Then I asked my classmate about his personal life history. My friend said my physics teacher was a brilliant and genius student who got scholared by government to study abroad in England in 1970s. He studied there until Phd(Physics) if I'm not mistaken but didn't finish it. Why? As according to my friend, while my teacher doing Phd, he was no more a practicing muslim. He almost become an atheist and overwhelmed by his studies. Oneday, a tabligh (Muslim preacher) guy came to him and asked him to go to the path of Allah. Started from that moment he realized he had deviated away from the Islam and later he decided to quit the Phd and returned to Malaysia with his Master qualification only . The reason why he gave up his Phd is remained his . Later I concluded that the reason of his laugh was related to his life as student. He taught us about the danger of wave used by handphone back then, in which handphone was not popular and rarely seen used by people, and it was famous in 2000/01, about 1-2 years later when NOKIA 3310 hits the technolgy market. He said the wave used in handphone is almost similar to the wave used in microwave, thus our brain slowly will be cooked. Then he laughed again. We also laughed.
News 1
New Delhi, Feb 3: There have been numerous rhetoric doing the rounds on the ill-effects of mobile radiation for a while. The results are out and they are not pleasing at all. It has been found that radiation from mobile towers pose grave health risks including memory loss, lack of concentration and digestive disturbances. The fact was revealed by an Inter-ministerial committee formed by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to study the hazards posed by mobile phones.
If the damages are not lethal for humans, its even worse for birds and insects as well. The committee has attributed the radiation effects to the disappearance of butterflies, bees, insects and sparrows.
The eight-member committee, comprising representatives from the Health Ministry, Department of Biotechnology and Member Secretary, DoT. The committee found startling violations of radio frequency levels according to international standards. They have recommended that mobile phones not complying to standard levels of specific absorption rate (SAR) should be banned. SAR measures the he amount of radio frequency energy absorbed by the body while using a phone.
"The localized SAR value as per the Indian guidelines standard is 2 watt per kg, averaged over a six minute period and using a 10 gram average mass. With higher SAR values of mobile handsets the public could potentially receive much higher radio frequency exposure. We have recommended that SAR levels to be lowered down to 1.6 watt/kg, as prescribed by the Federal Communication Commission of US," a committee member said.
The committee also recommended that mobile towers not be installed in highly populated residential areas, schools, play areas and hospitals. The recommendations submitted by the committee will be used to chalk out a national policy and better guidelines on electromagnetic frequency (EMF) radiation for telecom towers.
The report also revealed the disturbing after-effects and said, “People who are chronically exposed to low-level wireless antenna emissions and users of mobile handsets have reported feeling several unspecific symptoms during and after its use, ranging from burning and tingling sensation in the skin of the head, fatigue, sleep disturbances, dizziness, lack of concentration, ringing in the ears, reaction time, loss of memory, headache, disturbance in digestive system and heart palpitation.”
A member of the fact finding mission, Dr R S Sharma who is also an ICMR scientist said that the effects of the radiation are deadlier in Indians when compared to Europeans due to their low body mass index and low fat content. The tropical climate in India also aggravating the effect. The report pointed out that children, adolescents and pregnant women could be at the maximum risk and recommends the use of hands-free technology to lower physical contact with the body and the cell phone. "People having active medical implants should keep their cellphone at least 30 cm away from the implant," it adds.
The children seem to be the worst hit with the extreme use of cell phones and according to Girish Kumar, a professor in the Dept of Electrical Engineering at IIT Bombay claims, “"There is a 400% increase in the risk of brain cancer among teenagers using cell phones for long periods. The younger the child, the deeper is the penetration of electromagnetic radiation as children`s skulls are thinner.” Girish's findings were taken into account by the government appointed committee.
Another study by the Jawaharlal Nehru University also pointed out the effects of radiation on male fertility and how it effects the defence mechanism of cells.
If the damages are not lethal for humans, its even worse for birds and insects as well. The committee has attributed the radiation effects to the disappearance of butterflies, bees, insects and sparrows.
The eight-member committee, comprising representatives from the Health Ministry, Department of Biotechnology and Member Secretary, DoT. The committee found startling violations of radio frequency levels according to international standards. They have recommended that mobile phones not complying to standard levels of specific absorption rate (SAR) should be banned. SAR measures the he amount of radio frequency energy absorbed by the body while using a phone.
"The localized SAR value as per the Indian guidelines standard is 2 watt per kg, averaged over a six minute period and using a 10 gram average mass. With higher SAR values of mobile handsets the public could potentially receive much higher radio frequency exposure. We have recommended that SAR levels to be lowered down to 1.6 watt/kg, as prescribed by the Federal Communication Commission of US," a committee member said.
