10 ms·

Habits of cell phone usage and sperm quality

143 points by pwm 11y ago

blakesterz 11y ago
>> a non-significantly higher rate of abnormal sperm concentration was found (47.1% versus 11.1%). As someone contemplating a vasectomy, that's not quite the result I was hoping for. Sure would be easier to just keep my phone in my front pocket. Though, I suppose I'm not really sure what "abnormal" sperm end up doing. It's kind of implied that means they just don't work when the abstract starts out "Male infertility constitutes 30–40% of all infertility cases." but what if those sperm cause birth defects instead? Seems like that's a far from ideal result as well. As always... "Investigation using large-scale studies is thus needed."
- facepalm 11y ago
  Maybe somebody could create an app for that, somehow optimize the radiation for killing sperms...
  - UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
    There is research on ultrasound devices which do what you're asking. Designed to work as short-medium term contraceptives[0]. That isn't how smartphones kill sperm however, just as an aside for getting the same-ish results. [0] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scientists-zap-sperm-counts-with-ultrasound-next-male-birth-control/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scientists-zap-sperm-counts-with...
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      Thanks for that link. Interesting. There's also the evidence... which needs more corroboration to be sure... that heat above a certain temperature kills them or weakens them. Small scale experiments and survey of blast-furnace workers provided evidence for it. With both, the fertility went back to normal I think a few months after they left the environment where they were overheated. So, initial evidence for sperm-killing heat to be a safe and effective contraceptive. Doesn't feel as bad as you'd think, either.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  Perhaps you can boost radiation levels by leaving your phone on a call with a white noise generator and tuck the phone in the front of your [under]pants.
ngold5 11y ago
Would need to see the full article to find out the size of their sample, but their confidence intervals are quite tight for a study of this nature, and they add in the caveat of further research being needed. This should be a least a warning correlation for cell phone users, and will make me rethink some of my usage habits.
- wwkeyboard 11y ago
  Or the 5th sentence of the abstract: > Questionnaires accessing demographic data and characteristics of cell phone usage were completed by 106 men referred for semen analysis And this article isn't recommending a change in behavior, only further study: > Investigation using large-scale studies is thus needed.
  - evils 11y ago
    "Investigation using large-scale studies is thus needed." Which would be the conclusion of pretty much any result that they could have had. I could have given you that recommendation even without conducting a study at all.
- vasilipupkin 11y ago
  this study is virtually useless from statistical point of view. Sampling bias, lack of control for confounding effects and other issues mean you should not in any way use this study as a guide for any changes in behavior. Sure, I understand, they did add a caveat that more study is needed. Just saying, do not use this study as a reason to do anything differently
codeshaman 11y ago
Good! There's too many of us already. 6.8 billion phones today means 6.8 billion pieces of high tech garbage a couple of years later, leaking all kinds of toxic shit into the water, plus 6.8 billion new devices manufactured while digging up all kinds of precious materials out of the ground and using oil to transport them all over the world, then burning coal, heating oil and natural gas to melt and glue shit together, and then burn more oil to transport the finished devices to customers all over the world. That helps climate change, which leads to droughts in places like Brazil, determining people to use bathtubs to catch every drop of rain, were mosquitos breed and then fly around spreading Zika. More phones and more porn, that's what's needed for a happy future. /sarcasm
- hellbanner 11y ago
  It really is disgusting how temporary cellphones are built. Where are the modular personal computers?
  - mohn 11y ago
    Europe [1]. I was very interested when I first saw some Fairphone 2 buzz online a couple months ago, but I'm a little apprehensive about water resistance and the price (525 EUR). Also, most people probably wouldn't have this problem, but I'd have to switch to a different cell provider to use an FP2. [1] https://www.fairphone.com/phone/ https://www.fairphone.com/phone/
strebler 11y ago
Other studies show significantly decreased mobility and sperm quality as well (some in-vitro with microscope). Anecdotally, I'm quite confident this was a factor with our 2nd child. With our 1st, I didn't own a cell phone and he was conceived literally the first try. I bought a smart phone when he was 1, which I carried in my pocket. A few years later, we wanted another child - tried for 10 months with no results! Frustrating. I randomly found some studies covering this exact subject in mid July. I started putting my phone into my backpack. August, our 2nd was on his way. For anyone who's having troubles, I would strongly advise to take the phone out of your pocket. It might even be best for everyone to do so - who knows the long term effects.
