Laptop Heat May Cause 'Toasted Skin Syndrome'

mrvook submitted an item that might affect a lot of you "Working with a laptop on one's lap for extended periods of time has been found to cause heat damage and skin discoloration in a handful of cases, prompting researchers examining the phenomenon to recommend thermal protection for laptop users and warnings labels on laptop device packaging." Only 10 cases have actually been reported, so this might just be a case of media hyping something, or it could be the end of the world with a generation of nerds doomed to sterility and crunchy crotches.

Comments

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...a generation of nerds doomed to sterility..."

Are we really worried about nerds being sterile?

Re:Really?

[Lumpy]

It's not actually the nerds that are getting sterilized.. It's the hot blonds that are. Geeks and Nerds are anal enough to not use the laptop in a un-optimal position, I.E. on the lap. Therefore they seek out a table or other surface. Or they get "clever" and design a lap support platform that lifts the "lap" top to proper typing height.

Dumb blonds and others that really know very little about proper computer use, leave the thing on their lap and don't have the neurons to communicate "Ow this is hot, get it off me" from their groin area to their brain...

Most of the time it's mis-read as "I'm hungry" or "I have to pee"

IT's these creatures, specifically the MBA or Marketing genus line of these creatures we are looking to protect. They are the ones that need the warnings on Toasters that say not to use in the bathtub, or curling irons that say "do not insert into any orifice"... Which is too vague, most of these creatures dont understand the word orifice, and think it's a type of Spanish dessert.

In other news

[dane23]

Scientists prove that heat makes things hot and should be avoided when you don't want things to be, you know, hot.

A new feature for the i5

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Only 10 cases have actually been reported, so this might just be a case of media hyping something, or it could be the end of the world with a generation of nerds doomed to sterility and crunchy crotches.

Cool a laptop that is not only powerful, but also eliminates the need for trimming and birth control. Ladies will start looking at the nerd carrying the laptop in a whole new light... ;P

Re:A new feature for the i5

[Firethorn]

You're assuming that it's painful. I come from a family with poor pain sensitivity and I've literally broken bones without knowing it.

This is probably why there's only 10 cases of it. You need quite the combination of events to get it.

1. A particularly hot laptop
2. Somebody with high pain tolerance or something wrong with their heat senses*.
3. A particular dedication towards working on their laptop, on their lap, for a continous and extended period of time

I've used my computer on my lap a few times, and it does get warm. But I shift around, get up and get a drink or snack, visit the bathroom, etc...

*There's also the boiling frog scenario - toss a frog into boiling water he'll try to jump out. Put a frog in cold water and slowly warm it to boiling he won't. Some research says this is legend, some says it's true as long as you're really, really gradual. Me? I wonder if it also depends on the frog. Anyways - there are probably people less likely to notice being slow cooked than flash burned.

Re:A new feature for the i5

[bughunter]

However if there are issues simply from extended periods of being nicely toasty, that definitely isn't good

No, it isn't. And it doesn't even have to be "toasty" -- shortly after acquiring my 2006 Macbook Pro, I developed a case of Tinia cruris that defied treatment with Desenex and Tinactin.

You can see where this is going. It took a trip to the doctor's office and the question to be posed, "did you recently acquire a laptop computer?" before I realized the association.

Yes, Macbooks cause crotch rot. Swamp nuts. Rack rash. The itch. Taint thrush.

Laptop users, take my advice, and go buy a paperstone cutting board. Works great, weighs little, and fits in your laptop bag.

Huh?

[The-Blue-Clown]

Why is it that we as a society feel we need to put warning labels on things for the dumbest of society? If they can't move a hot laptop off their lap, do we really expect them to read a warning label?

Re:Huh?

[Anne_Nonymous]

Ow! Your stupid warning label reflected sunlight into my eyes! See you in court jerk!

Re:Huh?

[gstoddart]

Ow! Your stupid warning label reflected sunlight into my eyes! See you in court jerk!

Oh, sorry. The warning label has fine print that says do not look at label in direct sunlight. You're on your own.

