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Would you like airline staff to treat you like a sack of potatoes? Fat chance! you might say. Well, it’s too late! Engineers of Boeings aircraft used sacks of potatoes as stand-ins for passengers while they tested aircraft Wi-Fi signals—because, they said, potatoes behave in a similar way to the signals to humans. Really? Apparently none of the 9000kg of potatoes developed headaches, irritability, memory or concentration problems, depression or brain tumours
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Internet addiction is soon to be considered a psychiatric disorder. There’s no doubting the value of the internet. A virtual personalized library, it makes information on every conceivable topic available at the touch of the fingertips and provides services from internet banking and online shopping to social networking. But overuse of the internet is something else altogether.
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Spending too much time in front of the screen is having a devastating effect on the lives of children, says a prominent pediatrician from Sweden. ‘Many children spend most of their waking hours in front of the screen,’ said Professor Hugo Lagercrantz in January, writing in the journal of the Swedish Medical Association. This includes time spent on DVDs, computers, laptops, smart phones, video games and TVs—often in multiple rooms of a house.
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ADHD,
children,
criminal behaviour,
delayed language,
distraction,
inattention,
reduced creativity,
reduced social skills,
school,
screen time,
weight gain
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Existing standards considerably underestimate the amount of radiation absorbed by a child’s head, say researchers from the US. Radiation absorption is assessed using a model of a head that is based on the head size of the top 10% of US military personnel and is usually referred to as ‘SAM’. This is not an appropriate model to assess radiation absorption of the population, say Om Gandhi and team, because smaller heads absorb more radiation.
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An expert group in India has recommended legislation to protect wildlife from the radiation from mobile phone base stations. The group, established by the Environment and Forest Ministry, reviewed research on the effects of radiofrequency radiation on biological systems. It was chaired by Dr Asad Rahmani of the Bombay National History Society and included professors from a number of universities and institutes.
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Is it safe for teenagers to spend long periods of time on the internet—especially at a time when their brains are still maturing? Perhaps not, according to a recent study on Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD). A team of scientists from China has found that not only does heavy internet use change the structure of the brain, but it results in damage that could affect a person’s cognitive performance.
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Using a mobile phone may cause weakening of the bones, according to research from Argentina. Dr Fernando Saravi tested the bone mineralization of 48 healthy men: 24 who wore a mobile phone close to their hips and 24 who did not use mobiles. The tests assessed both bone mineral content and bone mineral density. Saravi found that men who used mobile phones had lower bone mineral content in two parts of the hip: the right femoral neck and right trochanter.
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The Health Committee of the Canadian House of Commons released its report on the safety of radiofrequency radiation following public hearings. The report, published in December, recommended that: the Government fund long-term studies on the health effects of radiofrequency radiation the scientific literature be assessed for evidence of risk from this radiation, considering electromagnetic sensitivity and public policies in other countries;
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Why is it that the Interphone and Orebro University studies on mobile phones and brain tumours have found different results? In a new paper, Dr Lennart Hardell from Orebro University in Sweden explains that the findings are not so different after all. Hardell’s team has conducted a reanalysis of the data in their previous research, applying the criteria used by the Interphone project.
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Brain tumours and childhood leukemia were the focus of discussion at the Energy Networks Association’s November workshop. On 23 November the Energy Networks Association, the peak organisation of Australia’s electrical utilities, hosted a one-day workshop featuring electromagnetic fields and mobile phone radiation. Here’s a snapshot of the presentations. Professor Bruce Armstrong World-renowned epidemiologist Professor Bruce Armstrong, from Sydney University’s School of Public Health
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A considerable lowering of guidelines and exposure to wireless microwave radiation, to a biologically-based precautionary level, with a peak-level maximum of 0.6 V/m as recommended by the BioInitiative report. Information and official warnings for the general public, regarding the health risks from wireless microwave radiation – with emphasis on increased risks for pregnant women and children.
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US Congressman, Dennis J Kucinich is planning to introduce legislation on mobile phone safety. The proposed bill will require warning labels for mobile phones with information about SAR levels, an update of the ‘decades-old’ standard and a national research program to study the health effects of mobile phone radiation. ‘Consumers have a right to know whether they are buying the phone with the lowest–or the highest–level of exposure to cell phone radiation.
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