Posted on 04/30/2011 11:24:56 PM PDT by neverdem
The microwaves that cell phones emit can interact with human tissue in an entirely new way, says theoretical biologist at a government lab
If there's one topic likely to generate spit-flecked ire, it is the controversy over the potential health threat posed by cell phone signals.
That debate is likely to flare following the publication today of some new ideas on this topic from Bill Bruno, a theoretical biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The big question is whether signals from cell phones or cell phone towers can damage biological tissue.
On the one hand, there is a substantial body of evidence in which cell phone signals have supposedly influenced human health and behaviour. The list of symptoms includes depression, sleep loss, changes in brain metabolism, headaches and so on.
On the other hand, there is a substantial body of epidemiological evidence that finds no connection between adverse health effects and cell phone exposure.
What's more, physicists point out that the radiation emitted by cell phones cannot damage biological tissue because microwave photons do not have enough energy to break chemical bonds.
The absence of a mechanism that can do damage means that microwave photons must be safe, they say.
That's been a powerful argument. Until now.
Today, Bruno points out that there is another way in which photons could damage biological tissue, which has not yet been accounted for.
He argues that the traditional argument only applies when the number of photons is less than one in a volume of space equivalent to a cubic wavelength.
When the density of photons is higher than this, other effects can come into play because photons can interfere constructively. Bruno points to the well known example of optical tweezers in which coherent photons combine to push, pull and rotate small objects such as cells.
In this case, the force is generated when dielectric objects sit in an electric field gradient associated with the photons. More photons generate more force.
The damage that optical tweezers can do to structures in cells is well reported, he says. That's because of the large change in refractive index at the edge of cellular structures such as vesicles, myelin sheaths and so on, and the high density of photons.
Of course, optical tweezers generally work at infrared frequencies. The question that Bruno poses is whether a similar effect could also work for microwave photons.
This boils down to two factors. The first is whether there is a high enough density of microwave photons from cellphones to generate a force capable of damaging biological tissues. The second is whether there are structures in the body with the required dielectric properties to be susceptible.
On both counts, Bruno says there are reasons to be cautious. First, the density of microwave photons from cell phones and cell phone towers is many orders of magnitude higher than 1 per cubic wavelength. For this reason alone, Bruno says the traditional safety arguments do not apply.
Second, the human body contains many structures including neurons up to a meter or so long that could be susceptible to the combined effect of many photons. Some of these structures may actually focus microwave photons, increasing the photon density inside the body.
(If you're wondering why the concern is over cellphones and not other transmissions, it turns out that frequencies above 10 GHz tend to be absorbed by the skin while frequencies lower than 1 GHz--TV or radio transmissions say--are thought to be reflected without much energy transfer.)
So what might be a safe level of exposure? Bruno suggests that the night time background rate of microwaves might be a reasonable limit. "Unfortunately, this level is very low by cellphone-technology standards, some 8 to 9 orders of magnitude lower than common cell tower exposures," he says.
If that is unachievable, then another choice might be about an exposure equivalent to the average thermal energy per cubic wavelength. Bruno says this would be equivalent to an exposure of about 30 picoWatts per square metre at 1 GHz. "This equates to exposure from a cell tower at a distance of a few miles," he says.
Either way, that's likely to generate some concern.
Bruno's conclusion is that the the way safe dosage limits is determined is broken because it does not take this new tweezer-like mechanism into account.
That places the ball firmly into the physicists court. It may be that there are good reasons why Bruno's tweezer mechanism does not represent a threat. If so, we can expect physicists to post a robust defence of the cell phone exposure limits.
But Bruno will need to be braced for other, mindless kinds of responses too.
Either way, sit back and watch an interesting and important debate unfold.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1104.5008: What Does Photon Energy Tell Us About Cell Phone Safety?
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Copyright Technology Review 2011.
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Junk science, Cellphones operate at .8 to about 2 GHZ, not 10 GHZ, missed it by”-———————————————————————” that much.
I do believe that was the point...
