Disconnect: The Truth about Cell Phone Radiation - Is it Credible?

[randyc]

Has anyone read this book; Disconnect: The Truth about Cell Phone Radiation?

Is this a credible book?

Thanks

 

[LostConjugate]

A human body radiates 100 times more energy than a cell phone. Your likely safer talking to someone on a cell phone than in person.

 

[xxChrisxx]

It's the fact that people see the word radiation and crap themselves needlessly. It's ionizing radiation, as lost conjugate says the human body emits more radiation. The only thing I've found to be a pain with moblies is that my ear gets hot.

Also note for the future any book with "The Truth about..." in the title is 99.9% crackpot nonsense.

 

[LostConjugate]

I think the reason your ear gets hot is because you are pressing on it. 1 Watt is simply not enough to heat anything up.

 

[likephysics]

I think the reason your ear gets hot is because you are pressing on it. 1 Watt is simply not enough to heat anything up.

That happens when you talk to a hot girl.

 

[xxChrisxx]

I think the reason your ear gets hot is because you are pressing on it. 1 Watt is simply not enough to heat anything up.

I'm fairly sure it's dielectric heating of the surface skin. My ears get really red too, so it's probably the sensation of the capillaries opening up. It doesn't happen if I use hands free.

On the other hand I've not used a pair of overear headphones in a while so it could be that it's just covered up.

What's funny is people translate this relatively minor effect to mean the phone is cooking their brain. Those people would have a better chance with their phone in their back pocket.

 

[LostConjugate]

A typical dielectric heater (microwave oven) is 1100 Watts and tuned to a specific frequency that causes dipole rotation. Is there any articles on this Hot Ear being caused by radiation?

 

[xxChrisxx]

A typical dielectric heater (microwave oven) is 1100 Watts and tuned to a specific frequency that causes dipole rotation. Is there any articles on this Hot Ear being caused by radiation?

No idea, it just happens to me when I use a mobile.

 

[elemental09]

A human body radiates 100 times more energy than a cell phone. Your likely safer talking to someone on a cell phone than in person.

The comparison is quite flawed. There is much more to an EM signal than power! Frequency, modulation, perhaps even polarization, need to be taken into account, esp. when gauging the response of a phenomenally complex system like the human body. In fact, the power density one would be typically exposed to during a cellphone conversation would never be naturally encountered in the in the microwave region. Short of lightning strikes, I can't think of any significant source of microwaves one would encounter on Earth before the last hundred years.

I believe the ionizing/non-ionizing distinction to be quite misleading. The assumption there is that should a photon not have sufficient energy to directly break DNA strands, it is therefore totally harmless. The question of macroscopically judging, whether by individual cases or epidemiologically, the harm of cell phones and related technology (wifi, etc.) is quite open, and one I avoid for lack of knowledge. However there are oodles of studies that document specific, in vitro effects, which are non-thermal, that is, not arising from mere dielectric heating of tissue. This itself flattens the previous assumption of "non-ionizing => no bioeffect".
Most recently, an American study showed an increase in the glucose uptake of the brain following cellphone exposure, but not on the entire brain - only on the side which the phone was placed at. http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/8/808.abstract
There are many more.

I would think your ear gets hot due to a) having something pressed to it, just like wearing earmuffs would tend to warm your ears, and b) the heat of the cellphone itself (all electronics generate heat). Maybe as a second order effect, dielectric heating. But I'd be more worried about the totally unknown indirect affect that the radiation has on your body.

 

[EntropicLove]

I was on the phone for hours about a year ago and started to become neurotic about this possibility leading to a bluetooth purchase haha. Anyways, I remember scouring the internet and journals through my university for research done about this. All my findings were contradictive; the intuitive sense I had at the end was that of suspended judgement.

 

[LostConjugate]

You offer a thorough argument element.

However,

I am not going to worry about 1 Watt of electromagnetic energy until someone has an explanation of how it can be more harmful than the electromagnetic energy all around us. If harmful at all.

I will stop going to the dentist, stop going out in the sun, and stop using Microwaves (because of leakage) before I stop using a cell phone.

 

[elemental09]

LostConjugate,
Well, clearly you aren't a believer in the precautionary principle. In any case, I'm inclined to speculate that, considering the only frequencies humans have been significantly exposed (and thus naturally adapted) to in the course of the Earth's history are in the infrared and visible bands, it would be safer to avoid microwaves. Though, of course, this is next to impossible in the modern world, due merely to the proliferation of cell base stations.

About microwave oven leakage: you are aware these ovens operate in the same region as cellphones/wifi? 3G phones run pretty close, 2.1 GHz, ovens go at 2.4 GHz.

 

[randyc]

So, no one has read the book or you read the book, reviewed the referenced studies and decided that they were bogus?

