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Don't Keep Cellphones Next To Your Body, California Health Department Warns (techcrunch.com)

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued a warning against the hazards of cellphone radiation this week. They are asking people to decrease their use of these devices and suggest keeping your distance when possible. TechCrunch reports: The warning comes after findings were offered up this week from a 2009 department document, which was published after an order from the Sacramento Superior Court. A year ago, UC Berkeley professor Joel Moskowitz initiated a lawsuit to get the department to release the findings after he started looking into whether mobile phone use increased the risk of tumors. A draft of the document was released in March, but the final release is more extensive.

According to the Federal Communication Commission's website, there is no national standard developed for safety limits. However, the agency requires cell phone manufacturers to ensure all phones comply with "objective limits for safe exposure." The CDPH recommends not keeping your phone in your pocket, not putting it up to your ear for a prolonged amount of time, keeping use low if there are two bars or less, not sleeping near it at night and to be aware that if you are in a fast-moving car, bus or train, your phone will emit more RF energy to maintain the connection.

198 of 344 comments (clear)

  1. Whose by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Who's body should I keep them next to? Or is that "whom's"

    1. Re: Whose by dilvish_the_damned · · Score: 1

      That hasnâ(TM)t been fully researched. For now it would seem âoewhoâ(TM)sâ is safest.

      --
      I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
    2. Re: Whose by SeaFox · · Score: 2

      That hasnâ(TM)t been fully researched. For now it would seem âoewhoâ(TM)sâ is safest.

      The meaning of your post is harder to decipher than the CDPH's response.

    3. Re:Whose by grcumb · · Score: 1

      Who's body should I keep them next to? Or is that "whom's"

      Whomse, you moran.

      --
      Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
  2. Telephones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Are known to the state of California to cause cancer.

    1. Re:Telephones by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      California does have a tendency to get ahead of themselves. They seem to be the first to warn people about danger but the problem is they don’t do the full science and come with the warning after the science is over, so they have a lot of false starts.
      I think California wants to be progressive and say they are the first to protect people from danger while the rest of the world gets in trouble by taking time to study it. However often the benefits of things outweigh their danger. Especially if the danger isn’t fully proven.
      Yes we get companies trying to block and confuse the science and that practice should be stopped, but policies should wait for the science process to get to a consensus before making policy.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Telephones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think its safe to say California is sorry.

    3. Re:Telephones by drinkypoo · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I think its a question of rather being safe than sorry.

      UCLA did a study which showed that cannabis smoke was not only not a cancer risk, but also may in fact reduce cancer risk. But now California is classifying cannabis smoke a carcinogen, on what basis exactly? Answer, totally made-up bullshit because they want to regulate where you are allowed to smoke to the last millimeter so that they can sell permits and write tickets. Everyone and everything is a profit center.

      California's warnings and prohibitions started out with good intentions, and I am extremely appreciative of some of them — like, say, dechlorinated brake cleaner. But this state regularly goes too far.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Telephones by Junta · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is that strategy causes no one to take California's concerns remotely seriously.

      For example, prop 65 warnings are on everything and everywhere:

      https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mp...

      It has no teeth because pretty much everything has that label. Many companies add the label as a matter of course, even if they don't have any of the relevant chemicals in some products because it's easier to apply the label to everything than keep track of whether they need to or not. Additionally, some of the chemicals on the list are about as likely to cause cancer as non-ionizing radiation.

      Heck even contact with most shipping pallets can cause a package to be contaminated with formaldehyde enough to be detected in some of the tests, so a company without a warning could be at risk from that despite it being a shipping company's fault.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    5. Re: Telephones by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Scaremongering about GMO and cellphone radiation is the exact opposite of "progressive". Using that label for a bunch of luddites is very 1984.

    6. Re:Telephones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So sorry that California is the 6th largest economy in the world and the breadwinner, by far, for the entire United States.

    7. Re:Telephones by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      One study that disagrees with many other studies, and you want to cling on to it? Sounds just like what a climate science denier does.

      That is not at all what is happening, though. California classified cannabis smoke as a carcinogen because it contains compounds known to be carcinogenic. But one thing doesn't lead to the other, because the human body is a complicated place. If the smoke contains both things which raise and things which lower your cancer risk, then you can't simply point to it and say "look, it causes cancer". In fact, some of the other things it does (like increasing sputum production) actually reduce your risk from other carcinogens.

      At the point at which every single business in the state has to carry a sign which says that the premises contain chemicals known to cause cancer because basically everything can cause cancer in some quantity or under some circumstances, the sign loses all meaning. And that's where we are now.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re: Telephones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      MasterBlaster turn off power and water from Arizona, see how California likes dark and thirsty!

    9. Re: Telephones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Only the most progressive appy apps can cure cancer, not Luddite scaremongering GMOs.

      Apps!

    10. Re:Telephones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That sixth-largest thing is misleading because it doesn't take into account taxes, fees, and cost of living. Once all that is accounted for, California winds up 12th, just behind Mexico.

    11. Re:Telephones by Alypius · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It has a lot of teeth, just not really for the state. Just as with the ADA, a cottage industry of trial lawyers popped up to sue/settle with any business they could find that didn't have the sign or to quibble (as with Starbucks) over exactly what words need to be on the sign. This cell phone ruling is just a sop to those same lawyers so they can start pre-litigation shakedowns.

    12. Re: Telephones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I agree about GMO. GMO is permanently changing the ecosystem of earth. You have to be careful with that.

    13. Re: Telephones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why on Earth would you take any of those things into account in calculating the size of an economy?

      That's some sort of standard-of-living calculation, not economy size.

    14. Re:Telephones by BronsCon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A single state still comes out ahead of an entire first-world country. Your point?

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    15. Re:Telephones by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      That sixth-largest thing is misleading because it doesn't take into account taxes, fees, and cost of living. Once all that is accounted for, California winds up 12th, just behind Mexico.

      That's misleading, too, because the cost of living is high precisely because the economy is so strong. And the cost of living is high only in the cities. If you're willing to live in the middle of nowhere, California isn't that crazy a place to live, cost-wise.

      Also, those taxes are high largely because the federal government takes more than it gives in benefits, so California isn't just supporting itself; it's also bailing out a decent percentage of the remaining states that can't support themselves. Were it its own country, total taxes could probably get cut in half before you'd have to cut services.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    16. Re: Telephones by c6gunner · · Score: 2

      The people who think that fearmongering about WiFi is completely justified will list an equally impressive-looking bunch of reasons for why they believe it, and their list will be just as bullshit as yours. That's what happens when you ignore science and worry yourself into a panic over some nonsense you read on Natural News.

    17. Re:Telephones by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      There's a lot of defense money going in the other direction, though.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    18. Re: Telephones by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      I just avoid California.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    19. Re:Telephones by careysub · · Score: 1

      Your recollection of the situation is incorrect. Busy-body lawyers suing to have these signs placed are not the cause of that sign being everywhere (and it is). This did not happen.

      The ubiquity of the sign is due to the fundamental defect in the proposition itself. It is drawn extremely broadly with the intention that manufacturers would have to label their product with it, forcing them to reformulate it to remove anything that might possibly be toxic in some amount if they were sold in California, and that retailers would stop carrying their products if they didn't. To whole objective of the proposition was to get any of a whole raft of materials removed from all products, without outright banning them.

      But it was too broad and was unworkable, and retailers were afraid of the liability, so those signs went up entirely voluntarily to prevent lawsuits (for carrying toxic unlabeled products). This entirely defeated the whole motivation for the proposition. Nothing was removed, nothing was labeled, except to tell you that products containing a potentially toxic substance was present somewhere in the store. No activist lawyers cared about a stupid and useless sign like this.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    20. Re: Telephones by Bartles · · Score: 1

      California isn't supporting itself. I mean I guess it is, as long as it can service it's ridiculously high amount of debt, and as long as the pension system can live in a parallel universe.

    21. Re: Telephones by c6gunner · · Score: 2

      That's a nice bit of hand waiving, but there are quite a few studies which show that marijuana use DOES in fact correlate with an increase in cancer rates. It's not like California is the only place in the world that's looking into this stuff, you know.

    22. Re:Telephones by rfengr · · Score: 1

      Neither is California, since 1/2 of Mexico is already there.

    23. Re:Telephones by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      Ever been here? I used to think the same when I lived in the northeast region of the country, but it just ain't true.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    24. Re:Telephones by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      Bah, I meant to post this in reply to rfengr's comment...

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    25. Re:Telephones by Cacadril · · Score: 1

      That sixth-largest thing is misleading because it doesn't take into account taxes, fees, and cost of living. Once all that is accounted for, California winds up 12th, just behind Mexico.

      Taxes are part of the economy. For instance, in some countries people pay their health insurance through their taxes, but that does not make their economies smaller.

      --
      There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.
    26. Re:Telephones by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, pretty much everything in California is labelled with 'may cause cancer'. I thought this was a joke until I visited for the first time. When one thing has a 2% chance of causing cancer and one thing has a 0.0001% risk, but both have the same label, how does that help anyone?

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    27. Re: Telephones by Shalhav · · Score: 1

      But marijuana doesn't cause cancer in California. Other states maybe.

    28. Re:Telephones by doccus · · Score: 1

      California does have a tendency to get ahead of themselves. They seem to be the first to warn people about danger....

