And please don't try to sell me on any bluetooth. I haven't found ONE that can perform under the high-background-noise adverse conditions that a boom mic headset can.
Posted on 07/12/2008 12:50:41 AM PDT by neverdem
Mobile phones have become an essential component of modern living. However, the marked increase in the use of wireless mobile telephony throughout the world has also raised some serious health concerns, as mobile phones utilize electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range. While currently available data does not show any negative health effects resulting from the low levels of electromagnetic energy emitted by mobile phones, there is some conflicting scientific evidence that may be worth additional study, according to FDA.
"We don't see a risk looking at currently available data, but we need more definite answers about the biological effects of cell phone radiation and about the more complicated question of whether mobile phones might cause even a small increase in the risk of developing cancer" says David Feigal, M.D., director of FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health.
Early laboratory tests have shown that mobile phone radiation, also known as RF-EMF (radiofrequency modulated electromagnetic fields) alters protein expression and activity in human endothelial cell samples (cells that originally pad blood and lymph vessels). A recent study conducted by the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) has examined for the first time whether or not a local exposure of human skin to RF-EMF causes changes in protein expression in living people.
The researchers exposed a small area of the forearm skin of ten female volunteers to RF-EMF for one hour and collected biopsies from exposed and non-exposed areas of their skin. Expression analysis of 580 extractable proteins identified 8 proteins that were statistically significantly affected by the exposure. Two of the proteins were present in all 10 volunteers. These findings suggest that exposure to RF-EMF might affect protein expression in human skin.
”Mobile phone radiation has some biological effect. Even if the changes are small, they still exist” says Dariusz Leszczynski, research professor at STUK. He adds, however, that it is much too early to determine whether the changes induced by mobile phone radiation have any effect on health.
STUK plans to launch a more extensive study, with 50 to 100 volunteers, in 2009. This study and similar studies are expected to shed some light on the ambiguous influence of mobile phone radiation on the human body and health.
While the possible harmful health effects of mobile phone radiation are being examined, these phones may also have some medically beneficial applications. A couple of cell phone-related studies recently covered by TFOT deal with cell phone based medical diagnosis, as they help in the development of a process for transmission of medical images via cellular phones, and cell phone microscopy which is intended to enable visualization of samples critical for disease diagnosis.
The article Mobile Phone Radiation Might Alter Protein Expression in Human Skin is available on this page of the BMC Genomics web journal.
True.
Iron is the key atom in blood that lets it transport oxygen and gives it a metallic taste.
True.
Iron is also the key material in [some] radio antennas.
True, with a [slight] correction.
Iron reacts with radio waves converting the electromagnetic energy into an electric current that can be amplified.
True. However, your conclusion is false. The iron in blood is bound to a Heme group in a hemoglobin molecule, which isolates the iron from other iron atoms making it incapable of responding like a conductor. In particular, it is incapable of producing an induction current. Sorry. No dice.
Radio waves expand with distance losing their power density
Roughly OK, I will allow it.
however a metal surface will reflect microwaves and a curved metal surface can refocus the energy like a lens.
True. [Just one picky little thing: it is not necessary that they be "curved," just "closed" in some sense.]
Sitting inside an airliner with 300 people talking on their cell phones is a little like being inside a microwave oven.
No, it is not. In the first place, the ambient electromagnetic radiation would be present whether they were talking on their cell phones or not, so if the effect you are talking about could be observed, it would be frying people even if they weren't gabbing away on their cell phones. Second, the frequency for microwave ovens is not the same as for cell phones. Third, microwave ovens operate by forcing water molecules, which are dipoles, to undergo state transitions in their rotational energy eigenstates. Now, in addition to rotations, these molecules can also undergo vibrations, and electronic transitions. The vibrational states are too far apart to be excited by microwaves -- that is why microwave ovens are comparatively poor at defrosting -- because the water molecules in ice are not free to rotate and the vibrational eigenstates are too far apart. The electronic excitation states are even further apart and certainly cannot be excited by microwaves.
That is the background.
Now, this is the puzzling thing to scientists: we have always known that energies powerful enough to cause transition in electronic states can damage human tissue and genetic material. When the excitations are powerful enough some electrons may even be removed -- this is called ionizing radiation. But no one has believed that the rotational states of a molecule have enough energy to effect basic chemistry -- chemistry is essentially happening in the electronic modes. It is true that using microwave excitations can cause the water molecules in your body to rotate more quickly. It is true that the rotational kinetic energy can be transferred as translational energy in your tissues and cause heating. But the degree of heating we observe is too small to cause the changes people are talking about.