- blowski 11y ago
  The long term effects _could_ be lower rates of cancer, so taking this advice would be a bad idea. I've pretty much always had my phone in my pocket for the last 15 years. Two years ago, my wife and I had a child - no problems. I'm not saying you're right or wrong, but you need a much greater pool of data before making claims.
- evils 11y ago
  Fertility decreases with age, especially in women. That your second child took longer to conceive than the first is no evidence of anything and even less of the influence of cell phone ownership. You might just as well claim that having your first child decreased your fertility, or anything else that happened to you in between. (Bought a new car? A new TV? Different brand toothpaste?)
  - pc86 11y ago
    Crest is notorious for decreasing sperm motility. /s
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- pc86 11y ago
  > I'm quite confident this was a factor with our 2nd child. You have absolutely no way of knowing that - you're more likely to be wrong than right.
nxzero 11y ago
Not an expert on critical analysis of research, but seems like there's a bit of selection bias given the population studied wanted to reproduce and was referred to the study based on being unable to do so.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  There could be an over-represented subgroup of the general population who are more susceptible to the cell phone radiation, but selecting from that group would not necessarily obscure the relationship between the amount of cell phone use and any resulting biological impact. They don't go very far out on the limb, they say that it probably justifies a bigger study, which is pretty mild.
  - cyphar 11y ago
    > There could be an over-represented subgroup of the general population who are more susceptible to the cell phone radiation, but selecting from that group would not necessarily obscure the relationship between the amount of cell phone use and any resulting biological impact. That's not what he said. If you read the abstract, it says that the candidates were chosen using "questionnaires accessing demographic data and characteristics of cell phone usage were completed by 106 men referred for semen analysis." The fact that they were referred for semen analysis (read: they were having trouble reproducing) indicates there'd be a selection bias in their study. And without a control group, it's all hand-waving anyway. > They don't go very far out on the limb, they say that it probably justifies a bigger study, which is pretty mild. In order to do it properly, they'd need a much bigger study and a much better sample.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      My point was that the selection bias proposed will not necessarily obscure a biological effect (or at least, correlation). Setting aside the legitimacy of pursuing this research, looking for effects using statistical analyses of medical records is an interesting way to direct at least a small amount of research, saying that such questions can only be asked when there is solid control of every factor is probably not a win.
evils 11y ago
If I interpret the abstract correctly, the change in sperm they observed was only correlated to talking on a cell phone whilst charging it (that is, holding it next to your head), where keeping it right next to the groin did not show any significant influence? That doesn't sound like a plausible outcome of radiation having any influence.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
yummyfajitas 11y ago
I can't critique the article directly, since it's behind a paywall. But I can take the purported results and do some Bayesian analysis with it. Take first a prior - due to my knowledge of physics, my prior on microwave/RF/visual radiation having any biological effect is 10^{-5}. Multiphoton ionization has simply never been observed to happen except under extremely intense (read: it'll melt you) fields and there are strong theoretical reasons to believe it won't happen. I.e., if this effect is real, it'll require new physics to explain. Most likely 10^{-5} is a conservative prior on the likelihood that an experimental paper overturns quantum mechanics. Now, lets take their strongest result (p = 0.02) and do a Bayes update with it, assuming a complete absense of selection bias/etc (i.e. imagining this was a perfect RCT). P(effect false | experiment result) = P(experiment result | effect false) P(effect false) / P(experiment result) = 0.02 x (1-10^{-5}) / P(experiment result) We can compute the latter as P(experiment result | effect false) x (1 - 10^{-5}) + P(experiment result | effect real) x 10^{-5} \approx 0.02 x 1.0. Assuming optimistically that the statistical power - aka P(experiment result | effect real) - is 0.99, the bottom is 0.020009700000000002. Plugging and chugging yields: P(effect false | experiment result) = 0.9995052399586201 Or equivalently P(effect real | experiment result) = 0.000494760041379938. As a result, assuming you believe strongly in quantum physics (I do), this experiment provides wildly insufficient data to overturn QM and believe the effect is real. Note: I'm not explaining here why quantum mechanics says multiphoton ionization is a tiny effect, negligible in biological applications, I'm just going to argue by authority: https://www.chrisstucchio.com/publications.html https://www.chrisstucchio.com/publications.html
