Radio / TV / Cell phone radiation dangerous?

[Beiss]

Hello

This discussion started in a thread where it shouldn't have, so I'm moving it here. Hopefully someone who really knows this stuff can be of help.

A tumor in your jaw? ... now I feel like I should get some screening too. What if I have cancer? You're only like 20 years old, damnit! I'm older than you! Is it because you use cell phones too much? ... well, good luck to you.

I assure you Beiss, cell phone cancer is a myth. Cell phones use harmless radio signals just like your tv antennae and radio does.

Neither TV nor Radio signals are healthy if you're exposed to them for too long and too much - but TV and Radio antennaes are usually pretty far away from you. It's only reasonable to believe that if a big transmitter can hurt you, so can a small one. Especially if it's located less than an inch from your brain. But if using a cell phone is enough to actually cause brain cancer, regardless of how much you use it - now, that is a matter of debate. I wouldn't rule it out.

If radio signals were dangerous, we would be dead ages ago.
Those transmitters emanates radiation in all directions, not just
transmitter -----------------------------> receiver.
Radio signals have a long wave interval, which means poor energy and long range. Radio signals aren't strong enough to make an impact.
Gamma-radiation, on the other hand, does.

Radio signals aren't dangerous to us because we are too far away from the source for the intensity of the signal to affect us. The sun's light is not dangerous to us here on Earth (unless we expose ourselves to powerful sunlight for too long, even though this is because of UV light which a cell phone does not transmit), but if you get closer, it starts to be. It's dangerous to be standing right next to a powerful radio transmitter, or touching one. It's like being in a microwave oven. Because we never get close to the transmitters, it's not dangerous for us. Private use transmitters are not powerful enough to be dangerous even in close range, but the ones I used while doing my military service certainly were. Our officers told us about a guy who had been standing right next to one of them when it was transmitting, and he'd ended up in a hospital. His blood has practically started to boil.

Even cell phones can cause a raise in temperature in your head. The effect is very weak and it's most likely not dangerous. I'm just saying it could be. The jaw is a pretty weird place to get cancer, if you ask me...

No they give off alpha rays which are not bad at all. 1 layer of skin can block it.

Gamma rays are the worst.

Beta are in microwaves, and metal blocks that.

Alpha blocked by- Clothes and skin
Beta- Thin metal and Plastic
Gamma- 15-30" of Lead (still doesn't stop all of it)

What emits Alpha rays now? Radios?

Finally, this:

Because of their charge and large mass, alpha particles are easily absorbed by materials and can travel only a few centimeters in air. They can be absorbed by tissue paper or the outer layers of human skin (about 40 micrometres, equivalent to a few cells deep) and so are not generally dangerous to life unless the source is ingested or inhaled. Because of this high mass and strong absorption, however, if alpha radiation does enter the body (most often because radioactive material has been inhaled or ingested), it is the most destructive form of ionizing radiation. It is the most strongly ionizing, and with large enough doses can cause any or all of the symptoms of radiation poisoning. It is estimated that chromosome damage from alpha particles is about 100 times greater than that caused by an equivalent amount of other radiation.

So, what do the wizgeeks say?

[tnick777]

Well as I said in the other thread.

Alpha rays shouldn't cause much harm.

but then again high concentrated levels of it might or might not.

I'm not scientist.

What else do other people think?

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

What about microwaves? Anything that can boil water without fire scares me.

[Mathias]

Alpha particles only comes from radioactive material, so I dont see how they are even relevant to this thread.

[Beiss]

Neither do I. It's not like radio signals or cell phones use alpha radiation. If they did, and if alpha rays are stopped by skin, then how can you speak using a cell phone if you're indoors? And microwaves using beta rays? No. It's all electromagnetic radiation, like gamma rays.

[boofhead]

Well I read that if you put a mobile phone on stand-by mode or whatever for 2 days inside a chicken...it will cook it.

Urban myth? I don't know as I don't own one - I am waiting for most of the world to die of brain cancer so that I can reap the rewards

[Beiss]

Yeah, but that only works because the chicken is dead. A living person can repair damaged tissue faster than the cell phone can hurt you, if it does. But I'm not sure about chromosomal damages. Those are more difficult to repair, not to mention identify.

[boofhead]

I think that is the problem with most new gizmos and food technologies these days. Some things need decades of tests before any side effects will come out (e.g.thalidamide), but by that time it may be too late for many.

