Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

telegraph.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–185 of 185 posts

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#181

Post by jobigoud »

sizzle wrote: post #173
dghughes wrote: post #101

I'd also be interested to see how many more people just text or IM not talk compared to ten or twenty years ago. If there is a risk from cellphone EM radiation so it must also depend on phone usage and also modern phones emit less EM radiation? For me my main concern is I use my phone as an alarm clock and it's 30cm (1 foot) from my head all night. I also leave it there since it's my main phone so I keep it close to…

Is the EM radiation coming out as directional waves from the phone or is it more like a focused beam between the cell network towers through your skull into your phone? Thanks.

Phones have omnidirectional antennas.

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#182

Post by jobigoud »

geomark wrote: post #36
bhouston wrote: post #2

It is curious. I wonder why non-ionizing radiation causes cancer? Given we are constantly bathing in wifi signals and cellphone signals, I wonder what the effects will be?

The strength of those signals is very, very low. WiFi around -60dBm or lower most of the time and the cellular signal where I go is usually well below -80dBm. For comparison, the power received from Earth's nearest star Alpha Centauri A is on the order of -50dBm. If I'm concerned about WiFi and cellular signals I should be positively freaked out about natural sources of em radiation. But having a couple watt transmit…

Earth's nearest star is the Sun :-) Which incidentally also emits ionizing photons in the UV zone.

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#183

Post by klipt »

manicdee wrote: post #175
klipt wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GBMs kill ~78% of patients within 2 years. Earlier detection wouldn't change the statistics much.

Earlier detection means you find the GBM before the person dies some other way that doesn’t require autopsy.

Maybe, but has earlier detection really impacted GBM much? It's not like breast or testicular cancer - we can't encourage the population to "examine your brain for lumps". Even today someone could have no obvious symptoms of GBM one day, then have a seizure while driving and die in a car crash the next day.

Though I guess if car crashes were a common cause of death that doesn't require autopsy, you'd see some difference in GBM rates between car heavy places like the US, vs places with better public transit like EU.

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#184

Post by INTPenis »

mediocrejoker wrote: post #99
INTPenis wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still though, I always have and always will prefer to use my headset when talking on the mobile.

A wired headset, I presume?

Yes but mostly because I loathe charging tiny devices more than wires.

Same with headset, I prefer the sound quality.

So none of these choices are made to avoid cancers.

Re: Mobile phone cancer warning as malignant brain tumours double

#185

Post by geomark »

jobigoud wrote: post #182
geomark wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strength of those signals is very, very low. WiFi around -60dBm or lower most of the time and the cellular signal where I go is usually well below -80dBm. For comparison, the power received from Earth's nearest star Alpha Centauri A is on the order of -50dBm. If I'm concerned about WiFi and cellular signals I should be positively freaked out about natural sources of em radiation. But having a couple watt transmit…

Earth's nearest star is the Sun :-) Which incidentally also emits ionizing photons in the UV zone.

Ok smarty. But you can choose to go outside only at night when the Sun isn't in the sky. But the sky is filled with other stars day and night. So you can never go outside if you are afraid of em radiation as weak as that emitted by WiFi hotspots or cellular phone towers.
Post reply on HN