- dekhn 11y ago
  Like many people, you're starting from assumption of the mechanism (ionization) and ignoring the fact that there are many other known physical mechanisms that are plausible. Also, if people detect a reliable signal without a plausible physical mechanism, best thing to do is determine what the cause of the signal is- rather than just assuming it's impossible. In grad school we were taught to do "back of the envelope" calculations to rule out improbably hypotheses, but I often found the physics people convinced (I think they used the term "proved impossible") themselves things wouldn't work, then after 5-7 years of grad school, managed to come up with actual physical data that showed they had made a false assumption.
analog31 11y ago
I don't know the inner details of cell phone technology, but as I understand it, the phone throttles its radio output power based on the quality of the signal, to conserve battery. Thus, usage in hours isn't exactly a measure of RF dose.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
cyphar 11y ago
I don't even need to read the actual paper in order to debunk it. They admit a selection bias in their fucking abstract: "Questionnaires accessing demographic data and characteristics of cell phone usage were completed by 106 men referred for semen analysis."
z3t4 11y ago
Don't play with your phone instead of your partner or penis.
zyxzevn 11y ago
The problem is that we have a bad model to describe the effect of EM-waves on biological tissue. Currently the model defines biological bodies as containers of water. This is clearly wrong. What I propose is standard antenna science. Something needs to resonate with the biological systems. In artificial antennas there are free electrons. In biological bodies there are ions and polar molecules. Most proteins are diamagnetic, except when they are in reaction. These are the things that we need to concentrate on. There are also new discoveries that show that biology uses quantum super position states in some of the important proteins. This allows these proteins to be far more sensitive to electromagnetism. For example: the magnetic sense of birds depend on it. Another example is chlorophyll, which becomes more sensitive to light (which is an EM-wave) than usual. Other discoveries show that DNA might be a conductor. And in combination with EM-radiation the functioning of parts of the DNA can be reduced or enhanced. This is new science which clearly shows that we were wrong about the effect of electromagnetism and biology before. Also interesting are processes in biology that have certain frequencies of themselves like the firing of neurons. And other repetitive processes like the transcoding of DNA to RNA and of RNA to proteins. Note that all these antenna possibilities depend on certain frequencies. On some frequencies we might see no result at all, while on others it affects a certain process in a negative or even positive way. And looking a the actual research at http://www.microwavenews.com http://www.microwavenews.com this seems to be the case. A lot of research show some kind of effect (negative and positive), while others don't. Sadly many scientists do not know much about both biology and antennas. They usually talk about ionization and heat, which are not the problem at all. It is actually very stupid to see that as the problem. I do not think that EM-radiation is totally bad. It is just something that is damaging on the long term due to stress and disturbance of the biological processes and systems (when they resonate with the specific frequencies of the signals).
- zyxzevn 11y ago
  Scientific evidence proving my point: http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2016/2/3-31891_Study-Uncovers-How-Electromagnetic-Fields-Amplify-_story-wide.html?WT.mc_id=NewsHomePageCenterColumn http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2016/2/3-31891_Study-Uncovers-H...
dlsx 11y ago
I don't use cellphone devices. I have a desktop computer, and my life is 100%. Maybe we don't need cell phones? I think they are generally overused and do not accomplish anything productive in comparison. Mobile is the past. Rooms are the future.
drostie 11y ago