Recently Greenpeace sued a GM food company to force them to release the results of studies their independently employed testers had produced. The results: mice & rats spawned cancerous lesions when fed on the GM corn as opposed to the control group.

Any action by government as of yet? Nope. Too much money to be made by producers with an unknown product and too many donations pending to political parties. What a joke.

[Athokas]

Actually, alpha rays are the most dangerous. Then beta and at last gamma. It is correct that alpha are stopped by your skin, and that they are very very short, but IF they got in your system, they would be far the most dangerous. What makes gamma dangerous is that they are hard to stop.

[tnick777]

Actually, alpha rays are the most dangerous. Then beta and at last gamma. It is correct that alpha are stopped by your skin, and that they are very very short, but IF they got in your system, they would be far the most dangerous. What makes gamma dangerous is that they are hard to stop.

True.

b are pure energy. No mass at all. It is hardest to stop so it penetrates.


And Cellphones/TV's/Microwaves/WiFi Connectors/Nuclear Bombs etc (anything with signal) gives off radiation.

[Beiss]

And no tax money will have to be used to pay for the healthcare of everyone who gets this cancer. Smart. No wonder the government is so opposed to introducing a common health insurance. I wonder, if they did, would they then actively start working to ban tobacco and other carcinogenous substances? Right now, there's no reason for them to care, really. It's not their problem if people get ill.

[boofhead]

In Australia we have universal health care (it rocks - thought you did in Upsalla too Mr.Ghost Rider (LOL)) - the govt basically ummed and arred about the report and said that more studies are needed blah blah blah.

It makes me glad that I am somewhat of a techno-Luddite. Got my first PC at 32. Don't have a mobile phone or microwave. Don't drink tapwater. We grow our own organic vegies (very cheap, fast and easy) in a small backyard - enough to feed a family of 5. Also, meat can be slaughtered, butchered & delivered around here without need for the abottoir middle-man- no pesticides in the food chain, no shite at all.

We plebs have to keep an eye on the goings on of government when it comes to our daily requirements (incl. electronic).

[Mathias]

Because of the natural background radiation 500 million ionizations happen in our body every second and our body is able to cope with that, so I doubt a cell phone will make much difference.

[The Fish]

As far as I have read, cell phone use has never been linked to an increase in neoplastic growth. They simply aren't powerful enough to make a significant difference in the rate of mutations.

If mocker got "a tumor in his jaw" in his 20s, there's a good chance it is a familial inherited problem, rather than an environmental one (although that still is possible). Burkitt lymphoma, for instance, commonly presents as a tumor in the jaw, and is often tied to a specific chromosomal abnormality ( a chr. 8, 14 translocation, to be specific), especially in young people of West African descent. There are a number of other possible types of tumors that this could be, including salivary gland tumors (both benign and malignant). Trying to tie any of these to increased cell phone use is basically impossible.

[chris_uk_83]

Right, where to start with the technobabble?

Whoever said radio emits alpha has no idea what alpha radiation is or where it comes from, ditto beta from microwaves. Allow me to give a short lesson on radiation.

Alpha
Is emitted by some radioactive materials. It consists of a helium nucleus (2 protons and 2 neutrons). The only way to get alpha particles is to undergo a radioactive decay. Alpha is not that damaging if you just have an alpha source sat near you since alpha particles are absorbed by a few cm of air.

However, the danger lies with materials that give off alpha emitters. These are small particles (like dust) that themselves emit alpha. If you inhale this, you have an alpha source inside you and it's very bad, since, due to their large mass and charge, alpha is the most damaging type of ionising radiation. In your body, there is nothing to absorb the alpha particles and they're free to ionise your cells; giving off free radicals and causing mutations. Bad

Beta
Again, particles. This time it's single electrons, which aren't that dangerous either in small amounts (your TV shoots them at you all the time if you have a CRT). They're stopped by a few mm of skin, so they'll generally only cause skin cancers and skin badness.

You can make beta radiation slightly more easily than alpha but it makes no sense at all to say that microwaves give off beta radiation, because they just don't. (Though you do technically use beta particles to create microwaves). If anything beta radiation gives off microwaves when it is slowed down.

Microwave ovens are NOT a beta source, neither are mobile phones or radio transmitters.