      Uh.. that's a *2009* document that was HIDDEN by the California Department of Public Health because they obviously didn't like the results of their research, so "getting ahead of themselves" would *not* seem to be the problem here..
        Despite people being called "crackpots" and "fearmongers" for decades about cell and other radiation such as WIFI being injurious, the research proving this, exists and IS out there, just buried. Maybe we just have to wait until all the naysayers die of brain cancer befoire something is done?

    29. Re: Telephones by Cacadril · · Score: 1

      Breeding and natural processes can also cause disasters, like, for example, the HIV epidemic. GMO is yet another vector with a great potential to become far more effective than either earlier process. Both for better and for worse. Especially for worse.

      Such power in the hands of private companies, with almost no real oversight, is scaring.

      The same private companies also have an undue monopoly on much of the research and knowledge in the field, making it hard for the public to reveal any abuses, but also making it hard to trust any assurances from our authorities. We remember the influence the tobacco industry had on the public perception of the dangers of smoking.

      --
      There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.
    30. Re:Telephones by Cacadril · · Score: 1

      Actually, I largely agree about this, k*T >> h*nu at body temperature T and relevant radio frequencies nu, but there are complications.

      Radio emissions are largely polarized, and can, with reflections and resonances, produce a predominant orientation of polar molecules in a region. This can lead to key molecules having higher or lower probability of hitting the active site of an enzyme, for instance.

      Most public evaluations of dangers limit themselves to judge the warming effect of microwaving tissue. That is a tad simplistic.

      --
      There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.
    31. Re:Telephones by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      I would agree with you if there is a standard for the level of radiation that is emitted from the 6 sides of the cellphone is below a certain level.

      I wonder what is that criticl level?

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    32. Re:Telephones by MercTech · · Score: 1

      California listens to many nut jobs instead of looking at the issue.
      A pocket size cellular phone is limited to 300 milliWatts of broadcast power. This maximum is so frigging low you can't show any effects with dozens of generations of test animals.
      A full size cellular phone (wall mount Marine unit) or a phone attached to a booster has a maximum 5 watt output power.

      If such RF signals could possibly cause tumors you would think the many decades of police, fire, Citizen's Band, and HAM radio would have given some indication of causing tumors with their much higher power radio transmitters.

      Radio signals held next to the head causing cancer was shown to be hooey over 20 years ago. And an article that says "tumors" without saying what type of tumors in which organ is a grand indication of more hooey fake science.

      --
      NRRPT/RCT
    33. Re:Telephones by MercTech · · Score: 1

      So sorry that California is the 6th largest economy in the world and the breadwinner, by far, for the entire United States.

      Economy numbers where nothing is created but illusions and poor produce. Pull the other one, it has bells on.

      --
      NRRPT/RCT
    34. Re: Telephones by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      We remember the influence the tobacco industry had on the public perception of the dangers of smoking.

      Yeah, about the same effect as the "Organic" industry is currently having on the public perception of the "benefits" of their products and the "dangers" of genetic engineering.

      Luckily, in the long run, the truth does tend to win out. In the meantime we just have to keep the organic lobby in check enough to stop them from passing more insane laws.

    35. Re: Telephones by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      Nope, California is self reliant.

      Except for water.

      --
      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
    36. Re:Telephones by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      The fact that California has a lot of economic output doesn't mean its government isn't one of the sillier ones in the states.

      --
      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
  3. So, in my pocket, next to my three boys, not good? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    where then?

  4. Not gonna happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Not keep in your pocket? Where the fuck are you supposed to keep it? Up your ass?

    1. Re:Not gonna happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      In your European man purse.

    2. Re:Not gonna happen. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I keep my shopping bag in my pocket you insensitive clod.

    3. Re:Not gonna happen. by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Funny

      If I carry a shopping bag, it's a thin one that wads up and goes in my pocket. I don't want to be carrying items in my hands if I can avoid it. That's why I was born with a penis... so my clothes would have pockets.

      I don't want kids, so I just keep my cellphone in my front pants pocket. Kill two stones with one bird.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re: Not gonna happen. by rmdingler · · Score: 1

      Or: The one with Joey's bag my friend.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    5. Re:Not gonna happen. by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      A briefcase would be another way to keep the cell phone ready for use.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    6. Re:Not gonna happen. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      No one ever kept their cellphone in their briefcase because we didn't have cellphones in the 70s.

  5. No radiation risk by jonfr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is no danger from mobile phone electron radiation (it is non-ionising radiation). That document in California is wrong. The biggest risk is a unstable battery resulting in a fire in people pocket. Transmission power from mobile phones is limited to maximum 2W (bad signal areas). In towns and such areas most mobile phones are running on transmission power that is from 0.1mW and up to 0.5mW. General rule is that bad signal means more transmission power.

    1. Re:No radiation risk by rl117 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Cancer is caused by far more than ionising radiation. Is it within the realm of possibility that localised heating of cell contents by microwaves could cause damage to cell machinery for replication control? Or cause localised unwinding of DNA to expose repressed genes for transcription? Both are possible.

    2. Re:No radiation risk by Orgasmatron · · Score: 4, Insightful

      UV is partly ionizing and partly not. However, it always carries more energy per photon than visible light. What we call radio, even including microwaves, is in the opposite direction. Microwaves carry even less energy per photon than infrared light, and if you told someone you were afraid of a 2 watt quasi-spherical infrared emitter they'd fall over laughing.

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    3. Re:No radiation risk by rgbatduke · · Score: 2

      2W of non-ionizing power, only 1 W MAX of which can be directed towards your body, at frequencies where the energy just doesn't penetrate much into your body. It is about as risky as taking a christmas tree light bulb, putting it in a cell-phone transparent box, and putting that inside your pocket.

      I'd sooner believe the connection between high voltage transmission towers and cancer. The power at ground level is again absurdly low, but at least there I can imagine the high voltage arcing into the air at points near the insulators, generating a surplus of ozone, that falls to ground level at some measurable rate and ... no, I don't believe that either...

      --
      Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
    4. Re:No radiation risk by Entrope · · Score: 1

      More to the point, visible light (not UV) and even infrared have much more energy per photon than what mobile phones transmit, and you are exposed to higher energies when you go outside than when you have a phone nearby.

      Many adult human males have cross-sections from the front or back of 0.6 to 0.7 square meters. The Sun delivers 1400 W/m/m to the Earth, so someone on the low end of that range would -- if they were lying down -- receive about 840 W of energy from the Sun. Even if you de-rate that because you only spend (say) 5% of the time in direct sun, and you only expose 20% of your maximum cross-section on average, 1% of the total is still 8.4 W. A person absorbs much more electromagnetic radiation from the Sun than from a phone that is right next to them.

      For that matter, a typical human body emits about 100 W of energy. Good news for /.ers: Sleeping next to another person is known to the State of California to lead to cancer and/or reproductive harm!

    5. Re:No radiation risk by rl117 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The L and S bands used for mobile communications are classed as microwaves. But it's not really that important. Both microwaves and lower frequency RF are energy inputs which can impart energy (heating) to a system even if the precise mechanisms differ. What about second- and third-order harmonic generation in ordered structures such as collagen connective tissue in the skin? When you have a transmitter sitting still in close proximity to the body, it's important to consider the effects it might have. Just like you get a hotspot in the centre of a microwave even with a stirrer, is there a focus adjacent to the phone antenna? Also note that even if the chances of disregulation are exceedingly unlikely, it only needs to happen once in a single cell. And while I'm no genius, I do have a PhD and spent some time working on cancer-related projects in a pharma company; I'm not stupid as you claim. General heating doesn't cause much damage; the body can detect it and respond with heat-shock proteins to cope. But what about sustained and highly-localised energy inputs? Is it sufficient to unfold or permanently denature some critical regulatory protein? Terahertz radiation can unwind DNA, as can raising the temperature; the helix is stabilised primarily through dipole interactions and it's easy to disrupt (see: PCR). Can that also extend to repressed genes in heterochromatin? It isn't stupid to ask such questions, though it's very hard to answer them experimentally.

    6. Re:No radiation risk by jabuzz · · Score: 1

      The risk from high voltage transmissions lines is as I understand it believed to be due to the concentration of pollutants due to the low level magnetic fields that they produce. That is it's not the power lines themselves that are the problem, because the idea the power lines directly cause cancer is as laughable as the idea that mobile phones do.

      The basics are there is *NEVER* been in the history of the world a *REPEATABLE* scientific experiment that shows a link between non ionizing radiation and cancer. If there was it would be the physics/medicine discovery of the century and get you a fricking Noble prize.

    7. Re:No radiation risk by Misagon · · Score: 1

      That's not how it works.

      The electromagnetic waves from mobile phones do not cause the initial mutation that causes a cell to turn into a cancer cell and multiply out of control. That fact has been long established and is not contested here.
      What microwaves in the frequency ranges used by cell phones have been shown to do is to promote the growth of existing cancel cells.

      Mutations into cancer cells are actually not as uncommon as most people think. All of us have had cancer cells many many times, but what normally happens is that the immune system detects the microtumour and kills it long before it has grown large enough to cause a serious problem.
      All of us have been exposed to cosmic radiation, practically all of us have had X-rays a few times in our lives, all of us have inhaled and ingested carcinogenic chemicals from car exhaust, pollution, first- or second-hand tobacco smoke etc. etc.