Please note that they were not able to prove that having your cell phone near your groin correlated with abnormal sperm. Rather, they found a correlation with being very chatty and being chatty while charging. Correlations, of course, are also not causation. For example, there is no control in this study which rules out an effect like "some men have less testosterone, and this causes them to both be more glued to their phones (using while charging), more social on their phones (talking for over an hour a day), and to have a higher incidence of abnormal sperm." It's sort of like a headline: "If you're shorter, you may be a better parent: a study found an inverse correlation between height and how much time you spend with your kids." You'd be tempted to disbelieve me until I tell you that on average, women are shorter and also spend more time with their kids. If in this case we know the causes, how much more difficult is it when we don't to isolate the confounding variables?
sokoloff 11y ago
From the abstract: Some studies have shown a continuous decline in semen quality since the beginning of the 20th century. One postulated contributing factor is radio frequency electromagnetic radiation emitted from cell phones. If the decline is since the start of the 20th century (1901), cell phones are unlikely to be a primary cause. The first cell phone was in 1973 and they didn't become commonplace until the end of the 20th or start of the 21st century. Unclear if the premise is wrongly stated or if the authors are confusing the 20th and 21st century.
tomp 11y ago
Hm... judging by the cover, this looks like absolute crap. > Some studies have shown a continuous decline in semen quality since the beginning of the 20th century. Studies also indicate a continuous decline in testosterone (in males) over 20th century. I'd welcome someone correct my biological knowledge, but I would guess that testosterone influences production of sperm, not the other way round. So they're probably studying the wrong thing. > One postulated contributing factor is radio frequency electromagnetic radiation emitted from cell phones. So... how do you then explain the decline from 1900 until 1990?!? > Questionnaires accessing demographic data and characteristics of cell phone usage were completed by 106 men Trying to do statistics on a small, ... > referred for semen analysis ... biased sample, seriously?! I'm too paranoidly afraid of the negative effects of radiation, but even I'm inclined to call bullshit on this study.
- airza 11y ago
  The authors note that it is a contributing factor, which means it is not the only factor. I'm not really sure why people referred for semen analysis would be a biasing factor in this when it is present in both test groups. It seems like it would be the only reasonable way to get statistical power in a study like this since if the effect is small and most people don't suffer from it there would be a much larger sample size required.
  - tomp 11y ago
    > I'm not really sure why people referred for semen analysis would be a biasing factor in this when it is present in both test groups. It seems like it would be the only reasonable way to get statistical power in a study like this since if the effect is small and most people don't suffer from it there would be a much larger sample size required. You're right, everything else being equal, that probably wouldn't be the biggest issue... Although in this specific case, it seems like a way to amplify the effect - if this study would be done on the general population, where (1) almost everybody uses mobile phones extensively, and (2) presumably, men are less likely to have poor sperm than in this focus group, the resulting effect would be diluted (as in most cases, mobile phone usage would not result in poorer sperm quality).
- 11y ago
Gnarl 11y ago
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15368378.2015.1043557 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15368378.2015.104...
cozzyd 11y ago
I think you can pretty much reproduce their study from the percentages with the following table (they claim 26 of the 106 did not meet study eligibility criteria, but the total seems to be 79? but then the total isn't consistent between the two categories; I didn't read carefully enough to see if the discrepancy is explained) categories abnormal semen (n=34) normal semen (n=45) talk >1h 14 9 <=1h 20 36 while chging? yes 12 6 no 21 38 It's interesting to note that they actually collected more data than < 1h and >1h (they more finely categorized it as 0-30, 30-60, 60-120 and 120+). The freedom to choose the boundary there should count against the p-value. Of course, it would be nice if they treated hours talking on phone as a continuous variable instead of a discrete <1h and >1h. With the freedom to set that boundary (if they had that), it would reduce the associated p-value. Either way, it's very unlikely that the cause is RF radiation and not some confounding variable. Radiation damage is pretty much excluded, and I don't think there can be any effect on the impulses of the nervous system, which I think operates in the kHz, very far away from the 800 MHz+ from cell phones. Talking while charging seems very unlikely to be related to any radiation, but might be associated with talking while driving or a sedentary lifestyle or something like that.
- scott_s 11y ago
  I also noticed that discrepancy in the "talking while charging column"; 21 + 12 = 33 != 34. I briefly looked for an explanation in the text, but I could not find one.