The committee also recommended that mobile towers not be installed in highly populated residential areas, schools, play areas and hospitals. The recommendations submitted by the committee will be used to chalk out a national policy and better guidelines on electromagnetic frequency (EMF) radiation for telecom towers.
The report also revealed the disturbing after-effects and said, “People who are chronically exposed to low-level wireless antenna emissions and users of mobile handsets have reported feeling several unspecific symptoms during and after its use, ranging from burning and tingling sensation in the skin of the head, fatigue, sleep disturbances, dizziness, lack of concentration, ringing in the ears, reaction time, loss of memory, headache, disturbance in digestive system and heart palpitation.”
A member of the fact finding mission, Dr R S Sharma who is also an ICMR scientist said that the effects of the radiation are deadlier in Indians when compared to Europeans due to their low body mass index and low fat content. The tropical climate in India also aggravating the effect. The report pointed out that children, adolescents and pregnant women could be at the maximum risk and recommends the use of hands-free technology to lower physical contact with the body and the cell phone. "People having active medical implants should keep their cellphone at least 30 cm away from the implant," it adds.
The children seem to be the worst hit with the extreme use of cell phones and according to Girish Kumar, a professor in the Dept of Electrical Engineering at IIT Bombay claims, “"There is a 400% increase in the risk of brain cancer among teenagers using cell phones for long periods. The younger the child, the deeper is the penetration of electromagnetic radiation as children`s skulls are thinner.” Girish's findings were taken into account by the government appointed committee.
Another study by the Jawaharlal Nehru University also pointed out the effects of radiation on male fertility and how it effects the defence mechanism of cells.
SOURCE
News 2
Washington, Oct 17 (ANI): Cellphones-a basic necessity to us like water, food-emit radiation that is harmful for us, a new book has suggested.
In her new book, 'Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Has Done to Hide It, and How to Protect Your Family,' Devra Davis, an environmental health has probed why cell phone radiation is now a "national emergency."
"Among the most stunning new findings is evidence that you can cause birth defects in mice embryos from cell phone radiation. Researchers at the University of Athens] looked at fatal development and studied pregnant mice exposed to smart phones. And they looked at the offspring of the mice and they found basic defects in their brain structure and skeleton," ABC News quoted Davis as saying.
"[In one study], they showed significant damage in the exposed mice embryos. And they showed, for example, mice normally have 13 pairs of ribs and the exposed mice sometimes had less or their cartilage was ossified, meaning it was kind of fused. And they showed other defects in the skeleton and head bone that were associated with the radiation from the smartphone - to 3G [smartphones].
"Other work that's been done has to do with damage to the ovaries and testes of the fruit fly. The fruit fly, as you may know, has been very well studied by science and they have shown that the ovaries and testes of a fruitful can be shrivelled up by radiation," she said.
Meanwhile, the wireless industry says that the amount of radiation emitted by cell phones is very low.
"It's not the amount of radiation, it's the nature of the signal, because, in fact, these phones are very, very weak. They're very low-power but it's the pulsed, digital nature of the signal that I'm more concerned about," she said.
In her book, Davis said the nature of the signal is especially harmful because it is constantly searching for a connection with a cell tower. Exposure is increased in areas of weak reception because the radio signal has to increase as the phone seeks a connection.
"I think the impact on fertility and sterility should be way up. Sperm naturally will die but the sperm exposed to cell phone radiation dies faster and don't swim as well," added Davis.
Davis also said that in addition to brain illness, memory loss is a serious issue. (ANI)
SOURCE
News 3
London, Oct 16 (ANI): Texting, browsing, playing games, taking directions, listening to music are the things you use your cellphone for. But now it can be used to fight diseases.
Cellphones would start a fight against diseases by relaying a telltale signature of illness to doctors and agencies monitoring new outbreaks.
"This technology is an early warning system," New Scientist quoted Anmol Madan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as saying.
Madan's team concluded that you could spot cases of flu by looking for changes in the movement and communication patterns of infected people.
This technology could be an early warning system to enable us to pot outbreaks of influenza
Epidemiologists know that disease outbreaks change mobility patterns, but until now have been unable to track these patterns in any detail.
So Madan and colleagues gave cellphones to 70 students in an undergraduate dormitory. The phones came with software that supplied the team with anonymous data on the students' movements, phone calls and text messages.
The students also completed daily surveys on their mental and physical health.
A characteristic signature of illness emerged from the data, which was gathered over a 10-week period in early 2009.
Students who came down with a fever or full-blown flu tended to move around less and make fewer calls late at night and early in the morning.
When Madan trained software to hunt for this signature in the cellphone data, a daily check correctly identified flu victims 90 per cent of the time.
The technique could be used to monitor the health status of individuals who live alone.