      Carcinogens are all around us, but you don't get cancer that easily.
      Cancer risk is about probabilities: many different factors are at play.
      And radio frequencies in the part of the microwave spectrum, at frequencies and levels that mobile phones use - have been proven in several studies (I have heard of two beside the California study) to be one of those factors.

      --
      "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
    8. Re:No radiation risk by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      What about second- and third-order harmonic generation

      The FCC doesn't want them, so manufacturers put filters in the phones to suppress higher harmonics and other kinds of distortion.

    9. Re:No radiation risk by mikael · · Score: 1

      Then having a hot shower would be even more dangerous. Drinking hot cups of coffee and tea is known to raise the risk of esophageal cancer.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    10. Re:No radiation risk by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      I know. The point is that you can't make a blanket statement that all non-ionizing radiation is safe.

    11. Re:No radiation risk by religionofpeas · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The basics are there is *NEVER* been in the history of the world a *REPEATABLE* scientific experiment that shows a link between non ionizing radiation and cancer.

      Skin cancer due to UV has been mentioned several times in this thread. You may want to be more precise in your wording.

    12. Re: No radiation risk by Brockmire · · Score: 4, Funny

      You heard it here first, clothing causes cancer. The only known workaround is to be fully nude. California, you're up first.

    13. Re:No radiation risk by gizmo71 · · Score: 1

      Year wearing clothes does not increase cancer rates by any noticeable amount.

      I wonder if that study has ever been done. A cursory search reveals that many nudists are concerned that they may be more prone to skin cancer, but I saw nothing about temperature-related effects.

    14. Re:No radiation risk by rl117 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're thinking about "heat" too generally. Suppose you raise the temperature by a degree in a bulk volume, and that's survivable. But what about highly-localised but larger increases in small volumes such as a few cubic micrometres? Such as you might get if an EM source was present in a fixed position for an extended period. While the inverse square law has been mentioned a few times in other comments, this is only true... in a vacuum. Structures in the body can scatter, focus, absorb and reflect EM radiation in all sorts of different ways. It's incredibly easy to give a glib answer, but the body is a vastly complex set of structures and so assuming it's equally true here is I think a bit naive and simplistic. We actually use some of these properties to do label-free imaging of collagen, for example; I've done it with a multi-photon microscope using a tuneable Ti-Sapphire mode-locked femtosecond pulsed laser and it can image living skin structures beautifully using second-order harmonics. If you switch from a raster scan to a fixed point you can see the cell contents start to convect from the heating, before they boil away and the sample is ruined. That's under extreme artificial conditions, but it does make one wonder if similar processes can occur in the real world. By the way, while cells can survive temperature drops all the way to freezing point without much ill effect (cellular processes slow down), rises are a different matter since it increases the instability of all sorts of protein, DNA and RNA structures--folding and inter-molecular associations. It only needs a transient increase in the wrong place at the wrong time to disrupt something critical, and then it's all a matter of probability. There's a large correlation between temperature and throat cancer incidence in drinkers of hot beverages such as tea and coffee vs cold for example, with higher temperatures (tea without milk) having a higher correlation. What does that imply for heating induced by other methods? I don't know, but I do know that "1-2 degrees of extra heat is not going to cause cancer" as you wrote is not something that I would be confident in stating since biology is never that black and white.

    15. Re:No radiation risk by Stormbringer · · Score: 1

      And, if we were dealing with an infrared emitter, they'd be right. We're not. We're dealing with something with roughly the same penetration as a microwave oven.

    16. Re:No radiation risk by tomxor · · Score: 1

      Also, heat? 1-2 degrees of extra heat is not going to cause cancer. Counterexample - Humans wear clothes, which increases body temperature. Year wearing clothes does not increase cancer rates by any noticeable amount.

      You are disregarding localisation. There are many ways to apply heat, in your ill fitting analogy you are drawing upon the very tangible methods such as convection and conduction as mechanisms of transport into the body, localised high temperature spots don't naturally occur in the mediums that facilitate those methods and even if they did they would dissipate before deeply penetrating the body.

      Heat emerging from interaction with penetrating radiated energy is a different kind of beast, however you should be able to use a microwave oven as a decent starting point for your imagination. Also keep in mind that RF radiation has many subtleties, it's not as simple as most people imagine, it doesn't simply penetrate matter in the way that light penetrates a vacuum, it interacts with the matter is passes through in complex ways - ask a decent RF engineer and they will describe the intricate and unpredictable ways a signal can propagate about structures and the challenges it posses in telecommunications. Any kind of focusing effect could cause a localised heating effect, maybe only an average of 1-2 degrees over a cubic millimetre, but if localised enough within that millimetre it could be enough to unravel some DNA.

      And if the temperature increase from a cell phone causes cancer, then god forbid what holding hands or carrying a baby must do to people. Why, they'd be nothing but walking tumors within a year!

      I know you are being facetious but you surely understand that cause and effect of cancer are often separated far in time... no one knew the dangers of asbestos until is had been around for long enough. Carcinogens are many and their toxicity notoriously difficult to quantify given the latent nature of cancer. My point is that from a scientific point of view you are being quite arrogant and dismissive (we don't know everything about the interaction between biological matter and low intensity microwave radiation), however your argument about the legislation being a bit preemptive is more valid.

    17. Re:No radiation risk by rgbatduke · · Score: 1

      But if you are a tech-hating Luddite aging flower child who believes that silicon dioxide crystals with various dopings, worn on the body or just kept in a house, affect your health in beneficial ways, you can't even pretend to convince yourself that you "understand" a cell phone the way you do the channeling of crystal energies with sacred symbols. This creates a state of cognitive dissonance -- what you don't understand you fear and you resent in equal parts. The resentment is made even greater when all of the smart people in the Universe make fun of you for believing in magic, so you retaliate by deliberately disbelieving in double blind, placebo controlled evidence because if you ever let yourself accept that it is the only sound basis for justified belief you'd have to admit that all of your beliefs about the healing powers of herbs and crystals and chanting various mantras (or just garden variety praying to Jesus) are pure bullshit, as they have all failed DBPCStudies, repeatedly, over decades. You also mistrust and resent anyone who actually understands what crystals actually are and how they are put together and knows at least approximately what the word "energy" actually MEANS (as in, knows the dimensions of the quantity and how it is connected to things like fields, interactions, and motion) as they can say things like "cell phones are utterly harmless, except when they catch fire in your pocket or are dropped on your head from a tall building" or "a quartz crystal has no measurable physical field (other than the light reflected from its surface) at length scales much greater than molecular dimensions away, even in the neighborhood of its sharp edges and points, and is utterly incapable of affecting your health (outside of the placebo effect) no matter how many "good intentions" you direct at it or how many mantras you chant".

      The really sad thing is that an entire state would incorporate this bullshit into their formal health advice. The only possible basis (assuming actual scientists and physicians were consulted on the matter) for this would have to be some sort of massive conspiracy theory mentality that is convinced that the many studies that have found no link, including studies with a million or so participants:

      https://www.cancer.gov/about-c...

      are the result of a huge government multinational corporation conspiracy intended to conceal negative effects and that the one or two studies that have found some borderline "significant" result as gospel truth that proves that the conspiracy they've always suspected is REAL. Damn that CDC anyway!

      But hey, take one or two absolutely marginal results, ignore the fact that these results are scientifically inconsistent and implausible, ignore the absolute certainty that with the p=0.05 standard for "statistical significance" by idiots often in small studies it is a near certainty that you will have opportunities to conclude that:

      Green Jelly Beans Cause Acne: https://xkcd.com/882/

      and legislate those evil Green Jelly Beans out of existence. In California, at least.

      --
      Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
    18. Re:No radiation risk by rl117 · · Score: 1

      A was referring to harmonics generated when an EM source interacts with ordered biological structures. They aren't emitted by the phone.

    19. Re:No radiation risk by Entrope · · Score: 1

      If it was built by someone stupid enough to ask that question, no.

    20. Re:No radiation risk by jeremyp · · Score: 1

      The human body is opaque to visible light. This is not the case with other wavelengths.

      --
      All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
    21. Re:No radiation risk by Entrope · · Score: 1

      Blood oximeters would not work if that were true. Pick up a flashlight and try to shine it through your fingers. Besides, if your body were transparent to RF waves, that means they would not interact with your body and so couldn't cause harm.

    22. Re:No radiation risk by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Strange. It's only 840 Watt, so it's perfectly safe.

    23. Re:No radiation risk by Entrope · · Score: 1

      Strenuous exercise very often involves more than 800 W of power. My concern was not with the nameplate power, it was with the sheer ignorance and apparent incompetence of the builder.

    24. Re:No radiation risk by afxgrin · · Score: 2

      The wavelength in these RF bands are long enough that it wouldn't only excite any particular single structure. It could deposit energy deeper into the body but it would again still be not much different from any other heating. Higher order vibrations are rapidly dampened in liquid and solid systems, and that energy dissipates to heat. If you're denaturing some regulatory protein you're also denaturing adjacent protein - at this point you might as well call this a burn or cooking. The smallest point for even the highest frequency bands which is ~2200 MHz will keep your most intense point to a size of about 4 cm still.

      If it was really practical for doing DNA damage we would've been using microwave magnetrons for water purification long ago - turns out they just end up heating the water instead. Instead we use UV because it actually does cause the desired damage to water based pathogens without boiling the water.

      I'd sooner worry about the chemicals used in processing or out gassing from the phone than the low power emitters in the device.

