Is there real evidence of laptops, wifi/Bluetooth headphones and cell phones of emitting dangerous radiation?

[FancyDarcy]

So I've been wondering about this for a while.. What are your opinions about this? Is there any true evidence for concern?

[Vendetta]

Short answer, no.

There are people who claim to be "sensitive" to wifi band em radiation but in blind tests they have been unable to tell whether a wifi router in the room with them is turned on or not from their symptoms, demonstrating that they are a nocebo effect.

[Zaune]

To the best of my knowledge, you're more likely to get cancer from burnt toast than prolonged exposure to the level of RF energy emitted by a cellphone or wifi adapter. They're not even powerful enough to do you any real harm if you touched the exposed antenna coil while they were transmitting.

[Zixinus]

Most gadgets emit mostly in the radio band (GSM and variants, I think) and 2.4Ghz microwave band (which is shared by Bluetooth and Wifi, IIRC). These are non-ionizing radiation, meaning that they do not cause damage like the stuff from radioactive materials (uranium) or x-ray machines. It actually means that the average light-particle has LESS energy than those light particles that you can see. Microwaves are more likely to warm your skin.

The emitting power of a typical laptop or phone is about 2 Watt (likely less) for the radio band and wifi is either the same or less (GPS and similar are not transmitted, they received from space). For example heavier-duty wifi antennas I worked with have the maximum power of about 24dBm, which is 0.256 Watts. For comparison a microwave oven is around 700 Watts or above. So there is a question of whether there is even enough strength in the signals to have any effect at all.

But why settle for the opinion of some random internet dude? Read the World Health Organization's page on the topic.

As for "sensitives", I would wager that the issue is psychological. People who work a lot through cellphones and/or wifi internet and have a lot of stressful work from it. They associate those things with stress and thus feel awful. When those things are away, they can't be stressed by them so they think it isn't the stress of the work (which would be shameful to admit even to themselves) but somehow the radio/micro-waves. Which wouldn't make sense because these people would be screaming whenever they passed a cell tower.

[Wicked Pilot]

As for "sensitives", I would wager that the issue is psychological. People who work a lot through cellphones and/or wifi internet and have a lot of stressful work from it. They associate those things with stress and thus feel awful. When those things are away, they can't be stressed by them so they think it isn't the stress of the work (which would be shameful to admit even to themselves) but somehow the radio/micro-waves. Which wouldn't make sense because these people would be screaming whenever they passed a cell tower.

Some of these symptoms can easily be explained away as sleep deprivation. A large chunk of workers and students just don't get enough sleep and feel like shit all week. Then on the weekends when they sleep in, and also happen to be away from the wifi, they will of course feel better. They see the pattern, but connect the wrong dots.

[Vendetta]

As for "sensitives", I would wager that the issue is psychological. People who work a lot through cellphones and/or wifi internet and have a lot of stressful work from it. They associate those things with stress and thus feel awful. When those things are away, they can't be stressed by them so they think it isn't the stress of the work (which would be shameful to admit even to themselves) but somehow the radio/micro-waves. Which wouldn't make sense because these people would be screaming whenever they passed a cell tower.

Some of these symptoms can easily be explained away as sleep deprivation. A large chunk of workers and students just don't get enough sleep and feel like shit all week. Then on the weekends when they sleep in, and also happen to be away from the wifi, they will of course feel better. They see the pattern, but connect the wrong dots.

The nocebo effect is a stronger explanation because it matches the actual observed behaviour in blind tests, where people will develop symptom within a short time of being in the same room as a wifi router. The significant difference is that they know that a wifi router is in the room with them, which causes them to expect symptoms they've convinced themselves are related to wireless radio signals and because they expect them they experience them. This happens whether the router is powered on or not.

It's the same as people on controlled drug trials reporting the side effects of the drug when they were actually on the placebo pill. They've been told "you are getting medicine with these side effects" so they get the side effects they expect.

The symptoms they experience are real, and specific to that situation not general as a result of being stressed or tired, but they aren't caused by radiowaves.

[FancyDarcy]

What about laptop RF radiation? I've heard some people say that the reason it is recommended to hold laptops not actually on your lap is because of the radiation emitting from it, but I've also heard other people say this is because the bottom of laptops sometimes get quite warm. Maybe broth?

Are there known long-term health effects of having a laptop on your lap?

BT headphones are also actually known to warm up the flesh, do you think they could do that harmfully? People have said to me that you're supposed to only wear BT headphones for an hour or so, because if you wear them too long, the brain (near the head) will heat up too much and then you will die.

