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Studies Find Harm From Cellular and Wi-Fi Signals
Over the years we've discussed the possible health risks of cellphone and other microwave radiation: studies from Israel and Sweden indicating a link between cellphone use and cancer, one from England exonerating cell towers as a cause of "microwave radiation sensitivity," and a recent 30-year Swedish study that found no link to cancer. The question won't go away though. Reader Artifice_Eternity writes "I've always tended to dismiss claims of toxicity from cell phone and Wi-Fi signals as reflecting ignorance about microwave radiation. However, this GQ article cites American and European studies going back decades that have found some level of biological harm caused by these signals. Why haven't they gained more attention? Quoting: 'Industry-funded studies seem to reflect the result of corporate strong-arming. Lai reviewed 350 studies and found that about half showed bioeffects from EM radiation emitted by cell phones. But when he took into consideration the funding sources for those 350 studies, the results changed dramatically. Only 25 percent of the studies paid for by the industry showed effects, compared with 75 percent of those studies that were independently funded.'"
...Beacuse nobody calls me :(
I know I always go to Gentleman's Quarterly for my journal articles regarding the dangers of electromagnetic radiation exposure.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
Or "in part funded by opponents of radiation"?
One that hath name thou can not otter
Although it can be fair to argue about whether or not the industry studies are biased, I think it goes the other way too.
There are A LOT of people out there who are 'convinced' that cell phones and wi-fi cause cancer. And it doesn't matter how many studies you show them that it doesn't, they just won't believe you.
And if you consider that many of these so-called 'independent' studies are in fact paid for by fringe anti-science groups, then perhaps their results are aren't as unbiased as they would have you believe.
Surely not. People skewing tests in accordance with funding would never happen.
The /. demographic sees it as fact that studies funded by the oil industry regarding environmental effects are to be dismissed out-of-hand.
This same demographic sees it as fact that studies funded by the tech industry regarding biological effects are to be accepted out-of-hand.
We like our echo chambers just like everyone else.
Now cue the nerds screaming about RF radiation is harmless, and always has been, and always will be:
THL phish sticks
...because I have a hands-free phone setup in my car. I just mow over other people when they cross the street and some bitch is breaking up with me over the phone.
And what restaurant's head waiter is going to tell you the daily special is bad?
and keep your cellphone away from your balls. Let everyone else find out if it causes brain cancer.
It matters not one whit how many studies show result X. What matters is what is shown by peer-reviewed studies done under controlled circumstances and having a significant sample size.
For example 100 studies done shoddily using sample sizes of 3, 4, and 6 subjects do not outweigh one ten-year study across 1,000 subjects.
Now just on general principles, if one watt of radio energy was harmful, you'd think that people like RF welders, tower steeplejacks, plasma researchers, and radar disk repairers wolsd be covered in suppurating pustules. But they're not. Even people whose heads are hit by 100 watts of much stronger photons (sunbathers, cowboys), they do just fine.
So I suggest you use GQ to check up on the latest fashions, maybe not so much on the best science.
The article mentions "modulations" over and over again as if they are some sort of evil force messing with your head.
Roughly speaking, modulations are changes in the energy at the sidebands of the carrier where the information is carried. Old cell phones were pure frequency modulation, the digital ones use a different scheme. But from you're brain's perspective, it shouldn't mean more than a slight change in the total energy being radiate at 2.4 GHz or whatever. The idea that your brain is affected by "modulations" seems extremely specious.
The fact that you're warming up your brain slightly when you hold the cell phone to your ear for a long time might have some sort of long term effect, I dunno, but I'm not too afraid of modulations.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
EM radation being harmful on tissue? Business with billion dollar ties to the implied products trying to tone down the issue?! No wai.
The GQ article with a cell phone next to a pack of cigarettes couldn't be more misleading. We hear about "such and such % increased risk of this", "such and such % increased risk of that". But these numbers are meaningless in assessing behavior changes unless you know the baseline risk.
So here's some numbers. The article starts off with cigarettes, so what's the risk of lung cancer between smokers and non-smokers?
Well, according to wikipedia, For Men it's 1.3% for non-smokers, and 17% for smokers. Wow!
Let's compare that to Brain cancer (all types). According to the National Cancer institute it's .6% for everyone. The Swedish study from 2006 found a 240% increase. So that's 1.44% risk.
So it seems quite obvious to me that even the most alarming study only showed a small increased health risk from cell phone use, and others have shown none. Compare that to smoking, which has been consistent in showing risk over the years, and an ENORMOUS risk. Oh, and for smoking that's JUST the lung cancer risk. We all should know about the other increased health risks associated with it.
AccountKiller
There is a huge difference between a cellphone and WiFi. First, a cellphone can transmit up to 5 Watts. I can actually hear noise induced in my computer speakers every 10 minutes if the cellphone is nearby when it does it automatic call-home.