    25. Re:No radiation risk by Solandri · · Score: 1
      The grade-school version of science which is taught (come up with a hypothesis, conduct an experiment which tests it, evaluate the results) is a bit oversimplified. For science to function, the null hypothesis must be disprovable.
      • You can have "reindeer can't fly" as a null hypothesis, because producing a single example of a flying reindeer disproves the hypothesis.
      • You can't have "reindeer can fly" as a null hypothesis. Even if you produce a thousand reindeer and demonstrate that they don't fly, all you've shown is that those reindeer couldn't fly, or chose not to fly at the time of your experiment.

      Likewise, the null hypothesis in the case for cell phone radiation has to be that it's safe. If you can document one example showing how the radiation affects cellular activity leading to the formation of cancer, then you've disproven the null hypothesis, and can put warning labels on all cell phones.

      Unfortunately, this flies in the face of the desire of health officials. They want to keep society safe - they want to err on the side of caution. They would prefer to assume that anything new is dangerous until proven safe. The problem is, there is no experiment or series of experiments you can conduct which proves something is safe (always causes no change to the system). The only way you can pull that off is by testing every possible scenario in the universe and in all time, which is a practical impossibility.

      In other words, it's not the responsibility of those claiming cell phones are safe to show that each of those possible biological interactions you've listed doesn't happen. That's impossible to do because even if they test it a thousand times and it doesn't happen, you can simply claim "well it didn't happen this time, but sometimes it does."

      In fact, it is your responsibility to show that one (or more) of those biological interactions you've listed actually does happens. Health officials don't like this because it puts the burden of proof (and thus the hard work) onto them. But it's the only scientifically valid way to proceed.

      (There's actually a third category - unknown or unable to be determined. When you haven't done any studies, then the hypothesis is pretty clearly in this third category. Then you're justified in "playing it safe" and assuming the thing could be harmful even though you have no evidence of it. But as the number of studies finding no link to harm builds up, it becomes statistically more and more likely that the null hypothesis is true, and at some point you can stop assuming the thing could be harmful. Also note that you can never prove the null hypothesis is correct. That's why it's a null hypothesis - because it's disprovable, but not provable. That's why the laws of thermodynamics, conservation of momentum, conservation of mass/energy, etc. are still considered theories and not actual laws. Things always behave in accordance with them, and we haven't found any exceptions, but neither are we sure that there are no exceptions)

    26. Re: No radiation risk by rl117 · · Score: 2

      Thanks for the informative and respectful answer. It depends, doesn't it? Consider standing waves for a moment. If you put a chocolate bar into a microwave with the turntable taken out, you can see that you get a line of holes due to the standing wave emitted by the magnetron. Seriously, try it out, and you'll see exactly how a long wavelength can cause specific localised heating in a tiny area (and you can eat the hot and gooey experimental result after). Similarly, if you look at the radiation pattern for a microstrip patch antenna as used on most mobiles, it has a high directivity and while it does radiate in all directions, it radiates most strongly in one direction for common designs. When it comes to visible light/UV/IR, I'm reasonably well informed (it's a large part of my previous research and current job), but I'm not an RF expert. However, I'll just say that if there's one thing my PhD taught me, it was how little I truly know in any area, least of all my own areas of expertise. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss things just because the answer *seems* clear and obvious. The theory might be obvious for the general case, but often there are subtleties we don't appreciate or understand for specific situations, and when it comes to the subtle interactions of EM radiation with living tissue, we don't yet know the full story. When you look at previous animal experiments to determine if mobile emissions are harmful, many of them aren't even close to modelling the effect of holding a phone to the ear, or sitting in a pocket, for extended periods. Personally, I'll be reserving judgement until we have more information; but it might take a while to get enough data to draw statistically meaningful correlations given the low incidence. While on the face of it the concerns look unlikely to be true, I would not be at all surprised if we eventually identify e.g. specific combinations of transmitter designs (or unit-specific defects) and usage patterns which are problematic over an extended period.

    27. Re: No radiation risk by Misagon · · Score: 1

      Meanwhile, in my small country, brain tumours are on the rise. Cell phones seem to be more popular here than in the US. The cities are more densely populated.

      Anyway, I don't think the risk is so much from cell phones themselves.
      I would be more concerned for people who are living or working too close to a cell phone tower. In the latter case, it is not just the frequency band that the cell phone is using, when it is being used. That tower is on all the time and could be in 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G all at once and/or long-range high-speed directional microwave links between towers instead of fibre.

      --
      "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
    28. Re:No radiation risk by cdxta · · Score: 1

      Good points, I'm glad to see someone else not brushing off the risk just because direct cause and effect is nearly impossible to prove.

      It's not just cellphones people may want to be concerned about. Also, when someone is sleeping they may be relatively stationary for hours causing microwave hot-spots to be in the same cells and tissue for extended periods. Think about wireless smart meters on homes, possibly a few feet away from someones bed that has virtually unlimited power available.

      Another factor that is overlooked is the peak microwave emission. A lot of devices conserve power and stay within the FCC power regulations by using pulsed communications. The microwave emission is only regulated by the average level. So while a cellphone may only be emitting an average 0.5mW, that may be in bursts of 2.0V/m every 1/10 of a second.

      I'm no biologist, but I think that could be far worse that just the 'heating' effect. Just from a logical standpoint, I picture human cells as a balloon and microwaves as push-pin. You can push lightly on a balloon with a pin all day along and it wont pop. But if you push hard with a peak force it can pop. Microwave radiation could have similar effect on cell membranes and DNA.

      There was a Ted talk titled "Wireless wake-up call" about 2 years ago on cellphone and EMF dangers that is worth watching.

    29. Re:No radiation risk by cdxta · · Score: 1

      Here is another question that might not be completely stupid to ask that I had a few years back while at college.

      I saw cell emitters all around campus on the sides of and near other buildings at the same horizontal height as human occupants. I know the wireless companies aren't stupid and make sure they have great coverage on large college campuses. I wonder how much microwave radiation some college professionals might receive depending on where they work on campus. I thought to myself, I sure would not want an office on the other side of the building wall or across from that emitter. Think of how much media and streaming all the students receive from those emitters.

      You have to then wonder, how many academic biological studies may be affected by being a college microwave hot zone.

    30. Re: No radiation risk by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      All the theorizing you're doing is interesting in an abstract way, but entirely irrelevant to the question of whether or not cellphone signals actually cause an increase in cancer rates or tumors. If this were 1980 and the technology was still new, these would be the kinds of things you might want to consider before rolling out the tech for general use. Now, almost 40 years later we have something much more conclusive; large scale population studies looking at whether any effect actually exists after decades of increasing use.

      *spoiler alert*

      No, it does not.

    31. Re:No radiation risk by rl117 · · Score: 1

      My university is currently replacing all of the network, and is putting them all over the entire campus both internally and externally to give comprehensive coverage. Outside, I see clusters of them giving directional coverage at every angle. Inside, they are in every office and corridor. I have at least four or five in direct line of sight in the semi-open-plan office I occupy, probably over a dozen if you include direct line of sight to all the cells in the adjacent building. While probably fine, it does make you wonder about the total sustained dosage you're receiving throughout the entire day while being washed with microwaves from every possible angle! Bring on LiFi, then we can worry about getting random epileptic fits instead (note: this is a joke, for the humour impaired). At least for biological studies, in theory it should all be adequately controlled for in the experimental design. But there are always surprises there when we discover odd confounding factors we didn't know to control for.

    32. Re: No radiation risk by kackle · · Score: 1

      I thank you for your considered posts (I'm not the AC). As a radio implementer for decades, I long theorized that the superposition principle could explain how non-ionizing radiation could do damage, where billions of "radio waves" (plus their reflections and secondary RF sources) could strike a single atom in a DNA strand, at the same instant. I recognize the overall improbability (even with the constant transmitting), but I don't see how the atom could be impervious such a happenstance.

    33. Re:No radiation risk by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Photons with energies in the range 3-10 eV can cause damage to DNA, but can't cause ionisation. Ultraviolet photons have energies in the range 3-1000 eV, so not quite all of them are ionising, but all of them can damage DNA (thus causing cancer).

      And even that is only true because the government's definition of "non-ionizing" (10 eV) is arbitrary and wrong, as it is based on the minimum energy needed to ionize Hydrogen or Oxygen. However, other elements ionize at a much lower energy. At the low end, Cesium atoms ionize at only 3.89 eV, which makes the portion of UV that is not ionizing almost nonexistent. In fact, a whopping 86 elements ionize below 10 eV (source: Lenntech), making that limit not just wrong, but alarmingly wrong.

      Of those 86, to my knowledge, about sixteen are biologically significant:

      • Potassium: 4.34 eV
      • Sodium: 5.14 eV
      • Lithium: 5.39
      • Aluminum (debated): 5.99
      • Calcium: 6.11
      • Chromium: 6.77
      • Titanium (debated): 6.83
      • Magnesium: 7.65
      • Copper: 7.73
      • Cobalt: 7.88
      • Iron: 7.9
      • Boron: 8.30
      • Cadmium (in microscopic sea life): 8.99
      • Zinc: 9.39
      • Selenium: 9.75
      • Arsenic: 9.79

      Notice that some of those are pretty critical biologically, like Iron (0.006% of body mass according to Live Science), Calcium (1.5%), Sodium (.15%), and Potassium (.25%). So the so-called "non-ionizing" radiation still has the potential to create ions in materials that are fairly common and fairly important inside your body. And some of the trace minerals like Zinc (0.0032%) and Cobalt (0.0000021%) play a role in gene regulation, so ionizing those elements is probably not a good idea, either.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    34. Re: No radiation risk by sonamchauhan · · Score: 1

      Ah, the great approximator arrives - one of many categories of scientific troll. It's been an interesting and very informative series of posts by the PhD guy. You need not respect his qualifications but respect his efforts to seek the truth.

