http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,66554,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2
"Parents of elementary and middle school students in a small California town are protesting a tracking program their school recently launched, which requires students to wear identification badges embedded with radio frequency, or RFID, chips."
Dont they already have really big barbed wire fences, metal detectors etc in American High Schools?
what else is new!
http://www.engadget.com/entry/8389732328674831/
(? @ the huge, suspicuously placed wannado ad ...)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/921/1/1/
but then
http://www.mobilecloak.com/mobilecloak_r5/index.html
(even greater ? at the plans to tag corpses to prevent organ theft)
I want a study of the negative effects of bathing all day long in those radio waves...
And I want fully antistatic clothes.
Radio waves have no known effect on the human body aside from heating, if they get powerful enough, no matter what certain psychosomatics think.
Yay for radio activity, then. ^^
School Drops RFID Tag Program
http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,66626,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_7
"The California grade school that required students to wear radio frequency identification badges has ended the program because the company that developed the technology pulled out."
>> 4
bathing all day long in those radio waves?
you mean like you've been doing through your whole life, and your dad did through his whole life, and your grandfather did through his whole life?
yeah, those things will kill ya for sure.
>>8
Have you ever been standing near a radio station antenna?
Have you read the medical reports from those living just under a powerful mobile phone antenna?
Lots and lots of people live near very high-powered radio transmitters - big transmissions towers in cities. As far as I know, there are no known medical problems associated with this. There are certain funny effects, though, like tooth fillings acting as recitifiers and receiving the radio signal. I've also heard that kitchenware can work as a receiver if the field strength in your house is high enough.
These are VERY strong signals, and they have no harmful effects that I know of.
Well, if you're a repairman who climbs up next to one of the transmitters and it gets turned on by mistake, you'll probably get nasty burns.
Radio station transmitters may not kill you, but throwing things in front of megawatt radar arrays is great fun.
(No, I've never done such a thing.)
Just read today:
http://news.com.com/5208-1039-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=4903&messageID=29386&start=-1
Specific absorption rate (SAR) is not the problem
re: Story: Finnish study: Handset radiation within limits
"SAR only measured what impact various radio frequency (RF) waves at varying peak envelope power (PEP) have on heating body tissue. High power RF waves are considered dangerous to the eyes because the resulting heating can contribute cataracts. So the problem with this study is that it measures only heating and says nothing of the possible cell damage than be caused by transmitting from an antenna 2 centimeters from your head (possibly causing cancer).
Such rare cases where this RF creates cell mutations (specifically cancer) cannot be easily tested under lab conditions. Instead we are pretty much forced to speculate and simply observe statistics for the current cell using population and try to draw conclusions from that data. The only problem with such observations is that they are not "proof" until the results can be consistently reproduced in a lab environment. "
> Posted by: Old Warez
Yeah, credible source of information.
> Such rare cases where this RF creates cell mutations (specifically cancer) cannot be easily tested under lab conditions.
Let me guess: because it doesn't actually happen? That makes it pretty hard to test for.
Okay, so you want a better source.
http://www.globalchange.com/radiation.htm
"Here is a common-sense personal view from a physician and parent of four children who is also a major user of wireless devices of all kinds."
"New reports continue to be published several times a year, suggesting that there might be health risks from mobile phones electromagnetic radiation. There can be no doubt any longer that mobile phone radiation affects living cells. For example research shows that nematode worms exposed to mobile phone radiation produce more eggs, release stress hormones and grow larger. "
"[]at present the clear evidence suggests that if there is any effect on human health at all from use of a mobile phone, the electromagnetic radiation risk is very, very low for the individual user."
"For example, in October 2004, scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm gave a new warning about mobile phone radiation and brain tumours - accoustic neuromas [] They found that long term users of mobile phones were four times as likely to develop growths on the side they held the phone, and twice as likely as non-users to develop these benign non-cancerous growths."
"March 2003 another study in the International Journal of Oncology suggested that mobile phone users had a 30% increased risk of brain tumours - mainly accoustic neuromas - which occurred close to the ear used for mobile phone listening. Previous studies had shown that growth of leukaemia cells could be increased dramatically after exposure to mobile phone radiation. Although accoustic neuromas do not metastasise (jump to invade other parts of the body) they can create serious problems if intreated. The early symptoms can be hearing loss, loss of balance or noises in one ear"
"GSM and GPRS (2.5G) phones use what is known as pulsed radiation. The levels rise and fall very rapidly. 3G phones on the other hand use continuous levels. Some research suggests that pulsed radiation may have a greater effect on cells than constant exposure"
Four times? 30%? Which is it? These studies keep getting published, hyped up and misinterpreted by the media, and then no followup is given as to whether they turned out to be correct or not.
As I said before, I'll believe it when someone gives a plausible explanation of the process by which centimeter-wavelength radiation can create cell damage. As a general physical principle, electromagnetic radiation can only affect objects of about the same size as the wavelength or larger. They can heat your head as a whole, but they have no chance of affecting something as tiny as a cell, never mind a DNA molecule.
>Four times? 30%? Which is it?
As explained in the article, there are discrepancies between the studies. The author advances the hypothesis that not all cell phones tested were the same. Newer ones are better built, better shielded etc., I suppose. But anyway.
Why are radio waves, who have their own range as you say, heating the ear/brain of the ones using a cell phone? Heat waves should be in another range entirely than radio waves, no? Doesn't that mean that cell phones not only emit radio waves, but also other waves?
Any type of electromagnetic radiation is converted to heat as it is absorbed. It's a simple consequence of the conservation of energy. Long radio waves (strong transmissiter towers fry birds that fly too close), short radio waves/microwaves (microwave oven, cell phones), infrared (duh), visible light (I haven't tested this, but light from a single-wavelength light such as a sodium light should feel warm if you get close enough. Also, it's not just the infrared light from the sun that makes you feel hot.), ultraviolet light, x-rays, gamma rays (the fireball from a nuclear explosion comes from the gamma rays heating the air around the bomb).