WiFi is typically limited to 20mW.
Also, a cellphone is pressed against your head, while Wifi is usually 1 m away. With area of sphere = 4PiR^2, the Wifi will have an energy flux of 1mWm^-2, and a cellphone will have 40Wm^-2 or 30,000x that. You could use bluetooth to reduce your cellphone exposure
BTW, a microwave is allowed to leak 1Wm^2.
Bottom line, 1 hour of cellphone exposure = a lifetime with WiFi.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
(1) Based on the standard rules of statistical acceptance, a study only has to reach requires a 95% confidence level. That means that 1 in every 20 identical studies will produce a false positive merely by chance. When you have an area of study in which thousands of studies have been done over decades you end up with hundreds of studies reporting positive results just by chance.
(2) Statistical meta analysis of studies is largely nonsense unless your talking about a field in which nearly identical studies are done over and over again. Usually, when these meta studies hit the media you find they they equally weight to every study regardless of presumed rigor of the studies. In this case, the gold standard is the Swedish study that followed tens of thousands of people over decades. How to you compare that to a study that just data mined a few hundred medical records?
(3) Exposure to all types of radio range radiation has increased by literally millions of times since WWII. We know spend something close to 3% of our entire energy budget generating radio signals. Yet, in the last 50+ years, cancers rates have not increased and indeed most likely have fallen (especially when you exclude cigarette smoking.
(4) A a sociological matter, just because a study is not linked to an industry does not mean that the researchers or the people funding them are some how impartial or operating from nobel motives. A lot of people outside of industry have both inherent biases as well as professional and monetary incentive to distort science. Academic today tilt strongly to the left side of the political spectrum and many believe in the post modernist concept that every one has a moral obligation to use whatever power they have, such as that held by respected scientist, to advance their political beliefs. They are inherently hostile to the economically productive. Politicians have incentives to create crises to protect voters from. Trial lawyers stand to make hundreds of millions on law suits and they fund "studies" to contaminate the jury pool. Even competing industries can use studies to undermine competitors.
We should remember that science has its reputation because it produces the same answer regardless of the individual motives of the people who create it. When someone begins the question the motives of researchers, they are making an implicit statement that they have no science to back their position up and that they must instead fall back to human factors. If you have solid science, then you don't need to smear people's motives and call their integrity into question.
"Studies" that are funded or sponsored or promoted by environmental organizations should be taken as expressions of religious dogma, essentially worthless to those who endeavor to understand the underlying issue. Environmental organizations, like religious organizations, perceive themselves as above criticism, and therefore not accountable for the veracity of their proclamations. Commercial organizations might be equally and oppositely dogmatic in their desire for lucre, but tend to have a higher regard for logic, even if they reject it when they can get away with it.
I'm fairly sure we'll get this study used a lot in the near future.
Like my neighbor, who recently nearly beat my door down to inform me that if I don't turn off my WiFi AP she'll call the police because she gets headaches from my radiation. Then the cellphone in her pocket rang...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Should be +5 Sad.
As a side note, of the above links, The Flat Earth Society is merely satire and most people on the forums are actually very intelligent.
Is this a new scientific journal?
The relevant finding is the funding-induced bias rather than biological effect of WiFi. Bias need not be conscious one to seep into the result.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
This brings up what would be a desirable setup: Insulate the scientists doing the studies from the sources of funding. A bit of bureaucracy is the price to pay for greater truth. Industry wanks put their money into a committee to fund studies in predetermined areas. Scientists apply to the committee and receive funds from it with no future consequences because of the results they find. The committee decides who actually gets the money not the industry lackey who decided it needed to be studied. This would greatly root out the "self-confirming" type of study while still getting studies done.
Shh.
... than an anonymous neurosurgeon?
Did I miss something?
I couldn't find one reference to a study published in a peer-reviewed journal in the last 10 years that claimed to rule out association.
Independent studies are funded by?
Could it be that some of them are secretly funded by organizations of luddites?
It's easy to see how studies funded by wireless technology companies / wireless technology manufacturers could be biased.
But have the funding sources of these "independent" studies been investigated, to ensure their backers don't have an anti-RF, anti-Wireless, or anti-Cellphone agenda?
There are a lot of companies' who lose or are slated to lose business as wireless technologies become ubiquitous and replace wired technology.
Also, there are many non-profits and government interests who would probably like to have cell phones banned.
Or at least require cell providers to give them a 'global off switch' to assist with crowd control.
Moreover, there might be technology companies that want cell phones banned so they can make billions selling a "non-harmful wireless" technology
Also, being able to be the study to show wireless is harmful, would make the people behind the study world-known, they'd get fame notoriety, and cash, as a result of the popularity of their work. E.g. it would be profitable, in the form of lots of media attention, fame in peer-reviewed journals, and a great resume entry for the people heading up the study.