This incidentally is the best reason why your airplane theory fails: experimentally, it is clearly false. If the inside of an airplane were a waveguide as perfect and energetic as a microwave oven, people would be boiled in seconds. OK, you said, "a little like a microwave," so they would be boiled in a few hours, or at least the cabin would heat up. But it doesn't. Try an experiment: take a digital thermometer sometime and check the thing randomly as you talk on a cell phone. I'll betcha you will not see anything but the random errors in the thermometer as far as temperature changes go with your phone on and off. This is why we say, if a mechanism exists, we don't know what it could be. The microwaves have caused rapid transitions in our head-scratching eigenstates (for scientists, this takes very little energy to cause.)
This lack of effect will even be true if you try the experiment with your head in a microwave oven while you use the cell phone, provided your wife doesn't try to turn on the oven, as mine probably would.
I share your concerns about cell phones. It’s discouraging to see so many children talking on cell phones for hours and hours.
I also wonder about wireless signals in general, such as for computers. We have them going all the time. If the signal is going through walls, I would think it would go through me as well. Though I did have a cat that for some reason liked to curl up right in front of my wireless card on an old computer, and her little three-pound body would actually block the signal sometimes.
From the paper:
...were irradiated for 1 hour with 900 MHz GSM signal...
Fair disclosure: I work for the CDMA folks.
A cell phone version of Gorebull warming, perhaps?
Even my daughter (who should know better) fell for it.
All part of a viral marketing campaign by folks at Cardio.
dit dit dit , dit dit dit , dit dit dit , etc.
More like another page out of the "outlaw everything that allows even slight freedoms without oversight from the government" communist handbook.
The inverse square law at work?
And please don't try to sell me on any bluetooth. I haven't found ONE that can perform under the high-background-noise adverse conditions that a boom mic headset can.
If my post came across as condescending, please forgive me. I really was just having a little fun, and in fact Reeses intuitive explanation was OK, up to a point, which I was also trying to establish.
my cellphones auto locater signal amplified itself through the speakers of our Yamaha DGX 500 digital piano which was on in the other room.
OK, but does your phone turn on your TV, or your kids' toys, or flash the lights in the house, too? Or, conversely, does your phone pick up AM radio stations? My point is that I don't doubt there's electromagnetic noise from your phone and it can affect other devices -- one of the reasons the various bands are sequestered and that internal circuits have to obey FCC specs for RF noise is because of the recognition of that fact. But that doesn't mean they can affect everything (or conversely that everything affects them) and in particular it doesn't mean they can affect human beings.
I'd guess there is some resonance in a circuit at that frequency your piano responds to, effectively "tuning it in." Electromagnetic fields produce induction currents. EM fields can affect humans (ask the Hiroshima survivors) but we don't have a mechanism whereby fields in this range at this intensity are capable of it.
If we could all converse at this level one thing the cellphone companies (gangsters really) couldn't get away with is limiting the bandwidth so much you can't understand the transmission w/o great effort.
It's almost as if we have to use another portion of ours brains to fill in the blanks left in the conversations at 8-13 Kbits per second they allow us to use for hundreds of dollars per month.
With only a little more effort on their part the cellphone could be almost CD quality.
But, most of our caveman brethren are content with fire on a stick and have never seen a Bic..
Thanks for the ping. I’ve been using Bluetooth in my car. People tell me they can’t hear me as well as when I hold the phone...
yup
Cell phones come with a warning in them now.
So the cell phone vendors are covering their liability tail ends.
Thanks for posting this.
Here’s a link to the latest from Dr. Mercola, very alarming:
http://products.mercola.com/blue-tube-headset/?source=nl
Thank you so very much for this tip. I will look at Radio Shack !!!
You might want to watch the video by Dr. Mercola on other tips for cellphone safety:
http://products.mercola.com/blue-tube-headset/?source=nl
When I hold my cell phone to my ear and talk for a long time (20 minutes +), that ear and the surrounding neck tissue feels “stuffy” as if I had a head cold. If I take a (real) Sudafed, it goes away.
I have no idea what the mechanism is at work, but I use the speakerphone whenever I can to avoid the feeling.
I prefer the Plantronics acoustic headsets for all phone conversations. . . . their in-ear acoustic ear-piece is the most comfortable.
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