    35. Re:No radiation risk by rl117 · · Score: 1

      It's probably better to say, it's opaque to varying degrees, transmittance varying depending upon the wavelength and tissue type. You'll notice that the white light appears red; blue light is absorbed by several common molecules including aromatic amino acids, as is green light to a lesser extent. But even red light only makes it through the fingers, which is sufficient for an oximeter, while other parts of the body are too thick and absorb all of the incident light.

    36. Re:No radiation risk by Entrope · · Score: 1

      All that is true of RF radiation as well, especially in the frequency ranges used for mobile phones, WiFi, and so forth. The body is pretty opaque to those photons, so there is not much reasonable concern beyond mild surface and near-surface heating. Those concerns are much greater for sunlight, but the "RF allergy" people never complain about walking outside.

    37. Re:No radiation risk by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

      Microwaves deliver something like 50% of their energy per inch of penetration of flesh. Which means that it delivers even less energy to any given cell than the same wattage of infrared light would. So we have less energy per photon, and the photons smeared out over a large volume.

      And it isn't like the effects of microwaves are particularly mysterious. They bump up the energy of molecules, and they do so in increments that very rarely break them (that's the non-ionizing part). Basically, pure diffused heat. Incredibly painful if you happen to catch a kilowatt from a microwave oven magnetron, or a klystron from a radar emitter, but also far less damaging than the same flux of visible or infrared light.

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    38. Re:No radiation risk by tquasar · · Score: 1

      I do not live with a phone stuck to the side of my head. Nor does it stay on all the time, I use it to make a call or text then it is off.

    39. Re:No radiation risk by bingoUV · · Score: 1

      Could you cite those studies that you allude to ?

      --
      Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
    40. Re:No radiation risk by MercTech · · Score: 1

      Cancer is caused by far more than ionising radiation. Is it within the realm of possibility that localised heating of cell contents by microwaves could cause damage to cell machinery for replication control? Or cause localised unwinding of DNA to expose repressed genes for transcription? Both are possible.

      Yes, Cancer can be caused by more than ionizing radiation. In fact, cancerous cell growth is one of the more rare outcomes of bombarding cells with ionizing radiation.
      Cancerous cell growth can be caused by mutagenic chemicals, irritant chemicals, viruses, and inherited genetics. One form of cancer, is actually caused by a non-ionizing radiation. The one type of cancer that has been shown to be caused by non ionizing radiation is melanoma of the skin caused by decades of exposure to high energy ultraviolet radiation. (Cause vector is considered to be chemical reactions in the plasm of the cells instead of DNA damage such as with ionizing radiation.)
      Microwaves are of the wrong frequency to ionize animal cells. What microwaves can do, if the power is high enough, is to cook animals cells. Water has a covalent bond that is not symmetrical and can be vibrated by induced magnetic fields of the proper frequency. i.e. Microwave ovens.

      --
      NRRPT/RCT
    41. Re:No radiation risk by MercTech · · Score: 1

      But what about sustained and highly-localised energy inputs?

      Bingo, sustained and highly localised. A 300 milliWatt transmitter in a cellphone that is only near the body while transmitting on an intermittent basis is neither sustained, highly localized, nor high power at all.

      Yeah, if you kick up the power of a radio transmitter by a half dozen Fermi numbers; you get eddy currents induced in nerve clusters and can have a seizure leading to death. That is why you do a lock out/tag out before approaching high power transmitter antennas, working on wave guides, disconnecting transmitter coaxial cable, or anything that can expose you to high energy RF. An analogy would be worrying about the hazards of old #2 pencils because a full grown redwood tree and crush a tank when cut down.

      The power used in a pocket size cellphone is so low that you can get kids radios to play with that put out more power.

      --
      NRRPT/RCT
    42. Re:No radiation risk by erapert · · Score: 1

      You're putting out a lot of hand-waving speculation.

      Even if everything you're afraid of is true there's much more important things to worry about: like obesity, wars, famine, cost of energy, communism/anarchy/totalitarian states/fascism, meteorite strikes, and thousand million other things.

      But no matter what happens: you are going to die. In the mean time a cell phone is too handy and won't kill you before you die from something else anyway.

    43. Re:No radiation risk by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that at room temp, the average adult's skin is absorbing and emitting slightly more than ~800watts of IR, which is more dangerous than microwave.

  6. Re:The Battery has Colbalt in it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Wait, WHAT? Are you going to eat the batteries? What's in there beyond cobalt will damage you more, I guess.

    Somehow I've the impression you are thinking of radioactive isotopes of cobalt, but you are not explicit (perhaps because you don't quite know yourself). In that case, don't worry: those are far too expensive to be used in Li-Ion cells. The naturally occurring isotope of Cobalt isn't radioactive (geez, go look it up in Wikipedia).

    As long as you keep the batteries closed you are safe. Recycle them properly!

  7. It does cause reduced brain function by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That much is clear.

  8. Radiation vs. radiation by Jamlad · · Score: 2
    It's probably more a testament to the creaking educational system that most people don't know the difference between electromagnetic radiation from a lightbulb and nuclear byproducts from fission.

    My electromagnetism professor did a safety study for the PTA of the local elementary school of where the operator should put their new mast. The PTA didn't appreciate that the optimum location was on top of the school since the worst place to receive a signal is on the axis of oscillation of a dipole emitter.

    I do wonder how the intensity of blackbody radiation of a 100W lightbulb in the microwave compares to cellphone throughput.

  9. Re:Fuck that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I'm getting rid of my pants.

  10. Re:True Joke: Deeply, deeply frightening!!! NOT. by smallfries · · Score: 1

    Only if you let it swing free in some hippie state otherwise you can buy fabric coverings that block the radiation and prevent the worst damage.

    --
    Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
  11. Re:True Joke: Deeply, deeply frightening!!! NOT. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    And the sun does not cause sun burns or skin cancer?

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  12. Somebody bought stock from a man-purse company by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    That must be it.

  13. Re:The Battery has Colbalt in it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What else are you going to eat? It's not like you can afford food after buying an iphone.

  14. Re:The Battery has Colbalt in it. by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Citation needed.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  15. Radiation inverse-square law by Max_W · · Score: 5, Informative

    The intensity of radiation passing through any unit area is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the point source. It is the fundamental law of the universe, and It is valid for any radiation, including electromagnetic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Practically it means, that even a small increase in distance decreases the radiation dramatically. So putting a smartphone into a backpack, or on a windowsill, away from the bed, decreases the radiation probably by several orders of magnitude.

    In even simpler words, - do not keep radiating devices, like a smartphone, router, etc., too close to a place were you sit or sleep.

    1. Re:Radiation inverse-square law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      But my window sill is next to my bed. It's probably about seven inches away from where I actually sleep. (And I've seen router warnings to keep 8 inches away, but those are different frequencies, so I'm not entire sure about the proper distance.)

    2. Re:Radiation inverse-square law by Max_W · · Score: 1

      It is just an example. If a smartphone is in the pocket, the distance to the body is 1 mm. If it is in the backpack, it is 10 cm, or 100 mm.

      But the radiation intensity is lower not 100 times, but 100*100 = 10000, ten thousand times lower.

      The inverse-square law is applicable also to such things as, say, shrapnel, light, loud sound, etc.

    3. Re: Radiation inverse-square law by Max_W · · Score: 1

      Certainly, there are numerous ways people try to circumvent the inverse-square law with more or less success, including directional antennas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Still, this is the fundamental unbreakable law of nature. That is, by the way, why there is no powerful central cell tower in a city, but several cell towers covering the area.

    4. Re:Radiation inverse-square law by Max_W · · Score: 1

      I did not want to say that smartphone or a router electromagnetic radiation is that harmful. I do not know it.

      I just wanted to inform that if one worries that it may be harmful, then it is possible to reduce the intensity of the electromagnetic radiation thousands of times by moving a device just several centimeters from the body. Because the radiation decreases by the square of distance.

    5. Re:Radiation inverse-square law by msauve · · Score: 1

      "The intensity of radiation passing through any unit area is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the point source."

      Cellphones are not isotropic radiators.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    6. Re:Radiation inverse-square law by Max_W · · Score: 1

      Cellphones are not isotropic radiators.

      Here is the general idea of a cell phone radiation pattern: http://www.raymaps.com/wp-cont...

      Obviously, it does not have a directional antenna, simply because a smartphone does not know to what tower it is connecting so it radiates in all direction.

      Yes, theoretically id does not radiate from one point, but practically speaking it does.

    7. Re:Radiation inverse-square law by tomxor · · Score: 1

      Nothing is a perfect isotropic radiator... what is you point? inverse square law still applies unless cell phones have suddenly started using quantum tunnelling instead of old fashioned RF. It is valid to the discussion because of how it applies to the signal amplitude falloff and therefore proximity makes a big difference, it not being a perfectly isotropic is irrelevant.