Madan is developing a smartphone app that will alert a named contact, perhaps a relative or doctor, when a person's communication and movement patterns suggest that they are ill.
Public health officials could also use the technique to spot emerging outbreaks of illness ahead of conventional detection systems, which today rely on reports from doctors and virus-testing labs.
The findings were presented at the International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing in Copenhagen, last month. (ANI)
SOURCE
News 4
Washington, April 22 (ANI): The debate on whether cell phones cause cancer is still going on, with some groups saying that a safety-warning label should be put on them the way they are put on cigarettes and alcohol.
A bill in the Maine state senate had recently proposed a label warning users, especially children and pregnant women, of the risks of brain cancer from electromagnetic radiation emanating from the device.
But the Maine legislature voted down the bill in March, stating that the scientific evidence does not indicate a public health risk.
Supporters of the Maine legislation argued that uncertainty about the long-term effects of cell phone radiation warranted public safety notices.
They also pointed to a handful of European studies that linked brain and auditory nerve tumours with using cell phones for more than 10 years and at younger ages.
David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and Environment at the University of Albany, and an advocate for the Maine bill on cell phone warnings says that there is a chance the device can cause cancer.
"I think my short answer is that the evidence isn't 100 percent, but there's a strong indication that, yes, cell phone use does cause cancer (over a long period of time)," Discovery News quoted him as saying.
Carpenter points to a 2007 meta-analysis that associated ipsilateral auditory nerve tumours (acoustic neuromas) with people who had used cell phones for at least 10 years, as well as a 2009 Swedish study that found a heightened risk for brain tumours among people who had used cell phones for at least 10 years, especially for those under 20 years old.
Not surprisingly, cell phone industry insiders disagree.
"The peer-reviewed scientific evidence has overwhelmingly indicated that wireless devices, within the (radiation) limits established by the FCC, do not pose a public health risk or cause any adverse health effects," said John Walls, vice president of public affairs for CTIA -- The Wireless Association, an international trade group that represents the wireless telecomm industry.
For instance, 2001 Danish study and 2006 follow-up found no relationship between cancer risk and long-term cell phone use among more than 400,000 users.
In addition, a statistical review from the National Institutes of Cancer revealed no rise in cancer incidence rates from 1975 to 2005 in relation to the rise in cell phone usage.
Joshua Muscat, a public health science professor at Pennsylvania State University who has studied the cancer-causing potential of cell phone radiation, also questions the connection.
"There is no known mechanism by which radio frequency fields generated by cell phones can cause cancer," Muscat said.
Cell phone radiation is non-ionising, which means it isn't high frequency enough to strip electrons from atoms and molecules and directly damage cellular DNA, like x rays can.
Nevertheless, when you press a cell phone against your ear while it's in use, head and brain tissues can absorb that vibrating, low-frequency radiation and heat.
Because of that radiation effect, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sets specific absorption rates (SARs) that dictate the maximum amount of radiation cell phones and mobile devices can give off.
"The power output from these phones is extremely low," Muscat said.
However, Carpenter counters that the SARs don't take into account the potential long-term damage of close-range exposure to heat-inducing radiation, especially in children.
"Those (FCC) levels are set by engineers and physicists, and those aren't the people who should be setting health-based standards," he said.
Carpenter thinks that the results from a large, 13-country study called Interphone, which consists of a series of 16 case-controlled studies conducted between 2000 and 2005, could finally settle the debate.
Each of the Interphone studies recruited at least 100 people who had developed brain cancer or certain types of tumours, along with a healthy control group.
But it's been hampered by methodological shortcomings. In many cases, the group was asked to describe their cell phone habits, which critics contend led to recall bias. So far, it still hasn't rendered a final verdict.
For now, the National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, among other leading health agencies and organizations, aren't ringing the alarm bells.
For one thing, scientists have yet to pinpoint how the low-frequency cell phone radiation could cause cancer.
"(Cell phone radiation's) effect in the body appears to be insufficient to produce the genetic damage typically associated with developing cancer," said Robert N. Hoover, director of epidemiology for the National Cancer Institute, in an official statement to Congress.
"To date, no alternative mechanism about how this exposure might result in cancer has been vetted adequately," he said.
Until scientists can unmask that "mechanism," Carpenter urges consumers to play it safe and text message or hold cell phones away from their ears to limit radiation exposure.
Even Muscat from Penn State leaves a space, albeit a narrow one, for caution.
"It is a legitimate concern in the sense that there may be some unknown, undiscovered mechanism that could be promoting the development of cancer," Muscat said.
"This seems unlikely, but if one looks at other scientific disciplines such as cosmology or particle physics, there are often paradigm shifts that occur with new discoveries," he added. (ANI)
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