And, remember ... do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Re:Huh?

[gad_zuki!]

>Why is it that we as a society feel we need to put warning labels on things for the dumbest of society?

Because civil suit outcomes and damages are determined by jurors, who are the lowest common denominator themselves.

Warning labels suck

[IndustrialComplex]

Please no more warning labels. They are applied in non-removable paint on my car visor, my child's safety seat, and other rather annoying places.

Why the hell do I as a driver need to be warned about the dangers of... well I don't know what dangers they are warning me about anymore because they are so damned ubiquitous. Removable stickers are fine. Resale of the item means they won't have the warning? Make a website http://warnings.gov/

You go there, pull your product type from a dropdown list and it will have every warning you could possibly want to have on your product, all there in a singular location and available in any language you want, updated instantly.

Oddly enough, I think it was Jay Leno (could be wrong) complaining about how car manuals are nothing but 80 pages of warnings rather than content which you could use to operate/repair your vehicle. Please please please, no more warning labels. I've become immune and now only see them as a bright yellow stain on my upholstry.

Re:Warning labels suck

[Darkness404]

Exactly. We need warning labels on things that are really harmful. There is a difference between something that is harmful if you drink 2 liters of it and something where 5 drops can kill you, but warning labels often lack this important difference. Warning labels don't help society but rather harms them because no one will read the label because they expect it to be all stupid things so people ignore things that are really dangerous.

Re:I just look at it as voluntary sterilization

[gstoddart]

My woman can save $50 a month on birth control thanks to my laptop!

I think I'd rather get a vasectomy than slowly bake/burn/scorch my parts, thank you.

But, I admire your enthusiasm. :-P

Testicular cancer

[ylikone]

My cousin blames his testicular cancer on a decade of using a laptop resting over his crotch. Even though cancer does not run in his family (or mine) and I don't think I believe the laptop is to blame, it could be that it aggravated it.

Re:Testicular cancer

[TheMidget]

My cousin blames his testicular cancer on ...

Or maybe, he just didn't jack off enough?

The real interesting part of this article

[Adkins1984]

"He recognized that the laptop got hot on the left side; however, regardless of that, he did not change its position," the report says. I think we found the problem. Why say your kid is dumb when you can blame his laptop that he never puts down?

TFA!

[mcgrew]

This concerns CHILDREN. The report was from a pediatrics journal and involved kids. As TFA points out, kids' skin is more sensitive to heat than adults, and parents need to be aware of this.

Re:TFA!

[oldhack]

Oooh, clever, pulling out the "think of the children!"

Screw those pests.

Re:TFA!

[couchslug]

"Screw those pests."

Pedobear, it that you?

A more accurate headline

[fridaynightsmoke]

More accurate would be "LAPTOP USE ON BARE SKIN MAY CAUSE TEMPORARY BLOTCHY THIGHS", but that wouldn't grab people's attention as much.

Re:A more accurate headline

[canajin56]

That's not very accurate. It doesn't require bare skin, it's permanent not temporary, and it's not just a blotchy rash, it's a blotchy rash that can form weeping skin lesions and sores, and can become cancerous.

Science?

[snookerhog]

I don't think "heat makes things hot" really qualifies this as a Science article.

put it in Idle where it belongs

I'm surprised this is just now getting an article

[Sedated2000]

I often like to sit on my couch to use my laptop at home. It's the most convenient to cross my legs with the laptop sitting on top. I have had burns on my leg from the laptop's heat. It heated up slowly enough that I didn't notice until there was a full burn. I know I am not nearly the first one to have this problem. Isn't this the reason in 2000-2002 they were switching to the name "Notebook" instead of "Laptop"?

toasted skin syndrome?

[OglinTatas]

Because "weenie roast" is too gender-specific

Life imitating art

[jr0dy]

I believe this explains the events which transpired in the film "Children of Men". :)

Re:Life imitating art

[Monkey_Genius]

Glagnar's Human Rinds!

In other news...