I've also heard the same people tell me about the well-known dangers of being close to fire alarms, microwaves and CRT monitors, especially older models. When I was growing up, my parents used an older microwave and they would always warn me not to stand too close to the microwave when it was on or even bee in the same room as it. The unit itself was about 10 years old then, so not exactly ancient. I mean, I guess it could be possible for a small amount of radiation to leak out of it?

I wonder about high-powered BT devices. I've always longed to grab some of those Class 1 100 meter range BT transmitters for a pair of headphones so I could roam long distances away from the computer, but I've never been able to afford them. I first noticed them when I saw the Plantronics BackBeat Pro headset which has inbuilt support for it.

[Vendetta]

What about laptop RF radiation? I've heard some people say that the reason it is recommended to hold laptops not actually on your lap is because of the radiation emitting from it, but I've also heard other people say this is because the bottom of laptops sometimes get quite warm. Maybe broth?

The reason it's not reccommended to use laptop on your lap is that usually the air intakes are on the bottom and cloth like your trousers or skirt will prevent airflow. The long term effects is that your CPU fan will wear out faster and probably pull in lint and dust from your clothes.

[Zaune]

Hoo boy... Let's do this in order, shall we?

The reason you don't take the name "laptop" literally is that all the exhaust fans are on the bottom. Unless they're on a hard surface where the little rubber feet won't sink in, this will result in the laptop being unable to cool properly. In neither case is there any actual health hazard, though I dare say some of the higher-end gaming laptops could get hot enough to be uncomfortable and bad for your sperm count. The only "radiation" they're emitting except from the wifi aerial is the light from the screen and the heat coming out of the fan exhausts.

As for the other stuff, the only way for a microwave oven to be dangerous is if you're stupid enough to punch a hole in it or otherwise bypass the various built-in safety features. CRT monitors are only dangerous if you dismantle them without taking precautions to safely discharge any remaining static, which genuinely can be lethal but again, you have to deliberately ignore a number of safety warnings and void the warranty to put yourself in that position in the first place. As for smoke alarms, unless you buy several hundred of them and try to build a nuclear reactor in your shed, the only way for the radioactive material they contain to be hazardous is if you crush it up and snort it. Noticing a pattern here?

I would give the high-powered bluetooth transmitter idea a miss, though. Not because of any potential radiation hazard, but because if you want to use your desktop PC as a stereo system you could almost certainly get a really good speakers-and-subwoofer set for the same money.

[Elheru Aran]

Guys. Guysssss.

Remember this little prize? viewtopic.php?f=7&t=165698

[FancyDarcy]

Hoo boy... Let's do this in order, shall we?

The reason you don't take the name "laptop" literally is that all the exhaust fans are on the bottom. Unless they're on a hard surface where the little rubber feet won't sink in, this will result in the laptop being unable to cool properly. In neither case is there any actual health hazard, though I dare say some of the higher-end gaming laptops could get hot enough to be uncomfortable and bad for your sperm count. The only "radiation" they're emitting except from the wifi aerial is the light from the screen and the heat coming out of the fan exhausts.

As for the other stuff, the only way for a microwave oven to be dangerous is if you're stupid enough to punch a hole in it or otherwise bypass the various built-in safety features. CRT monitors are only dangerous if you dismantle them without taking precautions to safely discharge any remaining static, which genuinely can be lethal but again, you have to deliberately ignore a number of safety warnings and void the warranty to put yourself in that position in the first place. As for smoke alarms, unless you buy several hundred of them and try to build a nuclear reactor in your shed, the only way for the radioactive material they contain to be hazardous is if you crush it up and snort it. Noticing a pattern here?

I would give the high-powered bluetooth transmitter idea a miss, though. Not because of any potential radiation hazard, but because if you want to use your desktop PC as a stereo system you could almost certainly get a really good speakers-and-subwoofer set for the same money.

"Hoo boy" indeed. :/

Well I've seen some studies done where a laptop on your laptop does indeed boil off all the sperms although they don't seem to cause any long term damage found yet. However, I've heard that a laptop can also cause the testicles themselves and damage the cells themselves which will cause the tecticles to produce broken, damaged sperms which might lead to either permanent infertility or mutations in offspring.

As for the laptop, I did specify an older model.. which might be damaged or worn away.. causing radiation to leak out of a previously safe enclosure.

Now the person who told me that BT headphones were dangerous and would kill you if you wore them for long lengths of time was generally quite educated and probably intelligent and said it in a very confident tone and although I don't agree with him in all things, for example the theory that modern day violence is caused by horror movies, which is actually quite a popular and common theory which makes sense in a lot of ways. Now I remember he said that when using a BT headset, it is usually safe to use, but you should take breaks and only use a BT headset for about 1 or 2 hours each day and no more, otherwise you will boil the brain too much. Since there is real evidence of RF radiation warming flesh, could it be possible that wearing BT headsets for extended periods could cause damage?