143 points by pwm 11y ago

>> a non-significantly higher rate of abnormal sperm concentration was found (47.1% versus 11.1%). As someone contemplating a vasectomy, that's not quite the result I was hoping for. Sure would be easier to just keep my phone in my front pocket. Though, I suppose I'm not really sure what "abnormal" sperm end up doing. It's kind of implied that means they just don't work when the abstract starts out "Male infertility constitutes 30–40% of all infertility cases." but what if those sperm cause birth defects instead? Seems like that's a far from ideal result as well. As always... "Investigation using large-scale studies is thus needed."

facepalm 11y ago
Maybe somebody could create an app for that, somehow optimize the radiation for killing sperms...
- UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
  There is research on ultrasound devices which do what you're asking. Designed to work as short-medium term contraceptives[0]. That isn't how smartphones kill sperm however, just as an aside for getting the same-ish results. [0] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scientists-zap-sperm-counts-with-ultrasound-next-male-birth-control/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scientists-zap-sperm-counts-with...
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    Thanks for that link. Interesting. There's also the evidence... which needs more corroboration to be sure... that heat above a certain temperature kills them or weakens them. Small scale experiments and survey of blast-furnace workers provided evidence for it. With both, the fertility went back to normal I think a few months after they left the environment where they were overheated. So, initial evidence for sperm-killing heat to be a safe and effective contraceptive. Doesn't feel as bad as you'd think, either.
pbhjpbhj 11y ago
Perhaps you can boost radiation levels by leaving your phone on a call with a white noise generator and tuck the phone in the front of your [under]pants.

ngold5 11y ago

Would need to see the full article to find out the size of their sample, but their confidence intervals are quite tight for a study of this nature, and they add in the caveat of further research being needed. This should be a least a warning correlation for cell phone users, and will make me rethink some of my usage habits.

wwkeyboard 11y ago
Or the 5th sentence of the abstract: > Questionnaires accessing demographic data and characteristics of cell phone usage were completed by 106 men referred for semen analysis And this article isn't recommending a change in behavior, only further study: > Investigation using large-scale studies is thus needed.
- evils 11y ago
  "Investigation using large-scale studies is thus needed." Which would be the conclusion of pretty much any result that they could have had. I could have given you that recommendation even without conducting a study at all.
vasilipupkin 11y ago
this study is virtually useless from statistical point of view. Sampling bias, lack of control for confounding effects and other issues mean you should not in any way use this study as a guide for any changes in behavior. Sure, I understand, they did add a caveat that more study is needed. Just saying, do not use this study as a reason to do anything differently

codeshaman 11y ago

Good! There's too many of us already. 6.8 billion phones today means 6.8 billion pieces of high tech garbage a couple of years later, leaking all kinds of toxic shit into the water, plus 6.8 billion new devices manufactured while digging up all kinds of precious materials out of the ground and using oil to transport them all over the world, then burning coal, heating oil and natural gas to melt and glue shit together, and then burn more oil to transport the finished devices to customers all over the world. That helps climate change, which leads to droughts in places like Brazil, determining people to use bathtubs to catch every drop of rain, were mosquitos breed and then fly around spreading Zika. More phones and more porn, that's what's needed for a happy future. /sarcasm

hellbanner 11y ago
It really is disgusting how temporary cellphones are built. Where are the modular personal computers?
- mohn 11y ago
  Europe [1]. I was very interested when I first saw some Fairphone 2 buzz online a couple months ago, but I'm a little apprehensive about water resistance and the price (525 EUR). Also, most people probably wouldn't have this problem, but I'd have to switch to a different cell provider to use an FP2. [1] https://www.fairphone.com/phone/ https://www.fairphone.com/phone/

strebler 11y ago

Other studies show significantly decreased mobility and sperm quality as well (some in-vitro with microscope). Anecdotally, I'm quite confident this was a factor with our 2nd child. With our 1st, I didn't own a cell phone and he was conceived literally the first try. I bought a smart phone when he was 1, which I carried in my pocket. A few years later, we wanted another child - tried for 10 months with no results! Frustrating. I randomly found some studies covering this exact subject in mid July. I started putting my phone into my backpack. August, our 2nd was on his way. For anyone who's having troubles, I would strongly advise to take the phone out of your pocket. It might even be best for everyone to do so - who knows the long term effects.