    8. Re:Radiation inverse-square law by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      It doesn't apply on distances of the same order as the size of the antenna. Exactly the scale the OP was talking about.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    9. Re:Radiation inverse-square law by tomxor · · Score: 1

      it applies enough... the difference between keeping it in your pocket and in a bag is likely large enough that inverse square law applies.

  16. Two bars or less by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How's one to know when there are "two bars or less" - phones haven't been displaying "bars" for several years now.

    1. Re:Two bars or less by reboot246 · · Score: 1

      My brand new LG shows bars. My last Samsung had bars. What kind of phone do you have?!?

    2. Re:Two bars or less by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      My brand new LG shows bars. My last Samsung had bars. What kind of phone do you have?!?

      He's got an iPhone, which shows signal strength as a series of progressively longer butt plugs.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:Two bars or less by green1 · · Score: 1

      The bigger issue is that "bar" is not a unit of measurement for radio signals! I could make that bar display show anything for any level of signal and it would be just as accurate. Some phones have 3 bars total, others have 5, each bar can mean any number of things.

  17. Re:Alt science by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have found both political parties to be eqaualy stupid in understanding science. However I have found a particular trend.
    Liberals don’t believe science when they say something is safe.
    Conservatives don’t believe science when they say something is harmful.
    The problem is somethings are dangerous and some things are safe. And many of these arguments are not science they are merely thought exercises. X contains trace amounts of bad elements Y. Then people are at risk from over exposure to Y. Or X is purely safe because our body can tolate some amount of Y. But no own is doing the the research to see if the body can and how to tolerate that amount of Y.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  18. WHO says no by De_Boswachter · · Score: 5, Informative

    Over the past 15 years, studies examining a potential relationship between RF transmitters and cancer have been published. These studies have not provided evidence that RF exposure from the transmitters increases the risk of cancer. Likewise, long-term animal studies have not established an increased risk of cancer from exposure to RF fields, even at levels that are much higher than produced by base stations and wireless networks.

    http://www.who.int/peh-emf/pub...

    1. Re:WHO says no by ebonum · · Score: 2

      Hard to see how cell phone signals causes cancer. These frequencies are not ionizing. A bit like saying the warmth from holding someone's hand is going to cause cancer. Makes no sense. There needs to be a mechanism for the radiation to do damage (knock off electrons), but there is none.

    2. Re: WHO says no by mapkinase · · Score: 1

      WHO who? In La La Land California Health Board rules.

      --
      I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
    3. Re:WHO says no by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      So how does non-ionizing UV light cause cancer ?

    4. Re:WHO says no by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      It doesn't, duh. Ionizing UV light does

      US Federal Communications Commission material defines ionizing radiation as that with a photon energy greater than 10 eV (equivalent to a far ultraviolet wavelength of 124 nanometers).

      The longer wavelength UV (UVA/UVB) is between 280-400 nm, but can still contribute to cancer.

    5. Re:WHO says no by thrich81 · · Score: 1

      Even visible light can interact with electrons in molecules and promote them out of ground state, which perturbs the molecule, A single photon of visible light can do this -- that's generally how dyes work. It is how chlorophyll (for example) works too, to extract energy from sunlight, though I think (without looking it up) that chlorophyll requires a two photon cascade to actually work -- it has to get hit twice in close succession to work, each time going to a higher electronic energy state. But the point is a single visible light photon (and UV photons are more energetic) can push a molecule into a higher electronic state. The 'electronic transitions' in molecules are on the order of the energy of a photon of visible or UV light, but generally not much less.
      The photons of microwaves are several orders of magnitudes less energetic than visible or UV light (a 500 nm wavelength visible light photon has 100,000 times more energy than a 5 cm microwave photon). UV gives you a sunburn and skin cancer because each UV photon is energetic enough to alter electronic configurations in skin molecules, it doesn't have to be fully ionizing to cause the damage. I don't know of any molecules so fragile that a single microwave photon can change their state in the way UV does. High power microwaves do their damage with a different mechanism (bulk heating).

    6. Re:WHO says no by MercTech · · Score: 1

      So how does non-ionizing UV light cause cancer ?

      High energy UV can penetrate the dead layer of skin and cause chemical changes in the living skin cells. Enough of this over enough time and you can get chemical changes that trigger runaway cell growth... cancer. That is a current working theory since UV doesn't penetrate with the amount of energy needed to ionize the DNA inside the nucleus.

      --
      NRRPT/RCT
  19. Re:The Battery has Colbalt in it. by phayes · · Score: 1

    Troll alert...

    There is no relation between the use of minute amounts of cobalt in batteries and cancer.

    Reference on Cobalt being a cancer risk?

    --
    Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
  20. Re:The Battery has Colbalt in it. by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

    But is it free-range cobalt?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  21. Re:True Joke: Deeply, deeply frightening!!! NOT. by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why do you think most of us don't go outside and live in basements.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  22. They do this because by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If some does try to sue, they now can't because they've been warned. That's all it is.

    1. Re:They do this because by Junta · · Score: 1

      It's probably a reference to Prop65, which specifically does enable a company to not get sued, so long as there is the prop65 warning on it. This narrowly applies to prop65 specific cancer things (not any claims about non-ionizing radiation), but it is the poster child for ineffectual crying wolf to not get sued in California.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  23. Re:Alt science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Progressives (they aren't liberal in any sense of the word) are all about banning things (except abortion).
    Conservatives (who aren't, either) are about letting people choose for themselves (except abortion).

    It's not strange, it's actually ideologically consistent (except abortion).

  24. Re:The Battery has Colbalt in it. by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

    Actually, the term is "artisanal-mined cobalt". Contrary to what you might think, that's that bad stuff.

  25. "Findings"??? by OneAhead · · Score: 1

    I can't find much actual scientific information in any of the links in the summary. Can someone please provide a link to the actual findings of which mention is made? (Yeah, I'm too lazy to do it myself.) Or has the word "findings" taken on an "alternative" meaning?

    1. Re:"Findings"??? by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I can't find much actual scientific information in any of the links in the summary. Can someone please provide a link to the actual findings of which mention is made?

      There doesn't actually appear to be any, it seems to be made up from a bureaucrat based on faulty findings. Honestly? The entire thing reminds me of the "danger of EM radiation from powerlines!" that was hot shit in the 1980's and 90's, if you want to see an example of that in action, there's an entire near-cult-like anti-em-powerline following in Japan.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    2. Re:"Findings"??? by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

      Don't waste your time. The California Department of Health is a political body, not a scientific one.

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    3. Re:"Findings"??? by OneAhead · · Score: 1

      The man with brain cancer was you, right? Because your offtopic post is not making any sense in the current context.

      What? I despise irrelevant ad hominem attacks regardless of whether they are aimed at my friends or my enemies. Double if they originate from an AC.

    4. Re:"Findings"??? by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Nope, sorry, being exposed to people like Mashiki is not known to cause cancer. Yes, he is toxic, vile, and despicable, but that's a matter of character, not substance.

      If you got anymore bitter, we could use you as a source of quinine and you'd actually be useful.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    5. Re: "Findings"??? by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Oh Mashiki, are you still upset that your lies about your Ducknoise pills were found out?

      I was going to say, if you wanted to be an idiot you'd have to try harder. But I see you've already low exceeded my expectations.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    6. Re:"Findings"??? by OneAhead · · Score: 1
      Topic. Cellphone radiation. Not Mashiki's character. Are you a closeted obsessed fan of his or something? Either way, you're free to submit a story about Mashiki's character, and see if anyone other than you feels it's newsworthy. Until then, try to stay on topic.

      Yes, he is toxic, vile, and despicable

      Be that as it may, this is a discussion about a predefined topic, and he might have something interesting to say about it. Closing your ears and singing an unrelated song makes you "one of them".

    7. Re: "Findings"??? by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Oh Mashiki, nobody's going to compete with your idiocy level, it's just not worth it to inhale that much mercury.

      If that's the best you've got, I'm pretty disappointed. Maybe go do something useful with your life? Join an anti-slavery movement? Go work in Africa for a decade?

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    8. Re:"Findings"??? by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Topic. Cellphone radiation. Not Mashiki's character. Are you a closeted obsessed fan of his or something? Either way, you're free to submit a story about Mashiki's character, and see if anyone other than you feels it's newsworthy. Until then, try to stay on topic.

      You should know by now, that everyone picks up the occasional crazy. They've already given themselves away, especially since there was only one other person who wrote this way.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    9. Re:"Findings"??? by OneAhead · · Score: 1

      Topic. Cellphone radiation. Not Mashiki's character.

      And yet you're talking about the one, not the other, of your own free will and deliberate purpose.

      Congratulations, you trolled me into feeding you. Since you're so nice as to draw my attention to it, I will cease doing so effective immediately.

  26. Re:The Battery has Colbalt in it. by rmdingler · · Score: 1

    There is some reported toxicity regarding cobalt buildup in the body, typically from a hip replacement or overindulging in B12 supplements.

