5 ms·

I thought this whole EM radiation fear was bogus. How does it even interact with the body? There are obviously no neutrons flying around..

sangnoir 3y ago
What's the link between EM emissions and neutrons?
- lagrange77 3y ago
  To my understanding there is no link.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    Once again, it all depends on the frequency! Gamma radiation is EM radiation and can cause nuclear fission [1], which in turn can release neutron radiation. I'm fairly certain that no iPhone model to date emits gamma radiation, though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photofission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photofission
    - lagrange77 3y ago
      Interesting, thanks!
- mort96 3y ago
  My guess is that "There are no neutrons flying around" is a flippant way to say it's not ionizing radiation, since the common ionizing radiation is made up of alpha particles, beta particles (electrons), neutrons or very high frequency photons. Imagine it says "It's not like there are high speed neutrons flying around".
ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago
Wasn't the point of 2.4 GHz being unregulated because it's used by microwave ovens (citation needed). It interacts strongly with water atleast
- XorNot 3y ago
  To produce thermal heating. The RF radiation fear trades off the word "radiation" and how no one actually knows what that means.
  - hedora 3y ago
    Unshielded microwave ovens definitely cause cancer. The energy penetrates the skin, and some of it plays billiards with the atoms in DNA, genetic transcription machinery, etc. I can’t find a study because the internet is full of blog spam saying your microwave oven has shielding that keeps emissions to a safe level (of course), and studies looking at microwave radiation exposure near the cell phone limit, not 1000x higher, which is roughly what your microwave does if the shielding is missing or the safety interlock is broken.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      Ionizing radiation damages DNA. But microwaves do not emit any ionizing radiation. For a microwave to damage your DNA it would have to burn your flesh. Then you wouldn't be worried about cancer, you'd be worried that you just microwaved your arm until it started burning.
      - hedora 3y ago
        It can heat below the nerve endings.
    - wongarsu 3y ago
      I thought unshielded microwave ovens are a problem because they heat stuff, and humans operate quite close to their thermal maximum. If you're at the upper end of normal body temperatures, a change of just 8°F/4°C can bring you from normal operating temperature to cell damage. That and interfering with wifi.
  - ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago
    The point is that radiation can interact with stuff without it always being ionizing, like the water/microwave interaction
lxgr 3y ago
I believe the concern is that non-ionizing radiation can still warm tissues, and depending on the frequency, these can be deeper than what normal sunlight or IR radiation would reach. Whether a few milliwats of that type of warming are actually cause for concern I don't know, but even if it's bogus, that doesn't mean that regulators will not be enforcing legal maximums anyway.
- sudhirj 3y ago
  Is a hot shower illegal in France?
  - lxgr 3y ago
    Depends on the medium! I'm fairly certain that a high-energy microwave shower would indeed be illegal. Both frequency and amplitude matter; reductive arguments like this will convince neither laypeople nor people with some understanding of physics.
  - _3u10 3y ago
    If it isn't, it's probably only because of a loophole lobbied for by Big Shower. Technically in France it's only a Shower in the shower region, outside of that geographically protected area it must be referred to as an hot water cleanse.
- lagrange77 3y ago
  > these can be deeper than what normal sunlight or IR radiation would reach Oh right, i did't think about the penetration depth.
- 6510 3y ago
  https://neurosciencenews.com/cellphone-radiation-brain-cancer-18889/ https://neurosciencenews.com/cellphone-radiation-brain-cance... >In 1996, the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, adopted exposure guidelines that limited the intensity of exposure to radiofrequency radiation. These guidelines were designed to prevent significant heating of tissue from short-term exposure to radiofrequency radiation, not to protect us from the effects of long-term exposure to low levels of modulated, or pulsed, radiofrequency radiation, which is produced by cellphones, cordless phones and other wireless devices, including Wi-Fi. >Yet, the preponderance of research published since 1990 finds adverse biologic and health effects from long-term exposure to radiofrequency radiation, including DNA damage. >More than 250 scientists, who have published over 2,000 papers and letters in professional journals on the biologic and health effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields produced by wireless devices, including cellphones, have signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, which calls for health warnings and stronger exposure limits. So, there are many scientists who agree that this radiation is harmful to our health.
mmh0000 3y ago
“Cell phone radiation increases the risk for a number of biological and health disorders, including gliomas and acoustic neuroma brain cancer. Researchers discuss how to reduce the risk of cell phone radiation.”[1] [1] https://neurosciencenews.com/cellphone-radiation-brain-cancer-18889/ https://neurosciencenews.com/cellphone-radiation-brain-cance...
- kube-system 3y ago
  To put it lightly, this isn't a well supported theory.
  - piuantiderp 3y ago
    Why? There is merit to it. Or are you waiting for a newspaper release to tell you it is well-supported?
    - boc 3y ago
      We’d have already seen a massive spike in cancer if it was true.
      - piuantiderp 3y ago
        Why a spike? Cellphone usage has been a gradual increase, just like cancer incidence rates
    - kube-system 3y ago
      The evidence is very weak establishing a risk of any kind to radio transmission at the levels exhibited in consumer devices. And the risk of cancer specifically is even weaker. The study mentioned by the person in the above article exposed rats and mice to levels far above any SAR limits, and across their entire body. The study authors themselves say it is not representative of human exposure. And even then, they found that male rats lived longer than their normal lifespans when exposed. https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/newsreleases/index.cfm/detail/857053 https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/newsreleases/index.cfm/detail/85...
paulmd 3y ago
it is, and the french are kinda catering to the wackos by letting them tinker with the EU/FCC standards. unsurprisingly when you place the phones closer than normal, you get a higher measurement, and if you do not adjust the absorption limits then wow, it's over the limit! scary! but there's no particular reason to think that this new, effectively lower absorption limit correlates to any particular health risk, or that it's a relevant threshold for absorption now that you've moved the phone closer. the fact of the matter is, if there was some major absorption risk from phones, we'd have seen an abrupt spike in cancer rates in the 2000s when like 90% of the population suddenly started carrying a phone against their body for 16 hours a day. The world’s greatest (and ethical!) A/B test lol. The evidence is already in, just from weight of mass public usage. At least at these frequencies and transmit powers.
- jwells89 3y ago
  In some countries cell phones became ubiquitous even earlier, like in Japan where they started taking off in the 90s (~1 million phones by 1991, 10 million by 1995, 50 million by 1999).
realo 3y ago
Fans of crowd control would beg to differ... But those weapons are definitely not mobile phones. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System