blowski 11y ago
The long term effects _could_ be lower rates of cancer, so taking this advice would be a bad idea. I've pretty much always had my phone in my pocket for the last 15 years. Two years ago, my wife and I had a child - no problems. I'm not saying you're right or wrong, but you need a much greater pool of data before making claims.
evils 11y ago
Fertility decreases with age, especially in women. That your second child took longer to conceive than the first is no evidence of anything and even less of the influence of cell phone ownership. You might just as well claim that having your first child decreased your fertility, or anything else that happened to you in between. (Bought a new car? A new TV? Different brand toothpaste?)
- pc86 11y ago
  Crest is notorious for decreasing sperm motility. /s
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
pc86 11y ago
> I'm quite confident this was a factor with our 2nd child. You have absolutely no way of knowing that - you're more likely to be wrong than right.

nxzero 11y ago

Not an expert on critical analysis of research, but seems like there's a bit of selection bias given the population studied wanted to reproduce and was referred to the study based on being unable to do so.

maxerickson 11y ago
There could be an over-represented subgroup of the general population who are more susceptible to the cell phone radiation, but selecting from that group would not necessarily obscure the relationship between the amount of cell phone use and any resulting biological impact. They don't go very far out on the limb, they say that it probably justifies a bigger study, which is pretty mild.
- cyphar 11y ago
  > There could be an over-represented subgroup of the general population who are more susceptible to the cell phone radiation, but selecting from that group would not necessarily obscure the relationship between the amount of cell phone use and any resulting biological impact. That's not what he said. If you read the abstract, it says that the candidates were chosen using "questionnaires accessing demographic data and characteristics of cell phone usage were completed by 106 men referred for semen analysis." The fact that they were referred for semen analysis (read: they were having trouble reproducing) indicates there'd be a selection bias in their study. And without a control group, it's all hand-waving anyway. > They don't go very far out on the limb, they say that it probably justifies a bigger study, which is pretty mild. In order to do it properly, they'd need a much bigger study and a much better sample.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    My point was that the selection bias proposed will not necessarily obscure a biological effect (or at least, correlation). Setting aside the legitimacy of pursuing this research, looking for effects using statistical analyses of medical records is an interesting way to direct at least a small amount of research, saying that such questions can only be asked when there is solid control of every factor is probably not a win.

evils 11y ago

If I interpret the abstract correctly, the change in sperm they observed was only correlated to talking on a cell phone whilst charging it (that is, holding it next to your head), where keeping it right next to the groin did not show any significant influence? That doesn't sound like a plausible outcome of radiation having any influence.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

yummyfajitas 11y ago

I can't critique the article directly, since it's behind a paywall. But I can take the purported results and do some Bayesian analysis with it. Take first a prior - due to my knowledge of physics, my prior on microwave/RF/visual radiation having any biological effect is 10^{-5}. Multiphoton ionization has simply never been observed to happen except under extremely intense (read: it'll melt you) fields and there are strong theoretical reasons to believe it won't happen. I.e., if this effect is real, it'll require new physics to explain. Most likely 10^{-5} is a conservative prior on the likelihood that an experimental paper overturns quantum mechanics. Now, lets take their strongest result (p = 0.02) and do a Bayes update with it, assuming a complete absense of selection bias/etc (i.e. imagining this was a perfect RCT). P(effect false | experiment result) = P(experiment result | effect false) P(effect false) / P(experiment result) = 0.02 x (1-10^{-5}) / P(experiment result) We can compute the latter as P(experiment result | effect false) x (1 - 10^{-5}) + P(experiment result | effect real) x 10^{-5} \approx 0.02 x 1.0. Assuming optimistically that the statistical power - aka P(experiment result | effect real) - is 0.99, the bottom is 0.020009700000000002. Plugging and chugging yields: P(effect false | experiment result) = 0.9995052399586201 Or equivalently P(effect real | experiment result) = 0.000494760041379938. As a result, assuming you believe strongly in quantum physics (I do), this experiment provides wildly insufficient data to overturn QM and believe the effect is real. Note: I'm not explaining here why quantum mechanics says multiphoton ionization is a tiny effect, negligible in biological applications, I'm just going to argue by authority: https://www.chrisstucchio.com/publications.html https://www.chrisstucchio.com/publications.html