Frequencies below 1 GHz tend to be reflected and not absorbed (so the article says) and frequencies about 10 GHz tend to be absorbed by the skin and therefore do not penetrate very deeply. Its the frequencies in between that penetrate deeply, like into your brain, so the claim is.
More B.S.P.H.A.D. Vote 0’b and he’ll give you 10 gal. of gas,,,,whoopee
At .6 watts maximum effective radiated power. I suppose this guy never heard of the RF phenomenon called “skin effect”. It takes A LOT more radiated power, highly concentrated, to penetrate your flesh.
Mobile phone radiation might alter protein expression in human skin
The last paper is fairly interesting, IMHO. It's not that long.
Well, we would have to do an economic analysis to see if the sacrifice human life is outweighed by the economic benefits of the technology.
Life in America is one big materialistic death panel now. Money is our only value; it has replaced individual freedom and the constitutional Republic as the “American dream.” It is interesting to note that we don’t have much money remaining when all is said and done.
As stated already, to this time, we do not have available objective information whether human body recognizes mobile phone radiation (at levels permitted by the current safety standards) as an external stressor and responds to it at molecular level.
This is either incorrectly translated, or it is false. The currently available data and theories at the molecular level says there is no stressor effect. That could very well be wrong, but isn't the same thing as saying we "have no information." We do. Or this:
"However, there likely exists a subpopulation of people with different sensitivity to mobile phone radiation"
This is a pure conjecture which has no place in a scientific paper that fails to offer any evidence of the assertion. I don't understand how such a statement could get past a referee. [A weaker statement, allowing the possibility of such a population might be tolerable, but likelihood is a strong implication.]
In fine and in sum: the paper does a decent job of reviewing the controversy with the epidemiological data but does not really examine the flaws in any detail, and does not examine any of the proposed (and unproved) mechanisms. I suppose for a lay audience it's OK...
Adults [which excludes liberals and a great many so-called "moderates"] recognize that we can't compare our reality to some perfect world, and that there are always trade-offs. Money is one way of quantifying those, and proceeding entirely on feelings is for children ... or savages.
The point of conservatism isn't that there are no death panels. The point is that since there are always death panels, I want to be the chairman of my panel, and pick the other members as well.
I'm not sure why he wrote that. In 2008 they wrote: "This is the first study showing that molecular level changes might take place in human volunteers in response to exposure to RF-EMF."
In the 2010 paper, they cited: DNA fragmentation in human fibroblasts under extremely low frequency electromagnetic field exposure, as their fifth reference.
Maybe something is getting lost in translation as you suggested. What I found interesting was the statement in the 2010 paper that said, in effect, was that most of the studies done were in vitro.
"The majority of the evidence comes from in vitro laboratory studies and is of very limited use for determining health risk."
When I use cell phone or a cordless phone my face on the side I’m holding it turns red and feels burned, after a few minutes, gets worse the long I use it. I can’t use them, have to use a headset. I have no idea why.
I don't think that's very surprising, given the nature of the at-risk population; which is why any theory proposing a previously unexamined mechanism should be able to account for the lack of epidemiological evidence. For ethical reasons that is the only evidence we're likely to ever have. Even when you stipulate that some studies show some effect, it is actually quite small. So then (as they attempt to do in the survey paper) you must propose the existence of a specific at-risk subpopulation which is either a) too small or b) not yet properly identified for sampling within the statistics.
That, as I see it, is the problem. Whatever the mechanism is -- if it even exists -- cannot be of general applicability to humans. As blunt an instrument as epidemiology may be for certain purposes, in large populations it is infallible. And that is the crux of why I object to the speculative statement in the last paper, which posits the likelihood of such an at-risk population. Just so. But unfortunately, that assumes what the proponents are trying to prove.
One of the links I posted on this thread mentioned a stress response from microwave radiation with an increase of heat shock protein, hsp, IIRC. Microwaves are next to infrared in the electromagnetic spectrum, and useful for heating food.