    Unless you're prone to removing the battery for a late night snack, any danger presented by the cobalt in your battery is dwarfed by the likelihood of walking into traffic while distracted by your cellie.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  27. Incorrect by aepervius · · Score: 2

    Firstly while lower energy UV are non ionizing , the higher UV frequency at the boundary from xray are ionizing - it depends on the molecules/atoms as there is no fix precise limit on what an ionizing energy is. But far more importantly they are at frequencies where bonds can be broken. That is why the effect is far different than with microwave radiation, as those are frequencies where mostly rotation occurs (as a rule of thumb, microwave rotations of groups, infrared , vibrations, uv/visible, bond breakings, high energy uv and above, ionizing - the problem starts at bond breaking not ionizing, but ionizing is actually far more dangerous biologically).

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
    1. Re:Incorrect by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Firstly while lower energy UV are non ionizing

      Then it's not incorrect, is it ?

    2. Re:Incorrect by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Firstly while lower energy UV are non ionizing

      Then it's not incorrect, is it ?

      Yes, it is. Saying "UV light is non-ionizing" is incorrect, because UV is not a single frequency, but rather a broad frequency spectrum from about 10 nm to 400 nm, of which the higher-frequency part of that range (from 10 nm to 124 nanometers) is decidedly not non-ionizing.

      To use a food analogy, saying UV light is non-ionizing would be like saying that mushrooms aren't poisonous. If you grabbed one randomly and fed it to somebody based on that statement, most of the time, you'd be right, but the times you weren't, you would probably kill someone (or at least make that person see dead people).

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  28. Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by grumling · · Score: 1, Insightful

    http://fortune.com/2017/02/15/...

    In 2016 40,000 people were killed in automobile accidents (nationwide. I can't get reliable numbers for California due to ambulance chaser web sites clogging search results). 4.6 million people seriously injured. These are real, recordable factual numbers, not some foggy "might possibly be but can't really see anything conclusive" epidemiological study.

    But when a solution is offered, AKA self-driving vehicles, the outcry from the nut jobs is that there's no way they'll ever trust those darn confusers to shuttle them around. Even when you point out that aircraft with advanced autopilots are one of the primary reasons for their excellent safety record. Even when you point out that human error is the primary reasons for vehicle accidents. Even when they don't remember the last time they had to reboot their phone.

    --
    "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
    1. Re:Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored

      Except the threat is not being ignored, every automaker is working on autonomous vehicles, and California in particular is fast-tracking trials.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by grumling · · Score: 1

      I was referring to the general public's perception of autonomous vehicles. Admit I should have been a little more specific.

      --
      "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
    3. Re:Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by jon3k · · Score: 1

      I was referring to the general public's perception of autonomous vehicles.

      Do you have a source for this, maybe in the form of a poll? I get the impression that people overwhelmingly support autonomous vehicles, or at least semi-autonomous. Admittedly it's totally anecdotal. I just think about all the cars being sold now with adaptive cruise control which is essentially a basic form.

    4. Re:Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by fafalone · · Score: 1

      Banning manual drive? Pfft. We should just ban driving above 5mph too while we wait for Level 5 automation. I mean, it appears we've decided torturing people* is an acceptable way to deal with the problem of opioid abuse. What's a little slow speed compared to that? Think of the lives saved, at the mere cost of massive inconvenience!

      * - Yes it's inflammatory language, but to torture someone means to voluntarily inflict severe pain over a long period of time, and that's exactly what is happening as doctors follow DEA policy and refuse to treat or severely undertreat pain, even when the person is clearly not a drug seeker and, contrary to media hype, addiction (as separate from dependence) is rare. Then of course we know that people denied relief by the medical system sometimes turn to the black market, where they face a massively higher risk of death from overdosing on a poorly diluted fent analog.. and we knew this overdose spike would happen if we cracked down on doctors, and did it anyway.

    5. Re: Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      I've heard a few people who love cars and love driving poo-poo self driving cars. It's similar to, "you'll pry my clutch from my cold, dead hand".

    6. Re: Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      Well, don't equate a shitty little, inconsequential software app to a massive, highly intelligent Dev team, with life risking operations. Who gives a fuck if your camera app crashes, you still use the shitty thing! You kill someone in your car, they lose billions in sales. It's equating those two things makes you one 'those people'.

    7. Re: Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I've heard a few people who love cars and love driving poo-poo self driving cars. It's similar to, "you'll pry my clutch from my cold, dead hand".

      Hand clutch? Must be a motorcycle, in which case that's highly likely.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re: Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      No, I fucked up. That should have been stickshift. -automatic driver brain fail.

    9. Re:Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by grumling · · Score: 1

      The press and manufactures are very much promoting self driving vehicles. The tech blog sites' posters are all in for self driving vehicles. But out here in the physical world, any time someone mentions self driving vehicles the response usually involves a reference to BSOD and maybe that story about the hacked Jeep a few years ago.

      --
      "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
    10. Re: Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Funny, most of what I've heard is people who hate to drive in love with vapor and self driving car promoters lying with statistics.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    11. Re:Meanwhile, the real threat is ignored by jon3k · · Score: 1

      That sounds awfully anecdotal. Are there any actual polls?

  29. Re:So, in my pocket, next to my three boys, not go by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

    Just turn off data. The data transmissions are the most cancerous.

    .......... prove me wrong!

  30. Re:The Battery has Colbalt in it. by phayes · · Score: 1

    Cobalt, like just about every heavier element is a toxin when ingested, but even that that doesn't make it a cancer risk.

    What makes it even more ridiculous is that iDevice batteries are sealed in & even if zombie idiots were prone to midnight teardowns & subsequent battery gnoshing, they would die from lithium & electrolyte poisoning long before cobalt toxicity became an issue.

    --
    Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
  31. When future generations look back... by CODiNE · · Score: 5, Funny

    recommends not keeping your phone in your pocket

    The wisest among us were known for holding their phones at a distance using so called "selfie sticks". While at first derided by others, their intelligence evidenced by longer lifespans and lack of serious illnesses lead to a beautiful society blessed with their fabulous rulership.

    This is why my son, we must always photograph our food before first eating, to share the joy of our blessed nonnoms with the world and more importantly our esteemed ancestors in the cloud.

    --
    Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
  32. Cautiously calling bullshit on this one by shatteredsilicon · · Score: 1

    Because the incidence of brain cancer over 29 years (i.e. from before mobile phones existed until today) have not changed: https://www.theregister.co.uk/...

  33. It's not a warning by pots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is alarmist in a nebulous sense, but it's not a warning. There aren't any actual claims about negative impacts to your health, just a bunch of bullshit about what may happen, or what some people believe. The actual title is, "CDPH Issues Guidelines on How to Reduce Exposure to Radio Frequency Energy from Cell Phones."

    The closest thing to a solid claim that it makes is: "Although the scientific community has not reached a consensus on the risks of cell phone use, research suggests long-term, high use may impact human health." Claiming that the scientific community has not reached a consensus on this seems like an outright falsehood, but I suppose that as long as there's one holdout then you can say that it's not a real consensus.

  34. Re:u fool by Junta · · Score: 1

    Someone needs to put a prop65 label on the sun.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  35. Re:Fuck that. by Entrope · · Score: 1

    Is this where someone posts an affiliate link spam advertising some sale on tin-foil pants?

    Tin foil: It's not just for hats any more!

  36. You are more likely.... by MerlTurkin · · Score: 1

    to die from the freaking air you breath everyday than keeping it in your pocket.

  37. i get it by mapkinase · · Score: 1

    that's what those selfie sticks are for: you can walk down the street safely with your mobile phone at a safe distance of a selfie stick.

    --
    I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
  38. Don't Keep Cellphones Next To Your B... by dohzer · · Score: 1

    Was I the only one who read that as "Don't Keep Cellphones Next To Your Buddy"?
    I was relieved after reading the actual headline.

  39. Re: Alt science by Jarwulf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah liberals don't want to regulate behavior at all, except speech, voluntary gay conversion therapy, homeschooling, spontaneous sex, how you spend your money, freedom to hire, interactions with the opposite sex which nobody had a problem with up until 10 years ago, right to choose who to associate with, cake baking, running your business, wedding photography, hunting, eating, playing and on and on to virtually every area you can think of. Other than that, they're completely hands off unlike conservatives.

  40. Can CA please go away? by Alypius · · Score: 1

    O Sweet Saint Andreas, hear our prayer.

  41. Unsettling by seven+of+five · · Score: 1

    The news that California has adopted this as an official position is a bit disturbing, especially in a state that's home to so many great universities. This could only mean that lawmakers don't have much STEM education if any. I hope this remains isolated to the one state. In the current culture of ignorance, it could spread like California wildfire.

    Hasn't it occurred to them, that, with billions of cellphones in use around the world for decades, if there were any problem, it'd be obvious?

  42. Good advice by PPH · · Score: 1

    Because (at least on TV) that's how all the cops find the body. By calling the cell phone and hearing the dumpster ring.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  43. Juuust a PINCH of salt by Shogun37 · · Score: 1

    Panic-stricken snowflakes say Sky Is Falling! Film at Eleven! Seriously, if California said contact with water made things wet, I'd want to see a full study done by some one else. Somebody in good ol' Cali is getting rich, and laughing very, very hard.

  44. Re:The Battery has Colbalt in it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Cobalt is actually a needed trace element (actually an ultra-trace element, you need tiny amounts of it, but you need them badly, as there's a cobalt atom in the vitamin B12 molecule). In higher dosages it is, indeed, nor really healthy (cf. the Wikipedia page for the "fun" fact of "beer drinker's cardiomyopathy").

    I think the original poster was thinking of a radioactive isotope of cobalt -- which doesn't exist in nature, and which would be a very expensive (and ineffective) way of building batteries. Chemically they'll probably work, though.