Assessments like number of studies independent VS number of studies industry funded are worthless, unless evidence can be shown that the independent studies were really funded and done by neutral parties who have zero commercial or personal interest in biasing the outcome.
There is a huge difference between a cellphone and WiFi. First, a cellphone can transmit up to 5 Watts. I can actually hear noise induced in my computer speakers every 10 minutes if the cellphone is nearby when it does it automatic call-home.
Interestingly enough, I have noticed that on 3G this feedback has completely stopped. Unfortunately, I suspect that's no indicator of decreased power usage - only a change in frequency.
There is a huge difference between a cellphone and WiFi. First, a cellphone can transmit up to 5 Watts.
From:
The radio waves emitted by a GSM handset, can have a peak power of 2 watts, and a US analogue phone had a maximum transmit power of 3.6 watts. Other digital mobile technologies, such as CDMA2000 and D-AMPS, use lower output power, typically below 1 watt, UVA.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
The numbers in this article seem to be fishy as well. If you have a 25% sample and a 75% sample you would have to add an equal amount of both to get a 50% sample. That means that in the sample there were 50% industry funded. It also means that the industry sample found changes in exactly 1/3 as many cases as the non industry sample. The numbers are too perfect 25%, 50% 75%.
It looks to me that the scientist decided what the outcome would be and selected studies to fulfil that outcome.
Anonymous sources make the best sources for information for bullshit news stories.
I could find you a dozen anonymous sources who could confirm anything. Hell, I could find you a dozen named (but unreputable) sources who could tie mysterious cosmic rays to brain cancer too.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
A study at Cleveland clinic shows that the blood brain barrier opens for up to 24hrs after being exposed to radiation at low levels. So chemicals that might cause cancer that normally get through do.
But this was only at 900MHZ to 1 GHZ frequencies. My wife had an old cell phone in that range for her only phone for a number of years.
She died 5 years ago of brain tumors. Doctors off the record say I may just have something they might want to do a study on.
AT&T model34183narea motorola phone. Was recalled but she never got a notice.
They should have shut off phone service till she brought it in.
The energy of a carbon bond is a few electron volts. IOW, that much energy is needed to cause a chemical change in the molecule.
The energy of a 2GHz cell-phone photon is about 0.00001 eV. Cell-phone photons cannot cause a chemical change.
There may not be an observed direct change, but certainly, we have no idea what all of the indirect effects might be. 0.0001 eV (10 times more), is enough to bend or deform some organic molecules for sure. What effect would that cause? What downstream effects could there be? You could have a cell phone bending or wiggling one fat molecule, which gets stuck, and, as that particular body is already at a tipping point, more fat molecules pile up, blocking a vessel, and then, your cell phone just caused a stroke.
You just don't know.
This is my sig.
Actually, UMTS uses a lower transmit power - 250mW peak instead of 2W for GSM. That said, the interference will not be audible in the same manner due to the modulation, even if UMTS used 2W instead of 250mW.
Just because the studies weren't done by the cell industry, that doesn't mean they lack bias. There is BIG MONEY in providing lawyers with ammunition for lawsuits and "inventors" with problems to solve for only $19.99 if you act now!
Even if there is a link, how can they be sure it's not due to exposure to chemicals given off by the plastic of the phone? Nothing in any of the studies I've seen would rule out chemical causes.
actually cell phones have not been allowed to transmit at that power in 15 years the bag phones where the only ones that could do it. The transmission power in the handset is limited to a maximum of 2 watts in GSM850/900 and 1 watt in GSM1800/1900(1). Most of time it less that 1/20th of that. Might want to check you math also.
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM
Linux modi 2.6.26-2-parisc
What about tachyon emissions? Can you imagine what might happen if time such beams from different times were to converge on a single point in space? All life on Earth could be destroyed before it even exists!
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
If you powered an electric chair off of a cell phone battery, I think the prisoner would die of boredom before they could recharge the first dozen "failures".
(1) it's a meta-analysis, looking at other studies, not a study actually looking at links between RF exposure and disease.
(2) it's a meta-analysis of a veritable zoo of studies. About the only things the subject studies have in common is that most of them involve humans and most involve RF! This is not a valid application of these statistical techniques!
(3) the so-called conclusions of the meta-analysis look at opinions on factors in the subject studies which were not controlled let alone investigated and measured according to a set of standards -- opinions on funding.
And somehow I don't think this paper was subject to peer review, although I'm not familiar with their review process...
Let us assume this is correct. What could I use in place of WiFi in my house? Could I use a router that has RF adapter to transmit internet connectivity through the power plugs? Would this be better?
Power is not energy. You are missing a crucial variable in your comparison of power (watts): frequency. 40000 watts at FM frequencies are nowhere near the energy of 4 watts at x-ray frequencies.