Here is a blog post on the dangers of BT radiation. Unfortunately the author does not provide any citations.

http://www.techulator.com/resources/861 ... dsets.aspx


Here, a article on apple airpods which supports the idea. The article says that public health experts are saying that wireless headphones are extremely dangerous and that the radiation is causing the blood brain barrier to boil and melt down. Sorting the comments of the article to "best rated" first will show that people support the article.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... t-bad.html

[Zaune]

Well, the first problem here appears to be that you're using the Daily Mail as a source. Stop doing that; you'd get more reliable, better researched and less biased information from fucking Cracked. I know nothing about Techulator, but the lack of any citations is never a good sign.

Go and have a look at this blog instead, which is written by someone who definitely knows what he's talking about.

[Elheru Aran]

Also, for the love of Bog never bother with the goddamn comments. The only place they're actually useful is on Reddit, and even then it's a toss-up.

[FancyDarcy]

Well, the first problem here appears to be that you're using the Daily Mail as a source. Stop doing that; you'd get more reliable, better researched and less biased information from fucking Cracked. I know nothing about Techulator, but the lack of any citations is never a good sign.

Go and have a look at this blog instead, which is written by someone who definitely knows what he's talking about.

I'd heard that dailymail wasn't very credible sometimes, but I thought that was only for political debates which I never bother with. But still, it must be reporting on something, they can't just be inventing all that stuff, right?

Anyway, I found a better article by Mercola which states that the WHO - IARC says that there is a possible link between some cancers and cell phone usage.

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/arti ... nogen.aspx

So I looked it up and it turns out that the article by the WHO does indeed exist, see!

http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2 ... r208_E.pdf

So that is some pretty good stuff right there, I mean they put it into the 2B classification which is pretty serious I think.

Mercola also says some interesting stuff about the usage of dirty electricity which is made from most modern appliances which use a transformer. The article says that the dirty electricity is probably one of the largest causes of diabetes, cancers and heart diseases.
Here is the article here:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/arti ... posed.aspx

[Starglider]

That is conspiracy theory bullshit even worse than the anti-vaccination crowd. The only known health effect for EMF is microshocks and the required field levels are two or three orders of magnitude over anything you can get in a domestic situation (and this is a low frequency effect, it doesn't happen at radio frequencies). I note that site is trying to peddle 'electrosmog meters' and is against milk pasteurisation and water fluoridation.

[Zaune]

For once, I find myself in complete agreement with Starglider. People have been putting radio transmitters much more powerful than any cellphone, powerful enough to actually cause burns if you make direct skin contact with an antenna when the mic is hot, in their homes since the 1930s; I think someone would have noticed a statistically meaningful increase in cancer diagnoses in ham radio operators and their neighbours by now. To say nothing of commercial radio and TV.

[Jub]

For once, I find myself in complete agreement with Starglider. People have been putting radio transmitters much more powerful than any cellphone, powerful enough to actually cause burns if you make direct skin contact with an antenna when the mic is hot, in their homes since the 1930s; I think someone would have noticed a statistically meaningful increase in cancer diagnoses in ham radio operators and their neighbours by now. To say nothing of commercial radio and TV.

Even more than that WiFi has been around and in common use for around a decade now and there are no studies showing significant changes in cancer rates due to this. With a decade-long sample period and millions of people to choose from if there was anything to find it shouldn't be hard to do so.

[fordlltwm]

I'd heard that dailymail wasn't very credible sometimes, but I thought that was only for political debates which I never bother with. But still, it must be reporting on something, they can't just be inventing all that stuff, right?

The Daily Mail's favourite headline is common thing x causes bad thing y.

They do this with such repetivity that someone built a daily mail headline generator which kicks out headlines that a scarily close to the ones that the daily mail runs.
http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/toys/dailymail/

[Jub]

"WILL THE P.C. BRIGADE IMPREGNATE BRITISH SOVEREIGNTY? STAGGERING RESULTS INSIDE"

"WILL HEALTH & SAFETY GIVE MIDDLE BRITAIN HEART DISEASE? STUDY RESULTS MAY SHOCK YOU"

"TWO-THIRDS OF BABY FOOD IN THE US TESTED POSITIVE FOR ARSENIC AND OTHER DANGEROUS TOXINS, STAGGERING STUDY REVEALS"

One of these is a real headline the others are fake, choose wisely.

[fordlltwm]

I'm debating 2 or 3 myself, without googling it.