dekhn 11y ago
Like many people, you're starting from assumption of the mechanism (ionization) and ignoring the fact that there are many other known physical mechanisms that are plausible. Also, if people detect a reliable signal without a plausible physical mechanism, best thing to do is determine what the cause of the signal is- rather than just assuming it's impossible. In grad school we were taught to do "back of the envelope" calculations to rule out improbably hypotheses, but I often found the physics people convinced (I think they used the term "proved impossible") themselves things wouldn't work, then after 5-7 years of grad school, managed to come up with actual physical data that showed they had made a false assumption.

analog31 11y ago

I don't know the inner details of cell phone technology, but as I understand it, the phone throttles its radio output power based on the quality of the signal, to conserve battery. Thus, usage in hours isn't exactly a measure of RF dose.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

cyphar 11y ago

I don't even need to read the actual paper in order to debunk it. They admit a selection bias in their fucking abstract: "Questionnaires accessing demographic data and characteristics of cell phone usage were completed by 106 men referred for semen analysis."

z3t4 11y ago

Don't play with your phone instead of your partner or penis.

zyxzevn 11y ago

The problem is that we have a bad model to describe the effect of EM-waves on biological tissue. Currently the model defines biological bodies as containers of water. This is clearly wrong. What I propose is standard antenna science. Something needs to resonate with the biological systems. In artificial antennas there are free electrons. In biological bodies there are ions and polar molecules. Most proteins are diamagnetic, except when they are in reaction. These are the things that we need to concentrate on. There are also new discoveries that show that biology uses quantum super position states in some of the important proteins. This allows these proteins to be far more sensitive to electromagnetism. For example: the magnetic sense of birds depend on it. Another example is chlorophyll, which becomes more sensitive to light (which is an EM-wave) than usual. Other discoveries show that DNA might be a conductor. And in combination with EM-radiation the functioning of parts of the DNA can be reduced or enhanced. This is new science which clearly shows that we were wrong about the effect of electromagnetism and biology before. Also interesting are processes in biology that have certain frequencies of themselves like the firing of neurons. And other repetitive processes like the transcoding of DNA to RNA and of RNA to proteins. Note that all these antenna possibilities depend on certain frequencies. On some frequencies we might see no result at all, while on others it affects a certain process in a negative or even positive way. And looking a the actual research at http://www.microwavenews.com http://www.microwavenews.com this seems to be the case. A lot of research show some kind of effect (negative and positive), while others don't. Sadly many scientists do not know much about both biology and antennas. They usually talk about ionization and heat, which are not the problem at all. It is actually very stupid to see that as the problem. I do not think that EM-radiation is totally bad. It is just something that is damaging on the long term due to stress and disturbance of the biological processes and systems (when they resonate with the specific frequencies of the signals).

zyxzevn 11y ago
Scientific evidence proving my point: http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2016/2/3-31891_Study-Uncovers-How-Electromagnetic-Fields-Amplify-_story-wide.html?WT.mc_id=NewsHomePageCenterColumn http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2016/2/3-31891_Study-Uncovers-H...

dlsx 11y ago

I don't use cellphone devices. I have a desktop computer, and my life is 100%. Maybe we don't need cell phones? I think they are generally overused and do not accomplish anything productive in comparison. Mobile is the past. Rooms are the future.