 

[LostConjugate]

About microwave oven leakage: you are aware these ovens operate in the same region as cellphones/wifi? 3G phones run pretty close, 2.1 GHz, ovens go at 2.4 GHz.

Yes but they are also a thousand times higher wattage. In my experience wattage makes all the difference, that is why I use lots of sunblock when I go near the equator.

 

[xxChrisxx]

So, no one has read the book or you read the book, reviewed the referenced studies and decided that they were bogus?

I did the cursory look on Amazon, and I wouldn't waste my time.

"Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Has Done to Hide It, and How to Protect Your Family"

No book that's trying to make a legitimate comment has a title like that. The book is designed to sold to the tinfoil hat crowd.

 

[Drakkith]

I don't see how a cell phone could cause any significant amount of heating from the radiation. My 1200 watt microwave takes 20 seconds to heat up my sandwich. Something with 1200 times less output shouldn't have much, if any, noticeable effect on the human body. The miniscule heating that might be done should quickly be absorbed by the surrounding molecules that make up the cells. I can't see this amount being anything significant at all. The sun puts out more heat on my skin in winter. I'd heat my brain up more by running a few laps on the track.

 

[Vagn]

How much of the power from a cell phone would actually be transmitted through the head in the first place? Do they transmit their signal spherically so the intensity at a point depends on the distance from the cell, or do they transmit it as a beam, for lack of a better word?

 

[Drakkith]

Pretty much in every direction. So yes, only part of the energy would even be traveling in the direction of your head anyways.

 

[likephysics]

No idea, it just happens to me when I use a mobile.

Chris, try this -

Turnoff your cell phone, press it to your ear and hold it for 10mins.
See if your ear gets hot. If it does then it's not the EM radiation making your ear hot.
Also, some old phones are not that energy efficient. They get hot quickly.
Even on the new cell phones, the battery gets hot as you keep talking longer.

 

[uart]

LostConjugate,
About microwave oven leakage: you are aware these ovens operate in the same region as cellphones/wifi? 3G phones run pretty close, 2.1 GHz, ovens go at 2.4 GHz.

Yes but they are also a thousand times higher wattage. In my experience wattage makes all the difference, that is why I use lots of sunblock when I go near the equator.

That's a pretty spurious argument Lostconjugate. The microwave oven is designed to specifically to contain the radiation and the cell phone is designed specifically to radiate it. So to consider power levels alone is completely spurious.

 

[xxChrisxx]

Chris, try this -

Turnoff your cell phone, press it to your ear and hold it for 10mins.
See if your ear gets hot. If it does then it's not the EM radiation making your ear hot.
Also, some old phones are not that energy efficient. They get hot quickly.
Even on the new cell phones, the battery gets hot as you keep talking longer.

Now you say it, it's pretty obvious that a hot battery an inch from my head is probably the source of a hot ear. It also doesn't happen as much with my new phone.

 

[Claude Bile]

Has anyone read this book; Disconnect: The Truth about Cell Phone Radiation?

Is this a credible book?

Thanks

Does it reference peer-reviewed scientific literature? If not, then it isn't credible.

Claude.

P.S. The fears regarding mobiles have nothing to do with heating, it's the long-term effects of exposure (i.e. over years/decades) that concerns many.

 

[LostConjugate]

That's a pretty spurious argument Lostconjugate. The microwave oven is designed to specifically to contain the radiation and the cell phone is designed specifically to radiate it. So to consider power levels alone is completely spurious.

Microwaves can leak 10% of their radiation. That is 100Watts

 

[uart]

Microwaves can leak 10% of their radiation. That is 100Watts

Maybe a badly damaged one. A microwave oven in good condition won't leak anywhere near that amount. Also what is leaked will typically be spread over some distance along the door seal so the energy density at typical operating distance would be low.

My point is that it doesn't radiate externally by design, only by fault or by damage You can buy cheap leakage detectors and if by wear or by damage or by fault the leakage is excessive you can replace the oven.

 

[uart]

BTW. I just checked the Australia Standards for microwave oven leakage and it's maximum allowable is 5mW /cm^2 at a distance of 5cm. I found some test reports on consumer microwave oven leakages and they are typically less than 0.5mW/cm^2.

 

[LostConjugate]

BTW. I just checked the Australia Standards for microwave oven leakage and it's maximum allowable is 5mW /cm^2 at a distance of 5cm. I found some test reports on consumer microwave oven leakages and they are typically less than 0.5mW/cm^2.

Well there is still the matter of the sun.

 

[elemental09]

The sun, as with any very hot ball of gas, emits some microwaves, but spread out over a surface with area on the order of 10^12 sqm., the power density is negligible. The fact is, you can take a microwave power density meter (I have one right beside me, sensitivity 1microwatt/sqm), and hold it in sunlight, and it registers nothing. The ambient, naturally-occuring microwave power density on Earth is next to nil. Even if it weren't, there is still the question of modulation.