Electromagnetic Radiaion
This covers radio waves (including TV), microwaves, infra red, visible light, ultra violet, x-rays and gamma rays. It's all the same stuff: a beam of electromagnetic radiation. The difference between the different types is only the wavelength of the beam (and therefore its energy).

Shorter wavelength = higher energy. Radio is lowest energy, gamma is highest. The others are listed in order of ascending energy above. Look up the electromagnetic spectrum.

Now any EM radiation can be dangerous if it can ionise your cells. Only UV and above though has sufficient energy to displace electrons from atoms (this is one type of ionisation). Though lower energy waves can deposit energy in cells, causing some damage (though you need massive powers for this to actually happen).

The reson microwave ovens work is that they use a very very specific wavelength. This frequency (frequency and wavelength are directly related, so they get interchanged a lot), is the resonant frequency of water. This basically means that water will absorb a lot of energy from EM radiation at this frequency. Energy absorbed is converted to heat, so your food gets hot becasue the water gets energetic and jiggles around more.

Mobile phones use microwaves of a different frequency. This frequency is not the resonant frequency of water and therefore it does not 'cook your brain'. However, the microwaves emitted from a mobile phone may impart a small amount of energy to the cells close by. As yet the evidence as to whether this causes cancer or not is inconclusive.

There is no short term evidence to suggest mobile phones cause cancer, but the long term evidence has not yet been collected (since everyone's not had a phone for long enough).

Since everything these days is supposed to cause cancer I wouldn't worry too much about very useful mobile phones.

[Beiss]

Since everything these days is supposed to cause cancer I wouldn't worry too much about very useful mobile phones.

Very true, though.

But what about this?

It's a common misconception that the microwaves in a microwave oven excite a natural resonance in water. The frequency of a microwave oven is well below any natural resonance in an isolated water molecule, and in liquid water those resonances are so smeared out that they're barely noticeable anyway. It's kind of like playing a violin under water--the strings won't emit well-defined tones in water because the water impedes their vibrations. Similarly, water molecules don't emit (or absorb) well-defined tones in liquid water because their clinging neighbors impede their vibrations.Instead of trying to interact through a natural resonance in water, a microwave oven just exposes the water molecules to the intense electromagnetic fields in strong, non-resonant microwaves. The frequency used in microwave ovens (2,450,000,000 cycles per second or 2.45 GHz) is a sensible but not unique choice. Waves of that frequency penetrate well into foods of reasonable size so that the heating is relatively uniform throughout the foods. Since leakage from these ovens makes the radio spectrum near 2.45 GHz unusable for communications, the frequency was chosen in part because it would not interfere with existing communication systems.

Microwave heating is sometimes incorrectly explained as a rotational resonance of water molecules: such resonance only occurs at much higher frequencies, in the tens of gigahertz. Moreover, large industrial/commercial microwave ovens operating in the 900 MHz range also heat water and food perfectly well.

Also,

Microwave radiation is a form of non-ionizing radiation and therefore has little to no effect at the molecular level. It is, for instance, incapable of causing cancer via DNA damage, something that more energetic X-rays and gamma rays are quite capable of. Heating is often observed, but the harm this may cause is unknown. Other possible hazards are, as mentioned, still being studied.

[Beiss]

Nukes emit all kinds of radiation though, even sound (if that can be counted as a radiation... probably not)

And no, beta is not pure energy, gamma is (well, we still don't know for sure whether photons are particles or just energy), but I'm guessing you meant gamma, not beta. Beta is electrons, as chris stated above.

[tnick777]

Nukes emit all kinds of radiation though, even sound (if that can be counted as a radiation... probably not)

And no, beta is not pure energy, gamma is (well, we still don't know for sure whether photons are particles or just energy), but I'm guessing you meant gamma, not beta. Beta is electrons, as chris stated above.

the B is the sign for Gamma

[chris_uk_83]

It's a common misconception that the microwaves in a microwave oven excite a natural resonance in water.

Tell you what, I'll investigate this further as you may well be right, I'm basing what I'm saying on what I've been told and not detailed study. If I come back and find you're right you get + rep for teaching me something

[Beiss]

Yeah, someone told me about this a while ago, and I didn't know what makes microwaves work then either, still don't. I just reacted when you wrote it because I'd been told it wasn't true. Glad to be of help