Cell phones transmit around 900MHz while wifi is 2.4GHz (or 5GHz for 802.11a). Factor that into your calculations, as well as the additional free space losses at higher frequencies and get back to us. You didn't think it was really 30,000x more, did you?
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
FWIW, I'm a GSM RF Engineer. Two issues with your post:
In the US, phones are limited to 1 W max for 1900 MHz (aka PCS) transmission, and 2 W for 850 MHz.
The interference you hear on your speakers isn't due to the amount of power being transmited, but it's actually caused by the modulation of the signals being transmitted. That modulation occurs at 217 Hz....which is audible.
I work just a couple of miles from where they're built (just NW of Atlanta) - I'm on the top floor of our building & my desk faces their approach so I see them fairly regularly. they're easily 2K' when they go by so I get a great view. I also work w/an ex-Lockheed AE who's one of the guys who designed the thing so I'm reasonably sure they exist & were designed by humans. of course they do sometimes fly them w/certain parts not coated yet ("painted" is probably a gross over-simplification) which can be sea-foam green or school bus yellow (yes, I'm serious) so I guess they could be made out of whatever they recovered at Roswell... ;-)
An electric chair uses current, not radiation.
Hate to break it to you, but power lines emit RF too. That's why this is a joke: all alternating currents emit RF.
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/100106-cell-phones-alzheimers-disease-mice.html
The challenge is to explain this effect as due simply to heating, or else to discover a microwave-pumped or microwave-inhibited reaction path at this signal level.
No one's surprised that microwave fields can change the outcome of a chemical reaction, favoring one reaction product over another by favoring certain molecular configurations, thereby making some reactions more probable than in the absence of the microwave pumping. It's routine industrial chemistry, you can look it up.
Why this can't happen in the brain remains to be determined, although it's much asserted.
---
the spam filter word for this posting, thankew AI, is "abstain"
Of course of you drive down the main street of North Vancouver and look near the top of every building with any height, you'll see dozens of cel antennas.
The question whether we should be cruel enough to point that out.
Three Squirrels
With a tinfoil hat? Or is this legit and we must wait for the National Inquirer to break the story (like the John Edwards scandal)?
Were not talking photons here fellas - its radiation that comes and goes to cellphones. Photons are light.
Experimental Procedure: We put the laboratory mice in a microwave oven and cooked on "High" for five minutes, exposing them to radiation of similar frequency to that emitted by common cellular phones.
;p. Even if actual cellphones, etc. produce effects in rats, that still doesn't mean that the same effects would be observed in humans: rats are a lot smaller. You might as well throw humans in microwaves and call it a valid model.
Results: The mice appear to be done approximately "medium."
Conclusion: Microwave radiation is quickly fatal at doses two orders of magnitude beyond cellphone level (meta-conclusion: effects were found).
This is the problem with statistical analyses such as sociologists like to perform: aggregating papers, attributing some binary conclusion to every paper, and then producing nearly meaningless percentages. This one was compiled by a biologist, but that's the next thing to sociology anyway
One of the scary references in the article is to a early 2000s study purporting that cellphone EM caused Alzheimer's in mice. But wait...Cellphones reduce mouse Alzheimer's (2009). (meta-conclusion: effects were found). Now, you might say that researcher is working for The Man, but he claims he was expecting the opposite result when he began. Someone else could write a meta-study "Microwave study results rarely replicated: are biologists bad at designing and properly controlling physics experiments?"
Something to keep in mind, as smart phones become more common, so is WIFI radiation exposure right next to your head. That's going to be roughly 4x as much TX power right next to your ear where the skull is less likely to stop it all.
I'm just say'n...
The potential energy of each electron under a potential "V" is exactly "eV" (or: its charge multiplied by the potential). If the electric chair uses a potential of 1000 V, each electron will have energy equal to 1000 eV.
Lots of people have been studying this for at least 15 years. We have billions of people talking on cell phones now.
If we're still wondering whether they're dangerous after all this time and all these users, isn't it clear that the danger, if any, is very small?
I get more background radiation then radiation from a mobile phone that normally runs on 0,5W and up to a 1W in a city. In rural area and places far from the transmitter normal GSM phone runs on 2W at 850/900Mhz, but they only run at 1W at 1800/1900Mhz. The same goes for 3G connections.
Going on a air plane is more dangerous then using a mobile phone.