drostie 11y ago

Please note that they were not able to prove that having your cell phone near your groin correlated with abnormal sperm. Rather, they found a correlation with being very chatty and being chatty while charging. Correlations, of course, are also not causation. For example, there is no control in this study which rules out an effect like "some men have less testosterone, and this causes them to both be more glued to their phones (using while charging), more social on their phones (talking for over an hour a day), and to have a higher incidence of abnormal sperm." It's sort of like a headline: "If you're shorter, you may be a better parent: a study found an inverse correlation between height and how much time you spend with your kids." You'd be tempted to disbelieve me until I tell you that on average, women are shorter and also spend more time with their kids. If in this case we know the causes, how much more difficult is it when we don't to isolate the confounding variables?

sokoloff 11y ago

From the abstract: Some studies have shown a continuous decline in semen quality since the beginning of the 20th century. One postulated contributing factor is radio frequency electromagnetic radiation emitted from cell phones. If the decline is since the start of the 20th century (1901), cell phones are unlikely to be a primary cause. The first cell phone was in 1973 and they didn't become commonplace until the end of the 20th or start of the 21st century. Unclear if the premise is wrongly stated or if the authors are confusing the 20th and 21st century.

tomp 11y ago

Hm... judging by the cover, this looks like absolute crap. > Some studies have shown a continuous decline in semen quality since the beginning of the 20th century. Studies also indicate a continuous decline in testosterone (in males) over 20th century. I'd welcome someone correct my biological knowledge, but I would guess that testosterone influences production of sperm, not the other way round. So they're probably studying the wrong thing. > One postulated contributing factor is radio frequency electromagnetic radiation emitted from cell phones. So... how do you then explain the decline from 1900 until 1990?!? > Questionnaires accessing demographic data and characteristics of cell phone usage were completed by 106 men Trying to do statistics on a small, ... > referred for semen analysis ... biased sample, seriously?! I'm too paranoidly afraid of the negative effects of radiation, but even I'm inclined to call bullshit on this study.

airza 11y ago
The authors note that it is a contributing factor, which means it is not the only factor. I'm not really sure why people referred for semen analysis would be a biasing factor in this when it is present in both test groups. It seems like it would be the only reasonable way to get statistical power in a study like this since if the effect is small and most people don't suffer from it there would be a much larger sample size required.
- tomp 11y ago
  > I'm not really sure why people referred for semen analysis would be a biasing factor in this when it is present in both test groups. It seems like it would be the only reasonable way to get statistical power in a study like this since if the effect is small and most people don't suffer from it there would be a much larger sample size required. You're right, everything else being equal, that probably wouldn't be the biggest issue... Although in this specific case, it seems like a way to amplify the effect - if this study would be done on the general population, where (1) almost everybody uses mobile phones extensively, and (2) presumably, men are less likely to have poor sperm than in this focus group, the resulting effect would be diluted (as in most cases, mobile phone usage would not result in poorer sperm quality).
11y ago

Gnarl 11y ago

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15368378.2015.1043557 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15368378.2015.104...

cozzyd 11y ago

I think you can pretty much reproduce their study from the percentages with the following table (they claim 26 of the 106 did not meet study eligibility criteria, but the total seems to be 79? but then the total isn't consistent between the two categories; I didn't read carefully enough to see if the discrepancy is explained) categories abnormal semen (n=34) normal semen (n=45) talk >1h 14 9 <=1h 20 36 while chging? yes 12 6 no 21 38 It's interesting to note that they actually collected more data than < 1h and >1h (they more finely categorized it as 0-30, 30-60, 60-120 and 120+). The freedom to choose the boundary there should count against the p-value. Of course, it would be nice if they treated hours talking on phone as a continuous variable instead of a discrete <1h and >1h. With the freedom to set that boundary (if they had that), it would reduce the associated p-value. Either way, it's very unlikely that the cause is RF radiation and not some confounding variable. Radiation damage is pretty much excluded, and I don't think there can be any effect on the impulses of the nervous system, which I think operates in the kHz, very far away from the 800 MHz+ from cell phones. Talking while charging seems very unlikely to be related to any radiation, but might be associated with talking while driving or a sedentary lifestyle or something like that.

scott_s 11y ago
I also noticed that discrepancy in the "talking while charging column"; 21 + 12 = 33 != 34. I briefly looked for an explanation in the text, but I could not find one.