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Can anybody explain what this means? There was a segment on This American Life a while back about how nobody's looking into the effects of cell phone radiation

Can anybody explain what this means? There was a segment on This American Life a while back about how nobody's looking into the effects of cell phone radiation on the body anymore, and that the reason isn't scientific but political, and maybe we're in lots of danger from long-term use but we don't know, etc. I didn't know what to make of it. What is non-ionizing radiation, and what grounds are there for thinking it's not dangerous?

deleted 16y ago
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bradleyland 16y ago
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ionizing+radiation+vs+non-ionizing+radiation http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ionizing+radiation+vs+non-ionizing+radi... The first link from the EPA has a really great opening that summarizes it nicely: > Radiation that has enough energy to move atoms in a molecule around or cause them to vibrate, but not enough to remove electrons, is referred to as "non-ionizing radiation." Examples of this kind of radiation are sound waves, visible light, and microwaves. > Radiation that falls within the ionizing radiation" range has enough energy to remove tightly bound electrons from atoms, thus creating ions. This is the type of radiation that people usually think of as 'radiation.' We take advantage of its properties to generate electric power, to kill cancer cells, and in many manufacturing processes. This doesn't explain exactly why scientists don't think it's dangerous, but because non-ionizing radiation doesn't cause changes in molecular structure, the effects would be far more subtle.
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  The tldr of it is, I believe, that non-ionizing radiation can't modify your molecules, e.g. it won't give you cancer. That doesn't mean it's not potentially dangerous - a bright enough light will blind you, and you can microwave yourself to death if you had an oven big enough to crawl into. But basically, if you're not afraid of your stove-top (which generates non-ionizing radiation in the near-infrared, and sometimes visible red light) your probably shouldn't worry about your phone.
alex_h 16y ago
Ionizing radiation is radiation that has enough energy to knock electrons off atoms to create ions. This can cause all sorts of damage to DNA etc. Radiation with less energy is unable to affect the structure of matter in this way, and is therefore considered not as harmful/carcinogenic. If you look at chart of the electromagnetic spectrum, http://xkcd.com/273/ http://xkcd.com/273/ , everything from Ultraviolet upwards is generally considered 'ionizing'
tesseract 16y ago
Non-ionizing radiation is radiation that isn't energetic enough to separate electrons from atoms (thereby creating ions). The radiation from a cell phone is microwave radiation, which (as you probably know) is capable of heating matter. As far as I am aware, the conjectured nature of the possible danger from cell phones is that localized heating in the brain could result in increased likelihood of cancer. So the natural questions are (a) are cell phones capable of causing a non-negligible amount of brain heating and (b) is any such heating actually carcinogenic. This is not an issue I follow particularly closely so I don't know what the current state of knowledge is with regard to either of those two questions.

deleted 16y ago

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bradleyland 16y ago

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ionizing+radiation+vs+non-ionizing+radiation http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ionizing+radiation+vs+non-ionizing+radi... The first link from the EPA has a really great opening that summarizes it nicely: > Radiation that has enough energy to move atoms in a molecule around or cause them to vibrate, but not enough to remove electrons, is referred to as "non-ionizing radiation." Examples of this kind of radiation are sound waves, visible light, and microwaves. > Radiation that falls within the ionizing radiation" range has enough energy to remove tightly bound electrons from atoms, thus creating ions. This is the type of radiation that people usually think of as 'radiation.' We take advantage of its properties to generate electric power, to kill cancer cells, and in many manufacturing processes. This doesn't explain exactly why scientists don't think it's dangerous, but because non-ionizing radiation doesn't cause changes in molecular structure, the effects would be far more subtle.

pavel_lishin 16y ago
The tldr of it is, I believe, that non-ionizing radiation can't modify your molecules, e.g. it won't give you cancer. That doesn't mean it's not potentially dangerous - a bright enough light will blind you, and you can microwave yourself to death if you had an oven big enough to crawl into. But basically, if you're not afraid of your stove-top (which generates non-ionizing radiation in the near-infrared, and sometimes visible red light) your probably shouldn't worry about your phone.

alex_h 16y ago

Ionizing radiation is radiation that has enough energy to knock electrons off atoms to create ions. This can cause all sorts of damage to DNA etc. Radiation with less energy is unable to affect the structure of matter in this way, and is therefore considered not as harmful/carcinogenic. If you look at chart of the electromagnetic spectrum, http://xkcd.com/273/ http://xkcd.com/273/ , everything from Ultraviolet upwards is generally considered 'ionizing'

tesseract 16y ago

Non-ionizing radiation is radiation that isn't energetic enough to separate electrons from atoms (thereby creating ions). The radiation from a cell phone is microwave radiation, which (as you probably know) is capable of heating matter. As far as I am aware, the conjectured nature of the possible danger from cell phones is that localized heating in the brain could result in increased likelihood of cancer. So the natural questions are (a) are cell phones capable of causing a non-negligible amount of brain heating and (b) is any such heating actually carcinogenic. This is not an issue I follow particularly closely so I don't know what the current state of knowledge is with regard to either of those two questions.