I was going to RTFA but it's densely packed in an unfriendly typeface and when I opened it up, I immediately saw warning signs of conspiracy-mongering (Hey, this guy publishes an "investigative newsletter" called Microwave News! And he has a doctorate in environmental policy from MIT! That means if he says that the science is 100% solid about cell phones causing harm, he must be right, because God knows no one who got a doctorate at MIT ever got convinced of some cockamamie theory and started "investigative newsletters" to pursue some non-existent threat!) and research fail ("The "hearing," however, didn't happen via normal sound waves perceived through the ear. It occurred somewhere in the brain itself, as EM waves interacted with the brain's cells, which generate tiny electrical fields." First of all, any time someone mentions the Frey effect, 80% of the time you're about to hear schizophrenic ranting about government mind control transmissions. Second of all, the author seems to have made up the theory that the Frey effect happens because of EM waves interacting with brain cells; it seems quite inconsistent with Frey's own findings that there were some individuals who could not hear sounds around the frequency of 5Kc who also could not hear the "rf sounds". If the Frey effect bypassed the ear and directly stimulated the brain, why would anyone who had a brain be unable to detect this stimulus? Why would the people who were unable to detect this stimulus also be those with known deficiencies in their ears? Coincidence?)
Anyways, I suspected that what I would find in the article was a situation similar to the Myung meta-review of cell-phone/cancer studies, where the author declared that even though the overall review of the chosen studies had failed to establish any sort of convincing evidence that cell phones caused cancer, a "sub-group" of "high-quality" studies established a "significant positive association". What the meta-review may have failed to call attention to, however, was that seven out of the eight "high-quality" studies were all done by the same researchers, a group led by Dr. Lennart Hardell, and that Hardell is frequently retained as an expert witness in lawsuits against cell-phone companies. I wouldn't be surprised if at least 75% of the "independently funded" studies in the GQ article are also by researchers who profit handsomely from testifying in similar lawsuits. People talk about how they can't trust any studies done by "industry", but they're naive to think that litigation itself is not an industry.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
The electrons will bounce into something before they get much energy. Probably a few trillion times between + and -, so each impact will be very low. I was referring to photon energy in the electric field anyway.
My point was basically that electricity can be dangerous even if it does not emit ionizing radiation.
I think it's fucking hilarious that people hear their cellphone through the shitt, low quality, low sensitivity amp in their computer speakers, but deny that it could possibly have any affect on a weak signal from a MEO satellite sending GPS signals. Fuckign retards. Yes, I am an EE specializing in electronic warfare.
That's why this is a joke: all alternating currents emit RF.
Worst joke ever.
My initial time at undergrad university thru to Masters was in German Literature back in the day. Then computers came along and I was hooked by this magical technology(PDP-11 days).
Over the coming years I worked thru a Comp Sci degree, Post Grad work, and more in GIS(info in Geographic Info Systems). All the while also doing part time work back at the old dept teaching German Lit. I have been out of academia and in the industry for 15 years now.
But the Comp Sci gave me research exposure to the Food Research Industry.
Research, scholorships, and funding in the Arts we almost pure in their implementation. Food research and funding was rotten to the core. I have been on the recieving end of table thumping food industry ceo's. You are then told to bend over, take it, then go inform relevant parties of desired outcomes.
Thank christ I am out of that sewer.
In todays world I can only imagine what jewels lie in the communications gold veins and how that drives research.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Cellphones and routers do not emit microwave radiation. They broadcast in UHF.
Even if they did, life on earth has been dealing with microwave radiation for billions of years. It occurs naturally just like actually harmful ionizing radiation,
I'm in the market for an obscene amount of aluminum foil for a "project".
PM quote to AC@/.org
Who cares that he is lying? This is Slashdot, land of lies that stroke people's conservative agendas and get modded up. Who cares about the truth when the lies are so politically convenient?
Well, I've never heard of anyone getting cancer from the electric chair.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Believe it or not, your brain is immersed in a bath of photons with equal and higher energies to the ones in cellphone radiation. They come from the blackbody radiation that everything with a temperature emits. Equivalently, any oscillatory mode with energy comparable to kT among the atoms in your brain is already getting randomly banged around by thermal fluctuations.
Your brain's awash in radiation all the time, with a higher energy per photon than what you get from a cell phone, and with much more of it.
Or "in part funded by proponents of radiation"?
Who is favour of more radiation? And how can anyone think that electromagnetic radiation (of any frequency) has NO impact? Of course it has impact, that is why we use it. That we don't understand the entire effect is clear.
Take an oscilloscope and put it across your skin. It will read 60Hz (unless your power lines are different frequency)
We have a lot of money tied up in this signalling. There is a lot of room for dishonesty and bad science. Fearmongering isn't the answer.
Stupidity is its own reward.
a good litmus test i use for judging how credible someones opinion is, is how certain they are.
Evinvironmental scientists: "climate change is happening, its probably/appears to be/etc caused by humans" = reasonable
Climate change skeptics: "there is NO WAY that we made climate change happen" = dubious
Science is rarely certain. So why should arguments against climate change be so certain and final? Because skeptics are idiots. tyvm
You're pompously conflating certain scientific understanding of the mechanism of protons in a quantum state (ironically) with certainty about unknown health effects which may or may not have anything to do with the topic you are expert at. The reason there is controversy is because there is money at stake and because we don't fully understand how these things might effect us. Not because there is a lack of Quantum Theory TV show watching. Your Scientifical political understandings are more juvenile than the populist scientific misunderstandings. Chemical change is not the useful effect that we use electromagnetic radiation for (for the most part) it has strong effects over long distance - that's why we use it over long distance.