As a cellular engineer since 1986 with over 7000 cell sites commissioned personally in 49 states and 16 countries, if there were going to be anyone who developed any sort of “condition” from RF exposure it would be me. Not only have I worked nearly continuously around cellular transmission sites for over 25 years, where ERP levels are 60 times that of a typical mobile, I have also commissioned thousands of terrestrial microwave radios ranging from 2 Ghz to 32 Ghz. What you posted is a series of “might”, “could be”, and “maybe” wishful thinking by people who want to go after the cellular industry. These people have been trying to create this boogie man for over 20 years now to no avail. Read up on the well known RF phenomenon called “skin effect”. There are hundreds of engineering reports on the subject available through the IEEE and others. RF does not penetrate human tissue at low power levels, especially at .6 watts (maximum ERP for all mobiles set by FCC rules) transmitted in an omnidirectional radiation pattern at 800-2000 Mhz (cellular/PCS frequencies). Your body is mostly water. RF and water don’t mix well, especially at this power level. This has been a well known fact since the 1950’s. Remember, it takes 1000 watts of highly concentrated microwave energy to pop a bag of popcorn or thaw that roast for dinner. It’s obvious you do not understand the physics involved and prefer to join in the hysteria. I do understand the physics thoroughly and I know, with absolute certainty, what you post is bunk. I am living proof. If you want to cower in fear over RF exposure, be my guest, but please don’t bother posting to me with any more of this junk “science”. Thanks.
So—is there any danger in using a hands free device inside the ear? I have my blue tooth on most of the days so that I can work and drive hands free.
And by the way—thank you for your 25 years work so that we even have cell phones..........
I happen to be a physician. All I'm saying is that the jury is still out. The author of the linked article is an oncologist at Columbia University in New York City who happens to agree.
Do Cellphones Cause Brain Cancer?
It is possible, of course, that even these sophisticated experiments will be unable to determine the risk. The lag time of cancer development with phone use may be 50 or 70 years — and cellphones have been around for only three decades or so.I do understand the physics thoroughly and I know, with absolute certainty, what you post is bunk. I am living proof.
I understand morbidity, mortality, epidemiology and risk factors besides some physics, genetics and epigenetics among other subjects. The professional literature is still inconclusive. Some of it claims effects on human protein expression and DNA.
Your longevity may be no different from heavy smokers who smoked for decades with no apparent ill effects who died because of acute trauma. I hope you continue to enjoy good health.
I guess that extends to the entirety of all RF engineers. I know engineers who worked around high power TV and FM stations for decades with absolutely no ill effects. I'm talking guys who have spent tens of thousands of hours in transmitter rooms with so much stray RF floating around that it will light fluorescent lights when the switch is off. There has been no documented evidence whatsoever that there is any increased risk or rates of cancer or any other malady in this group. It has been studied at length, despite what you and the others you cite might think. Just because you are unaware doesn't make it false. I'm not new to this. We studied RF safety protocol when I was an undergrad student well before anyone knew what a cell phone was. Believe me, if I thought I was frying my nads or my brain I'd be doing something else. Consider for a moment the amount of RF you are exposed to every day. I seriously doubt you have the foggiest notion of what that entails. You receive several orders of magnitude higher non-ionizing radiation levels from watching television (hours on end) than you do from using your cell phone. Don't take my word for it. Go to Radio Shack and buy yourself a field strength meter and see for yourself. This is only one of thousands of sources of RF you are exposed to every day, yet people are living longer than they ever have in human history. Truth be known, most people, ignorant of the physics of RF, would hide under their beds if they knew what I know about what they are currently exposed to daily regarding RF. If there were a problem we'd have seen it manifest itself a long time ago.
The people doing these "studies" have one thing in mind: Money. Back up and look at the big picture. Look and see who is funding these groups doing these "studies". When the facts don't add up, follow the money.......
I'd be more worried about looking goofy with that thingy sticking out of your ear.
And by the way—thank you for your 25 years work so that we even have cell phones..........
We'd have had it a lot sooner, especially digital cellular (roughly 10 years earlier for digital) had it not been for the clowns at the FCC. Most people don't realize the rest of the word went digital long before the USA did.
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