WHO: Cell phone use can increase cancer risk
cnn.com
cnn.com
Pickled veggies from Asia are also included. Beware the kimchi of death.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IARC_Group_2B_carcinoge...
EDIT: I also want to add that this is yet another case of mass media distorting a report that is careful to identify a) that there is no causality, just correlation and b) what exactly the classification means. That headline is linkbait bullocks: that report does not conclude that "cell phone use can increase cancer risk." It essentially says, "We're acknowledging that it might. Possibly. Maybe."
Here's a map of the death rate, which doesn't necessarily correspond to the cancer rate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stomach_cancer_world_map_-...
And an article on salty diet and stomach cancer in South Korea:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/03/24/us-salty-diet-idUS...
If they're going to go that route, they should use scarier things. Maybe they could get rabid bears and Al Queda members listed in the same group.
As well as a lack of epidemiological evidence, we still don't have a plausible mechanism as to how mobile phones might cause brain cancer -- the energies involved just don't seem to be sufficient to actually do anything bad. I've seen promising students waste their PhDs on trying to figure out how mobile phones might be able to cause cancer, only to come up dry.
Incidentally, a handy hint for students (and others) choosing research topics: avoid asking those questions where one possible answer is interesting and the other one is boring. If you ask "Does x cause y, and x causing y would be a big deal whereas x being unrelated to y is completely boring, then that's not a good topic for PhD work.
Cellphone Use Tied to Brain Activity (nytimes.com): http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/cellphone-use-tied-...
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/cellphone-radiation...
> This year, The Journal of the American Medical Association reported on research from the National Institutes of Health, which found that less than an hour of cellphone use can speed up brain activity in the area closest to the phone antenna. The study was among the first and largest to document that the weak radio frequency signals from cellphones have a measurable effect on the brain. The research also offers a potential, albeit hypothetical, explanation for how low levels of nonionizing radiation could cause harm without breaking chemical bonds, possibly by triggering the formation of free radicals or an inflammatory response in the brain.
1) What it is: "The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer1, associated with wireless phone use."
2) What's the risk: "Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and most aggressive malignant primary brain tumor in humans, involving glial cells and accounting for 52% of all parenchymal brain tumor cases and 20% of all intracranial tumors. Despite being the most prevalent form of primary brain tumor, GBMs occur in only 2–3 cases per 100,000 people in Europe and North America."
3) How much the risk increases: "The Working Group did not quantitate the risk; however, one study of past cell phone use (up to the year 2004), showed a 40% increased risk for gliomas in the highest category of heavy users (reported average: 30 minutes per day over a 10‐year period)."
Anybody worried? Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IARC_Group_1_carcinogen...
Example: "Alcoholic beverages"
Site very slow at the moment, mirror: http://www.scribd.com/doc/56731822/pr208-E
On a less humerous note, as a child (around a decade ago) I wasn't allowed a mobile for a few years of wanting one for fear that it could cause cancer, specially when around a still-developing brain (mine). I suspect it will be a long time before anything is confirmed either way.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100517/full/news.2010.246.ht...
Thats nearly impossible with data pushes being sent at indefinite intervals :( So much for keeping the phone in the front jeans pockets..
That radiation source, it's call the sun and outputs about 100W / sq meter in the visible / UV spectrum of which UV is ionizing. To compare a cell phone outputs about 500 milliwatts, or about 3 orders of magnitude difference in output.
The fact that you can charge your cell phone with a small solar cell is all you need to know about the differences in radiation.
Visible and UV light don't penetrate skin. Microwaves do.
UV penetrates the skin even better, and is by far the more dangerous of the three spectra you mentioned. That's why almost all animals produce melanin - the stuff that gives our skin, hair and eyes their color. It's nature's UV blocker.