What is the effect on health of the human body constantly resonating as an antenna with all this signal noise? Personally I think cancer is what we through at all our unknown fears but far more plausible is mental effects - the brain is an "electrical" organ.
Stupidity is its own reward.
A gamma ray, while highly unlikely to cause cancer due to the odds of this situation happening, is known to have the ability to ruin genes, which is a prerequisite for cancer.
The Luddites were technologically savvy and are villified because their campaigns were effective and disruptive to the capitalism that was destroying livelihoods. The word is constantly mis-used in popular parlance.
Stupidity is its own reward.
The energy of a carbon bond is a few electron volts. IOW, that much energy is needed to cause a chemical change in the molecule. The energy of a 2GHz cell-phone photon is about 0.00001 eV. Cell-phone photons cannot cause a chemical change.
Where do you get the idea from that the only thing that can cause cancer is changes in chemical bonds?
In fact, anything that alters regulatory mechanisms within the cell might cause cancer. A lot of the structure and function of cells are determined by electrical fields, conformations of molecules, and vibrations of molecules. 2GHz microwave radiation can certainly change those.
Ever heard of cat5 cable? Its more secure than wifi too.
viking80, you have a lot of errors or misunderstandings in your post.
As Icepick points out, GSM/EDGE standards allow up to 2W in low band and 1W in the higher bands.
Newer CDMA based standards have maximum output power even lower, more like +24 to +26dBm (about 0.4W). The actual transmit power level of your phone is determined by the path loss between you and the base station, and it's controlled by feedback from the base station. Typically it will be transmitting much less. For CDMA based standards the average power is between 0 and 5dBm, or 1 to 3mW.
Also your WiFi information is wrong. Look at 47 CFR Part 15.247. In the 915MHz and 2.45GHz ISM bands, if using spread spectrum (most every product does), WLAN routers are allowed to use up to 1W, just like cellphones, but the difference is you don't usually hold them up to your head... But then again, you don't hold your phone to your head for very long either.
Here's link to the regulations: http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title47/47cfr15_main_02.tpl
The best part is that you can hear the difference between AMR-FR (or EFR) and AMR-HR. And of course you can tell that a call or text is about to come in before your phone rings/vibrates, which is also fun.
God forbid someone actually look at those 350 studies and see if any of them even had the beginnings of a valid scientific process? What the sample sizes were? How they defined biological effect or harm?
Naaaaaaaaaaaah.
Please help metamoderate.
If you want something to panic about, be more concerned about the huge unshielded fusion reactor that's bathing you in ionizing radiation with a power of hundreds of watts per square.
Hundreds of watts per square...? Square what?
Or do you actually mean, per square, as in, per slashdotter?
it's per square library of congress, duh
For an individual, cell phones are safe; whatever increase in brain cancers they may cause is negligible compared to other risks. We know that from current statistics.
As a public health issue, even a 1% increase in brain cancers might be significant because they are expensive and hard to treat.
As a scientific question, whether (and how) non-ionizing radiation can cause cancer or not is important in and of itself, regardless of whether it has any health implications.
Ten watts of X-rays is very bad for you. Ten watts of microwaves directed at your eyes can blind you. Ten watts of radio pass right through you. And ten watts of light is nice for reading.
With EM radiation, its precise frequency and location matter a great deal.
As I said, unreputable sources. :)
You can find someone who will assert just about anything. It reminds me of my BBS days. As CPU speeds approached 33Mhz, there was a discussion on FidoNet (if I recall correctly), where a few people were terribly insistent that computers would never exceed 100Mhz. Not that it couldn't happen, but when it did, it would be hazardous to be around, the power consumption would be impossibly high, and it would effectively destroy VHF and FM broadcast abilities.
I remember all the folks who screamed that the 2.4Ghz spectrum would kill us all. Any wireless device would be the equivalent of putting an unshielded microwave oven in your lap.
I'm still waiting to die of it. I've been pretty well exposed for quite a few years now, and I'm still alive and kicking. :) I may have almost died a few other ways, but they've never been by any method conspiracy folks have screamed about.
Shhh.. I hear the silent black helicopters coming to take me away now. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Most modern phones and PDAs run no more than 400 mW maximum (+26 dBm). However, that is not a typical level. Most systems utilize power control as part of the protocol. CDMA, for example, updates the channel power ~800 times per second. It is a goal of the system to use no more power from the handset than necessary to achieve parity among users sharing a system. Average transmit power may be sub-microwatt (http://www.sonic.net/~n6gn/EVDOforum/radiation.pdf It's true some may spend more time with their phone at their ear than warming food but peak exposure from 'good' microwave ovens, never mind leaky ones, may dwarf that of communication's RF. n6gn
Where do you live that WiFi is limited to 20mW? In the US the limitation is 4W (EIRP) (PTP links are different). In most of Europe it is limited to 100mW. The typical home WiFi router is usually in the 80-100mW EIRP range.