sangnoir 3y ago

What's the link between EM emissions and neutrons?

lagrange77 3y ago
To my understanding there is no link.
- lxgr 3y ago
  Once again, it all depends on the frequency! Gamma radiation is EM radiation and can cause nuclear fission [1], which in turn can release neutron radiation. I'm fairly certain that no iPhone model to date emits gamma radiation, though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photofission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photofission
  - lagrange77 3y ago
    Interesting, thanks!
mort96 3y ago
My guess is that "There are no neutrons flying around" is a flippant way to say it's not ionizing radiation, since the common ionizing radiation is made up of alpha particles, beta particles (electrons), neutrons or very high frequency photons. Imagine it says "It's not like there are high speed neutrons flying around".

ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago

Wasn't the point of 2.4 GHz being unregulated because it's used by microwave ovens (citation needed). It interacts strongly with water atleast

XorNot 3y ago
To produce thermal heating. The RF radiation fear trades off the word "radiation" and how no one actually knows what that means.
- hedora 3y ago
  Unshielded microwave ovens definitely cause cancer. The energy penetrates the skin, and some of it plays billiards with the atoms in DNA, genetic transcription machinery, etc. I can’t find a study because the internet is full of blog spam saying your microwave oven has shielding that keeps emissions to a safe level (of course), and studies looking at microwave radiation exposure near the cell phone limit, not 1000x higher, which is roughly what your microwave does if the shielding is missing or the safety interlock is broken.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    Ionizing radiation damages DNA. But microwaves do not emit any ionizing radiation. For a microwave to damage your DNA it would have to burn your flesh. Then you wouldn't be worried about cancer, you'd be worried that you just microwaved your arm until it started burning.
    - hedora 3y ago
      It can heat below the nerve endings.
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    I thought unshielded microwave ovens are a problem because they heat stuff, and humans operate quite close to their thermal maximum. If you're at the upper end of normal body temperatures, a change of just 8°F/4°C can bring you from normal operating temperature to cell damage. That and interfering with wifi.
- ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago
  The point is that radiation can interact with stuff without it always being ionizing, like the water/microwave interaction

lxgr 3y ago

I believe the concern is that non-ionizing radiation can still warm tissues, and depending on the frequency, these can be deeper than what normal sunlight or IR radiation would reach. Whether a few milliwats of that type of warming are actually cause for concern I don't know, but even if it's bogus, that doesn't mean that regulators will not be enforcing legal maximums anyway.