[bemymonkey]

...putting your hand in a toaster also causes Toasted Skin Syndrome.

Who woulda thunk it? :(

Extremely old news, maybe 20,000 years old

[name_already_taken]

My parents said this used to happen to them when they were kids.

They grew up in houses that were heated by coal fireplaces - they would sit too close to the fire for too long and the same thing would happen. The cure - stop putting your skin too close to heat sources.

Seriously, I think people have known about this since the discovery of how to make a fire. We just forgot about it for the last 50 years while we all enjoyed our modern heating systems that distribute heat more evenly.

Re:Extremely old news, maybe 20,000 years old

[mcgrew]

Actually, fifty year old heating systems distributed heat more evenly than modern systems. Back in the '30s-'40s they had "gravity furnaces". There was no blower; convection distributed the heat, which was controlled by an electrical thermostat that varied the furnace's flame. If the power went out because an ice storm took down the electrical wires, you still had heat, because the furnace wasn't connected to the house's electricity. Its thermostat's electricity was generated by a walnut-sized doohickey called a "power pile" that generated electricity from the flame of the pilot light.

I had one in the old house I raised my kids in in the '90s. I loved it, it was way better tech than we have today. Especially when the power went out.

Bathe the affected area in honey water.

[hey!]

Next, remove the skin, placing it on a mandarin crepe that has been spread with a teaspoon of hoisin sauce. Top with a sprig of green onion, then fold/roll into a burrito style package.

Serve, pairing with a reisling, dry Chardonnay or a white Bordeaux.

That's why they don't call them laptops.

[chemicaldave]

Specifically referring to my horrendously flawed 1st generation 13" Macbook. Because of the heat generated it was marketed as a "notebook" and even comes with warnings against using it on your lap per the user guide. This has led to many a warm-lap, a melted "mag-safe" power cord, and just recently caused one of the plastic screw holes for the heatsink to actually shatter during use.

Re:That's why they don't call them laptops.

[straponego]

Yeah, my first gen Macbook Pro, aka Bruce Cockburn, was pretty bad too. The generation after that is also unusable as a laptop. Add to that the constant high pitched whining sound and random kernel panics Apple never acknowledged (but which went away with a software update a year later), and I've seen enough that I'll never buy Apple hardware again. They don't care if it works as long as it looks pretty.

Re:That's why they don't call them laptops.

[quacking duck]

If there's one thing I don't like about Apple's mobile products it's their unwavering desire to shrink the enclosure thickness by bare millimeters with each new generation, without really compensating for reduced ability to dissipate heat.

I mean, would it have killed them to at least add vents to the sides of their notebooks? A single vent area can't suck in cool air and expel hot air well; if nothing else some of the hot air gets sucked right back in. And the vent's already half-blocked by the screen hinge!

Heat dissipation through the keyboard and palmrest also sucks--my palms have broken into heat-induced hives a few times, and the "don't put on lap" edict can't be adapted--what am I supposed to do, not use the keyboard and trackpad when I'm on the road!?

Re:iPad

[TheMidget]

(Your wife may of course decide to roast them after you show her the bill.)

Your husband. It's an Apple product after all...

Well, it's not quite as slam-dunk as some believe

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually suffered from this. My laptop definitely got warm enough to grab my attention, but not so hot that I felt that it was burning. After a few weeks, I noticed a strange red splotchiness on my legs and it really was alarming at first. It's not like you pound yourself with a hammer and wonder why you have bruises, or burn yourself with an iron and wonder why you get blisters, it's much more subtle than that. After a day or so, I figured that it was the laptop and a couple of days of not using the laptop on my lap got rid of the symptoms.

So now, if it's going to be on my lap, I will sit cross-legged and rest only the edges on my legs, leaving an air-gap under most of the bottom.

Eau, Really?

[conureman]

I suppose there might be some easy money in a lawsuit, but did you ever consider dealing with the issue yourself? I'm too cheap to buy a fancy plastic lap protector, so I use a paver block from my yard to protect my lap from the heat.