In the US, handheld cellular phones are limited to 600mW, last I checked the FCC rules. Non-portable (aka, bag phones and other related tech) can do 3W. It's been awhile -- if things have changed, please let me know.
(Many years ago, I had this discussion with my now-boss, while I was doing some ad-hoc computer work for him. I told him he was wrong about the 600mW limit. Unexpectedly, he produced a bound copy of the FCC rules from his desk drawer, threw it on his desk, and asked me to prove myself right. Turns out, I was wrong. I never questioned him again.)
Kid-proof tablet..
The total sum of all the /. comments about this article is worth more salt then the total sum of research done towards cellular radiation.
While I applaud the efforts of GQ to get into scientific publishing, I believe they need to be more selective in their choice of reviewers.
(What? That's an editorial and shouldn't be presented as science? Someone should tell that to the... um, media.)
I can say that the public consensus is that RF radiation is not likely but surely to be harmful. I would therefore trust no study conducted by Israelis, even if they're well known scientists from universities as the conclusion is likely to have been predetermined.
Those "independently" funded studies of course include studies paid for by "green" organizations that have an agenda of their own. If you separate industry funded reports, you also have to separate those, otherwise your results are completely bogus.
Considering this: :/
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_tel_mob_cel_percap-telephones-mobile-cellular-per-capita
The global average number of functioning cell phones per person is 0.6~... I am surprised 50% of all of us have not gotten cancer yet. In fact, countries like the US take the number to the extreme, with 1000 cell phones per person! With these numbers I can safely claim that there is not even a correlation between cell phone use and cancer
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Saw this blogged:
"2.2212 mw/cm2, still four times over the limit considered safe"
http://matts.org/cellphones_produce_excessive_rf_radiation
Those parts are probably aluminum that has been anodized with chromium oxides, the result is a sort of greenish yellow color. If you look at photos taken in aircraft factories you'll see many parts colored like that.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/research.shtml
"An inability to tan is the number one risk factor for melanoma. Those who tan easily or who have darker skin are far less likely to develop the disease. A new theory is that melanoma is actually caused by sunlight (vitamin D) deficiency and that safe sun exposure actually helps prevent the deadly disease."
So, the body takes something that might be dangerous (UVB) and uses it to help be healthy in that case (Vitamin D). In general, the same is true of its use of oxygen, which is a deadly poison to anaerobic bacteria. With that said, some poisonous things are just poisonous.
See also, if you spend a lot of time indoors, how to help prevent lots of diseases that stem from vitamin D deficiency:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Widespread vitamin D deficiency may be causing autism, both directly through damage and indirectly in impairing the bodies ability to deal with heavy metals and other toxins in vaccines as well as the environment. See:
"New Harvard Paper on Autism"
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/new-harvard-paper-on-autism.shtml
And:
"Vitamin D and the Brain"
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/vit-D-and-brain.shtml
"""
Vitamin D's role in increasing glutathione levels may explain the link between mercury and other heavy metals, oxidative stress, and autism. For example, activated vitamin D lessens heavy metal induced oxidative injuries in rat brain. The primary route for brain toxicity of most heavy metals is through depletion of glutathione. Besides its function as a master antioxidant, glutathione acts as a chelating (binding) agent to remove heavy metals such as mercury. Autistic individuals have difficulty excreting heavy metals like mercury. If brain levels of activated vitamin D are too low to employ glutathione properly, and thus unable to remove heavy metals, they may be damaged by heavy metal loads normal children easily excrete. That is, the mercury in Thiomerosol vaccines may have injured vitamin D deficient children while normal children would have easily bound the mercury and excreted it. These studies offer further hope that sun-exposure or vitamin D supplements may help autistic children by increasing glutathione and removing heavy metals. Not only do we have more clues that vitamin D is involved in autism, the vitamin D theory just did something else: it explained two other theories of autism, the mercury accumulation theory and the oxidative stress theory. [Lin AM, Chen KB, Chao PL. Antioxidative effect of vitamin D3 on zinc-induced oxidative stress in CNS. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2005 Aug;1053:319–29. Valko M, Morris H, Cronin MT. Metals, toxicity and oxidative stress. Curr Med Chem. 2005;12(10):1161–208.]
"""
Also related:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/the-black-community.shtml
But that is not to disagree with your main point. :-) Even as now that drumbeat is that because one doctor who did one study was publicly discredited, that somehow proves all vaccines are "safe and effective" in all ways. But it is easy to get behind the curve on some issue, especially when there is big money involved. Vitamin D supplements could help save literally hundreds of billions of dollars a year in global health care costs (between preventing some of cancer, mental illness, heart disease, autism, and so on). Sunshine is free, and supplements are cheap. But then who loses out?
