Cell phone brain cancer!! ionizing vs. non-ionizing radiation

[SparkyJJO]

You show them the other 99 people who didn't get cancer from their cellphone. If someone is wearing a blue shirt, and then gets hit by car, did the blue shirt make him die?

Just don't wear a red shirt, whatever you do!

 

[Brainonska511]

I could definitely see how EM waves emitted by cell phones could be cancerous due to prolonged exposure over the course of many years. Radiation does not need to be ionizing to have an effect on molecules and cells. Nucleotides in DNA and RNA are highly polar molecules. The magnetic filed produced by a cell phone antenna could easily be strong enough to interrupt the DNA replication and transcription processes, and if so, nasty things could begin to happen after a long enough time.

The magnetic field produced by radio frequencies at the power output of a cell phone is infinitesimally small and would almost certainly have no effect on these processes.

edit:
I should add - you generally need very large things to get any sort of real alignment in a magnetic field. People study DNA and proteins with nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. You can take a concentrated sample of a protein or small polynucleotide in solution, deposit it into a super-cooled, super-conducting magnet, and apply specific radio-frequency pulses and record the results. It's nondestructive and spontaneous alignment of these molecules are almost never observed. You tend to only see spontaneous alignment in the large, static magnetic field when you have something fairly large with a large magnetic susceptibility, such as a large bicelle, DNA nanotube, or very concentrated sample of long DNA. And even though these alignments are possible, we're talking about magnetic fields on the order of ~8 T and greater and a quick search suggests that a cell phone would be about 10-60 milligauss (or 0.000001 T to 0.000006 T).

 

[Phoenix86]

Common sense should be your best guide.

No. Science should be your best guide and this has been studied nearly to death. It's not quite beating a dead horse, but it's really, really, really close.

 

[bradley]

No. Science should be your best guide and this has been studied nearly to death. It's not quite beating a dead horse, but it's really, really, really close.

The studies I see regarding adverse effects on living organisms being mainly heated skin are from radar tests performed fifty years ago. Some of the newer studies from the last decade are disconcerting to me. And yeah, they demand further investigation on the long-term effects of chronic exposure.

Just two such examples...

Changes in Paramecium caudatum (protozoa) near a switched-on GSM telephone.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21554102

Abstract
The protozoan Paramecium caudatum was examined under normal conditions versus aside a switched-on GSM telephone (900 MHz; 2 Watts). Exposed individuals moved more slowly and more sinuously than usual. Their physiology was affected: they became broader, their cytopharynx appeared broader, their pulse vesicles had difficult in expelling their content outside the cell, their cilia less efficiently moved, and trichocysts became more visible. All these effects might result from some bad functioning or damage of the cellular membrane. The first target of communication electromagnetic waves might thus be the cellular membrane.



A possible effect of electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone base stations on the number of breeding house sparrows (Passer domesticus).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17454083

Abstract
A possible effect of long-term exposure to low-intensity electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone (GSM) base stations on the number of House Sparrows during the breeding season was studied in six residential districts in Belgium. We sampled 150 point locations within the 6 areas to examine small-scale geographic variation in the number of House Sparrow males and the strength of electromagnetic radiation from base stations. Spatial variation in the number of House Sparrow males was negatively and highly significantly related to the strength of electric fields from both the 900 and 1800 MHz downlink frequency bands and from the sum of these bands (Chi(2)-tests and AIC-criteria, P<0.001). This negative relationship was highly similar within each of the six study areas, despite differences among areas in both the number of birds and radiation levels. Thus, our data show that fewer House Sparrow males were seen at locations with relatively high electric field strength values of GSM base stations and therefore support the notion that long-term exposure to higher levels of radiation negatively affects the abundance or behavior of House Sparrows in the wild.

 

[OverVolt]

..

 

[William Gaatjes]

Like in-vivo as its undergoing a conformational change as it does its work or...?

🙂

A fever can denature proteins. Why do you think a 107F fever is fatal. It specifically seems the brain is most vulnerable to high temperature.

The temperature is critical for proteins because when proteins fold, the temperature is also a factor in the way the proteins fold. And the way the proteins fold, decides if it works or not. So it is the making of proteins that
is critical. When the protein folding is completed, the protein has some temperature range in which it is stable. This is why a virus from one animal may not live in another animal because the virus cannot make its proteins fold properly. f i am not mistaken, this is one reason why a vaccin is not deadly.

The heating from the cellphone radiation is not enough. You need a a lot of watts. For example a 100 watts.

 

[Jeff7]

Oh great post. You echo my exact sentiments as well. I just hope your next post isn't one trying to give away free iPhones. lol

To the naysayers, the poison is always in the dosage. Prolonged exposure at close proximity is just asking for trouble. Common sense should be your best guide.

Though I'm actually worried more about exposure from things way more beyond our control like dirty EMF from power sources and positive ions from electronic devices and appliances.

Our "common sense" didn't evolve to handle things like invisible radiation though.

My common sense feels like it's trying to tell me that getting into a winged aluminum tube that will go 500mph at 30,000ft above the ground is a terrible survival decision. But the rest of my brain says that the machine was well-engineered and is subject to numerous regulatory requirements, and is generally safe.

What someone's "common" sense tells them about a cellphone's emissions will depend entirely on how much they know, or think they know, about the effects of microwave(length) EM radiation.
I'm being bombarded right now by EM radiation right now in the hundreds of terahertz, from multiple sources that are more than 30 watts each.

Heck, common sense in some parts of the world says that a running fan in a closed room can cause you to suffocate in your sleep, or that demon-possessed humans can turn into goats.


A phone in your pocket is radiating at a few gigahertz, maybe less. And it's not like it's transmitting continuously. It's going to be doing what it can to save energy to keep its generally-lousy battery life from being even shorter.*





*Sorry, my first cellphone was a Nokia 3310 family, which ran for something like 1-2 weeks without a charge. Anything less would be uncivilized.