RingDev · · Score: 2, Funny

    This protects students from radiation that cell phones emit, they do NOT block calls, text messages, etc.

    So it blocks the radiation, but it does not block the radiation?

    Sounds like a great investment, IMO!

    -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
  10. Re:Overview site by Eukariote · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  11. Re:This could be marginally useful to prevent ring by jhol13 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  12. Re:I don't know why that sounds so odd to you by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So a lot of kids at elementary school have cellphones. At that point question is "Should they be allowed in school or not" and thus "Is there any benefit from that?". The answer is, yes there is.

    Should they be allowed in schools is one question, should they be allowed in class is another. The answer to the first one is yes, because it's obviously beneficial for parents and children to be able to communicate. The answer to the latter is no, because in general they serve no educational purpose, and a child who needs to call their parent can either wait until after class or ask the teacher's permission.

    I think a lot of people automatically think "in class" when they hear "in school".

    It was never a problem of any sort, not for teachers and not for students.

    Sadly it's quite a problem over here, largely because of the ongoing war between students and their parents trying to strip all authority from school staff, and school staff trying to acquire absolute power in blanket fashion so they can claim to be fair and always thinking of the children.

    E.g. if a student has a phone in class, and won't stop using it and disrupting class, and won't voluntarily hand it over to the teacher, the teacher has very few options as to what to do that won't get them in deep shit with the parents. Ergo, they try to get a universal ban on having phones in school, or blocking the phones so they're useless, and thus never have to confront an individual student over it.

    It's kinda messed up.

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