By the way, if you spend a lot of time indoors at computers, see this:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
Could correlations with cellphone use or WiFi be better explained by correlations with being indoors a lot (or in the car a lot) and so becoming vitamin D deficient?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Like so many people these days, you confuse climate with weather. In your first two examples you talk about weather forecasts, not climate forecasts. The third example came directly from your imagination.
There is over whelming evidence that GMO's are dangerous. "Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in your food may make you sick. Studies link GMOs with toxins, allergies, infertility, infant mortality, immune dysfunction, stunted growth, accelerated aging, and death. Whistleblowers were fired, threatened, and gagged. Warnings by FDA scientists were ignored. Expert Jeffrey M. Smith, author of the #1 GMO bestseller Seeds of Deception, and Genetic Roulette, presents SHOCKING evidence why these gene-spliced crops may lead to health and environmental catastrophes. Learn how to protect yourself and discover the Campaign for Healthier Eating in America—a brilliant plan to quickly end the genetic engineering of our food supply." Reference - http://vimeo.com/6575475
Michael Crichton pointed out that years ago there was a huge panic over the incidence of cancer of people living near power lines. After years of lawsuits and research it was determined that power line radiation was no danger but this was after $25 billion was wasted. His sub text was that there are lots of people who have a vested interest in keeping people in fear. After watching the media hype that the world was about to end every second day, I have to wonder if he was not on to something.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
There is a huge difference between a cellphone and WiFi. First, a cellphone can transmit up to 5 Watts. I can actually hear noise induced in my computer speakers every 10 minutes if the cellphone is nearby when it does it automatic call-home.
That's incorrect. The average cell phone these days uses 250 milliwatts. Even the ancient giganto phones used 3 watts. At 5 watts, you're cell phone battery would be depleted very quickly and just about anything ithin your immediate vicinity that wasn't heavily shielded would have more than minor interference. The reason you hear it in your computer speakers is because they aren't well shielded. Or, more lilkley, the cable running from your computer to your speakers isn't well shielded. So your calculations are off by quite a bit.
Sure, it's still more than wifi but the cell phone signal needs to make it farther. But you also seem to be forgetting the cellphone radiation is non-ionizing and doesn't have the energy to break a carbon bond, let alone do anything else.
~X~
~X~
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-111.pdf
and there is one countries study.
and i love how often you can post here THIS SYSTEM SUCKS
GQ? GQ?!?! G-effing-Q?!?!?!? Are you kidding me? Beyond that, what the hell does "independently funded" mean? The money had to come from somewhere and if it's not industry it could very well be from luddite sources. That's no different than discounting an oil-industry-funded anti-global warming study in favor of an independent one who as it turns out fudges the data eight ways to Sunday.
See, now you have superpowers from all of your years of being irradiated. You can HEAR "silent" helicopters!
Karnal
They still sell the Enquirer? I haven't actually SEEN a copy in ages. Do you still find them in the checkout lane at the supermarket?
Laugh if you must, but they may actually be up for a Pulitzer for uncovering the John Edwards scandal.
For everyone here arguing that a cellphone has no/negligible effect on the brain see this article ....
http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/the-cellphone-radiation-controversy-takes-a-new-turn/2667/
If cellular radiation can break down beta blockers (causing Alzheimer's disease) how can we even begin to think that it does not have an effect on our brain?
Actually, UMTS uses a lower transmit power - 250mW peak instead of 2W for GSM. That said, the interference will not be audible in the same manner due to the modulation, even if UMTS used 2W instead of 250mW.
Then why the heck does my battery life suck so bad when I turn on 3g... ;)
That GQ article is interesting because of the interview with Allan Frey.
He's interesting because of his MKULTRA-era research on the microwave auditory effect, which raises all sorts of questions about what might have been done with that technology by the US military.
Also of note is his work on microwaves and the blood-brain barrier, which seems like it might be a useful way to increase the efficiency of psychoactive drugs for interrogations.
This kind of stuff is *literal* tin-foil hat territory.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
The battery life sucks because the encoding and decoding is a hell of a lot more compute-heavy than GSM. The turbo codes that are used provide a significant leap in throughput and interference immunity, but as a tradeoff, require a lot more power to decode. Also, some of the earlier amplifiers used for W-CDMA signals were quite power hungry to provide acceptable performance.
Ahh, makes sense - thanks
I guess it depends how much and how you use the phone.
A few days ago we had a study showing that cell phone radiation protects the brain against Alzheimer's in rodents and now other studies suggest that it causes cancer. I suspect that some (or all) of these are cases of "too much number crunching and too little data."
Sounds a little like the Face on Mars or laying on your back and finding images in clouds. Any set of noisy data will show anything you wish when analyzed with the proper algorithm.