  45. Re:So, in my pocket, next to my three boys, not go by mobby_6kl · · Score: 1

    Is it the ones or zeroes that are worse for you??

  46. Graphs, people ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... one showing exponential growth of cell phone use and the other showing exponential growth in brain tumor incidents.

    [citation needed]

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  47. Re: True Joke: Deeply, deeply frightening!!! NOT. by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    That's why I buy nVidia video cards instead of AMD.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  48. Re: Turned my hair white by Brockmire · · Score: 1

    20 years ago, I had a full head of hair. Now I'm going grey AND bald! Thanks, now I know it was my cell phone.

  49. Re: Turned my hair white by Brockmire · · Score: 1

    So if I stop using my phone, my hair will grow all back and brown, right? Right?!

  50. getting ridiculous by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    I don't know how many of you are familiar with bureaucratic nonsense and the massive over-control of the government in California but I'd recommend keeping California far away from your body.

  51. Consider damage caused by non-stochastic pulses by Ulfilas2000 · · Score: 1

    The energy pulses emitting from a cellphone transferring digital data send data in non-random pulses. The regularity of pulses may themselves be a contributing factor in cellular damage, as, outside of neutran stars, few things in nature pulse with digital regularity, and certainly not within a few inches of a living cell.

    1. Re:Consider damage caused by non-stochastic pulses by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      distance is irrelevant, only field strength. You should consider that a steady microwave field of sufficient strength (e.g. kilowatt sources in radar and broadcast antenna) does cause higher incidence of tumors in technicians.....but there is zero peer-reviewed evidence that the feeble emissions of a cell phone do so.

  52. Re: So, in my pocket, next to my three boys, not g by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

    If you visit Facebook, then I agree. The wireless data does cause cancer.

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  53. Everything including oxygen causes cancer. by sehlat · · Score: 1

    At least, according to the state of California.

    So. Everybody stop breathing.

  54. Re:timeline by green1 · · Score: 1

    The real timeline has been:
    2009 "Cellphones do not cause cancer" (but one or two idiots thinking they do despite some research to the contrary)
    2017 "Cellphones do not cause cancer" (but one or two idiots thinking they do despite a fair amount of research to the contrary)
    2025 "Cellphones do not cause cancer" (but one or two idiots thinking they do despite massive amounts of research to the contrary)

    There's a ton of research on this subject, it pretty much all agrees that there's no cancer risk here. but every so often someone publishes bad science that can't be reproduced, that shows otherwise, and a few people cling to that bad science with "see! I told you so!"

  55. Re:Alt science by green1 · · Score: 1

    The problem isn't that "no one is doing the research", usually there is a TON of research, the problem is that people are so set in their ways that they DON'T CARE what the research says because they've already made up their mind.

  56. It is misleading and incorrect by aepervius · · Score: 1

    A blanket statement "uv are non ionizing" is incorrect, because as pointed out UV are going from 400+ to ~10 nm. And if you take around 10 eV as a lower limit of ionization energy that is around 120 nm which is *well* into UV granted , it is UV c, but that is *still* UV, even if it is 100% filtered by the atmosphere. Maybe the OP may want state "UV radiation which reach the surface are non ionizing" then it is true. Precision is important otherwise you make blanket statement which are untrue.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  57. Not this again!!!! by DaMattster · · Score: 1

    The output is less than 1 watt. Every few years some attempt at FUD hits. Nothing to see here. Move along.

  58. Re: Alt science by fafalone · · Score: 1

    A lot of those are the domain of progressives, a *very* distinct wing of the left. Liberals aren't too thrilled about progressives capturing the left, but of course can't speak out, because the punishment for even questioning progressive dogma is excommunication. Not even the methods... once a progressive comes up with a method that aids their cause, it's sacred. If you completely support the goal but wonder if the method is the best way to go about it? Bam, that's it, you're a racist, sexist, alt-right nazi.

    And don't forget the biggest behavior control, the one desire for control, that unites conservatives, liberals, and progressives... the War On Drugs. Nothing more invasive than revoking bodily autonomy, "Yes, you may ingest substance x. No, you may not ingest less harmful substance y." It's still harmful, but prohibition magnifies the harms it has and introduced a bunch of other harms. Then of course, all sides support militarizing police, gutting the 4th Amendment, and incarcerating at a rate the most authoritarian governments can only dream of; all on account of that being the only way to enforce their precious prohibition. (And token reforms like dropping pot from the ban or sentencing to 2 decades instead of 4 don't count).

  59. From the same cunts by sproketboy · · Score: 1

    From the same cunts who think knowingly giving AIDS to someone should only be a misdemeanor. How about FUCK YOU?

  60. Re:True Joke: Deeply, deeply frightening!!! NOT. by megabeck42 · · Score: 1

    Well that's obvious. We stay down there for the organic, all-natural artisinal radon gas, of course.

    --
    fnord.
  61. Re:So, in my pocket, next to my three boys, not go by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    The ones, obviously. Zeroes either pass through your body or are blocked by the cell membranes and bounce harmlessly off. Ones are pointy and so can penetrate not just the cell membrane, but also the nucleus and cause cancer.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  62. Re:The Battery has Colbalt in it. by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    Having actually ground a custom Carbide tool, I have read the MSDS on Tungsten Carbide (much of which is held together with a Cobalt matrix).

    About 5% of the population is, for some reason, particularly sensitive to Cobalt. Nobody should get Carbide dust into their lungs, it's bad for you, but for the 5% just a tiny bit will kill you dead, in a slow and agonizing way akin to silicosis.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  63. Re: Alt science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A lot of those are the domain of progressives, a *very* distinct wing of the left.

    LOL, "Progressive" the latest rabble-rousing demon word of the right.

    Liberals aren't too thrilled about progressives capturing the left, but of course can't speak out, because the punishment for even questioning progressive dogma is excommunication.

    Man, you're really upset over how the left actually has dissent and discord within the ranks?

    Not even the methods... once a progressive comes up with a method that aids their cause, it's sacred. If you completely support the goal but wonder if the method is the best way to go about it? Bam, that's it, you're a racist, sexist, alt-right nazi.

    It's so funny that the right-wing pretends to be offended by apt criticism to the point where they get so defensive they treat the concerns over their racist, sexist, alt-right nazi endorsing behavior as somehow egregious.

    And don't forget the biggest behavior control, the one desire for control, that unites conservatives, liberals, and progressives... the War On Drugs. Nothing more invasive than revoking bodily autonomy, "Yes, you may ingest substance x. No, you may not ingest less harmful substance y." It's still harmful, but prohibition magnifies the harms it has and introduced a bunch of other harms.

    Actually, it's the Conservatives who are dogmatically inclined towards their war on drugs, even as they mysteriously oppose any regulation of equally harmful substances that infringe on people's bodies.

    Then of course, all sides support militarizing police, gutting the 4th Amendment, and incarcerating at a rate the most authoritarian governments can only dream of; all on account of that being the only way to enforce their precious prohibition. (And token reforms like dropping pot from the ban or sentencing to 2 decades instead of 4 don't count).

    Yeah, sorry man, Jeff Sessions is all yours, as is the frenetic drive to give the police all the gee-whiz toys that the free militias demand, and so is the riddance of the Fourth Amendment, the racist policies of incarceration, and the rest.

    But then you also have to blame yourself for the adulteration of almost everything else. We can't win with you, whatever it is, you're against it if somebody on the left is for it, and if the left opposes it, you're stridently in support.

  64. Re:WHO says no - NIH (2017) says yes by beguyld · · Score: 1

    Over the past 15 years, studies examining a potential relationship between RF transmitters and cancer have been published. These studies have not provided evidence that RF exposure from the transmitters increases the risk of cancer. Likewise, long-term animal studies have not established an increased risk of cancer from exposure to RF fields, even at levels that are much higher than produced by base stations and wireless networks.

    http://www.who.int/peh-emf/pub...

    How about something more recent? Is the NIH a good enough source?:
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

  65. Re:WHO says no - NIH (2017) says yes by De_Boswachter · · Score: 1

    It's not an NIH study, but a Swedish one. Also, Biomed Res Int. has an impact factor of 2.4. For a biomedical journal that's rather low. The editors of The Lancet and the British Medical Journal must have thought that this study was as crappy as the journal it ended up in. And why didn't they use their conclusion as a title?

    "RF radiation should be regarded as a human carcinogen causing glioma."

    But used the inconclusive title

    "Evaluation of Mobile Phone and Cordless Phone Use and Glioma Risk Using the Bradford Hill Viewpoints from 1965 on Association or Causation." instead?

  66. Cell phones now have what, 4+ transmitters ? by ToddInSF · · Score: 1

    I'm not saying it's dangerous, but I'm also not agreeing with all the folks here that seem so determined to believe it's 100% safe either.

  67. I safe! by martinfb · · Score: 1

    I think I'm safe.
    I wear my tin foil hat all the time.
    And, I asked Santa for a tin foil suit for Xmas!

    --


    Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
  68. Re:u fool by Bengie · · Score: 1

    Black-body radiation emotions from every object in your life is of much more dangerous energy levels and wavelengths than a cell-phone. This includes the black-body radiation that every atom in your body emits, with a gross emission measured in gigawatts. The net emission is responsible or about 50% of your body heat loss at room temp.