sudhirj 3y ago
Is a hot shower illegal in France?
- lxgr 3y ago
  Depends on the medium! I'm fairly certain that a high-energy microwave shower would indeed be illegal. Both frequency and amplitude matter; reductive arguments like this will convince neither laypeople nor people with some understanding of physics.
- _3u10 3y ago
  If it isn't, it's probably only because of a loophole lobbied for by Big Shower. Technically in France it's only a Shower in the shower region, outside of that geographically protected area it must be referred to as an hot water cleanse.
lagrange77 3y ago
> these can be deeper than what normal sunlight or IR radiation would reach Oh right, i did't think about the penetration depth.
6510 3y ago
https://neurosciencenews.com/cellphone-radiation-brain-cancer-18889/ https://neurosciencenews.com/cellphone-radiation-brain-cance... >In 1996, the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, adopted exposure guidelines that limited the intensity of exposure to radiofrequency radiation. These guidelines were designed to prevent significant heating of tissue from short-term exposure to radiofrequency radiation, not to protect us from the effects of long-term exposure to low levels of modulated, or pulsed, radiofrequency radiation, which is produced by cellphones, cordless phones and other wireless devices, including Wi-Fi. >Yet, the preponderance of research published since 1990 finds adverse biologic and health effects from long-term exposure to radiofrequency radiation, including DNA damage. >More than 250 scientists, who have published over 2,000 papers and letters in professional journals on the biologic and health effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields produced by wireless devices, including cellphones, have signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, which calls for health warnings and stronger exposure limits. So, there are many scientists who agree that this radiation is harmful to our health.

mmh0000 3y ago

“Cell phone radiation increases the risk for a number of biological and health disorders, including gliomas and acoustic neuroma brain cancer. Researchers discuss how to reduce the risk of cell phone radiation.”[1] [1] https://neurosciencenews.com/cellphone-radiation-brain-cancer-18889/ https://neurosciencenews.com/cellphone-radiation-brain-cance...

kube-system 3y ago
To put it lightly, this isn't a well supported theory.
- piuantiderp 3y ago
  Why? There is merit to it. Or are you waiting for a newspaper release to tell you it is well-supported?
  - boc 3y ago
    We’d have already seen a massive spike in cancer if it was true.
    - piuantiderp 3y ago
      Why a spike? Cellphone usage has been a gradual increase, just like cancer incidence rates
  - kube-system 3y ago
    The evidence is very weak establishing a risk of any kind to radio transmission at the levels exhibited in consumer devices. And the risk of cancer specifically is even weaker. The study mentioned by the person in the above article exposed rats and mice to levels far above any SAR limits, and across their entire body. The study authors themselves say it is not representative of human exposure. And even then, they found that male rats lived longer than their normal lifespans when exposed. https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/newsreleases/index.cfm/detail/857053 https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/newsreleases/index.cfm/detail/85...

paulmd 3y ago

it is, and the french are kinda catering to the wackos by letting them tinker with the EU/FCC standards. unsurprisingly when you place the phones closer than normal, you get a higher measurement, and if you do not adjust the absorption limits then wow, it's over the limit! scary! but there's no particular reason to think that this new, effectively lower absorption limit correlates to any particular health risk, or that it's a relevant threshold for absorption now that you've moved the phone closer. the fact of the matter is, if there was some major absorption risk from phones, we'd have seen an abrupt spike in cancer rates in the 2000s when like 90% of the population suddenly started carrying a phone against their body for 16 hours a day. The world’s greatest (and ethical!) A/B test lol. The evidence is already in, just from weight of mass public usage. At least at these frequencies and transmit powers.

jwells89 3y ago
In some countries cell phones became ubiquitous even earlier, like in Japan where they started taking off in the 90s (~1 million phones by 1991, 10 million by 1995, 50 million by 1999).

realo 3y ago

Fans of crowd control would beg to differ... But those weapons are definitely not mobile phones. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System