[Zaune]

It can't be the third one. That sounds like it might actually be true, and if the Mail ever printed a piece of accurate information besides the football scores and the TV listings it was by accident.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd heard that dailymail wasn't very credible sometimes, but I thought that was only for political debates which I never bother with. But still, it must be reporting on something, they can't just be inventing all that stuff, right?

Can you explain why, precisely, you think they "can't just be inventing all that stuff?" What is your reason for believing that? Exactly what do you think would happen if they did exactly that?

Mercola also says some interesting stuff about the usage of dirty electricity which is made from most modern appliances which use a transformer. The article says that the dirty electricity is probably one of the largest causes of diabetes, cancers and heart diseases.

Exactly how do they think that works, and what is their definition of "dirty?" I have a master's in physics; I know a fair amount about what electricity can and cannot do. Try me.

"Hoo boy" indeed. :/

Well I've seen some studies done where a laptop on your laptop does indeed boil off all the sperms although they don't seem to cause any long term damage found yet. However, I've heard that a laptop can also cause the testicles themselves and damage the cells themselves which will cause the tecticles to produce broken, damaged sperms which might lead to either permanent infertility or mutations in offspring.

The only mechanism by which laptops can do that is heat. Sperm production for human males works best at a few degrees below body temperature, which is why the testes hang outside the body in the first place when that is such an obvious hazard for accidental injuries.

But that's heat, not radiation; you'd cause the same problem by sitting around with a hot water bottle on your nuts.

As for the laptop, I did specify an older model.. which might be damaged or worn away.. causing radiation to leak out of a previously safe enclosure.

There is no radiation enclosure. Laptops are not designed to confine or shield against radiation, because laptops don't generate radiation that is dangerous enough to shield against. If laptops were radioactive, shielding against them would require heavy layers of lead foil or something like that- it would be a significant fraction of the weight of a modern laptop. Maybe most of the weight of the laptop.

Therefore, an older model of laptop will be no more 'radioactive' than a new one, and has no 'enclosure' to protect you from the radiation that does not exist.

Now the person who told me that BT headphones were dangerous and would kill you if you wore them for long lengths of time was generally quite educated and probably intelligent and said it in a very confident tone...

If he can't provide evidence, don't believe him. I can provide evidence that is real and based on a coherent picture of the world that is self-consistent and fits together. I'm betting that he can't. And I'm willing to put his ideas to the test.

and although I don't agree with him in all things, for example the theory that modern day violence is caused by horror movies, which is actually quite a popular and common theory which makes sense in a lot of ways.

A lot of the time, both a theory AND its exact opposite will "make sense" if they are explained to you in a confident and well-phrased way. The fact that a theory "makes sense" after someone talks to you about it doesn't prove much, unless you're experienced at spotting logical inconsistencies, and thinking of ways to disprove false claims.

In the context of modern-day violence and horror movies... Violent crime rates were higher forty years ago than they are today. Does he think that was because horror movies were more violent back then? Violent crime rates in Victorian England were also fairly high, as measured by (for example) comparing modern murder rates to those of the 1800s. Was that violence caused by Victorian horror movies? Are Third World countries with extremely high crime rates suffering so much crime because they watch several times more horror movies than anyone else?

See, the way to go about this isn't "hmm, someone tells me violence is high these days, they must be right, which means there has to be an explanation, which means the first plausible-sounding reason they give me is the explanation."

The way to go about this is to think "Okay, IF there is a difference caused by something, like horror movies causing violence... what would we expect to happen? What would be the consequences? Did those consequences happen? If not, then horror movies aren't making a difference." For example, if horror movies cause violence, we should expect huge crime waves right after major works of horror are released (there aren't). We should expect crime rates to be steadily rising as horror movies get more horrifying (they aren't). We should expect violent crime to be much less common back when there were no horror movies (but it was as common if not more so). We should expect the countries with the most horrifying horror fiction to be the ones with the worst crime problems (they're not).

Now I remember he said that when using a BT headset, it is usually safe to use, but you should take breaks and only use a BT headset for about 1 or 2 hours each day and no more, otherwise you will boil the brain too much.

He's talking out his ass, and you shouldn't trust him on scientific questions.

[Zixinus]

What about laptop RF radiation?

RF radiation is the radiowaves (cellphone network) and microwaves (wifi) your laptop emits.

Unless you mean infrared radiation? Those are literary less energetic than literal red light and is mostly felt as heat.

Unless you mean heat radiation, in which case, sort-of. Some laptops, particularly high-performance ones, make a lot of heat and have fans at the bottom blowing air out. Blocking the fans causes overheating that is bad for your laptop. If you don't pay attention, they may heat your legs long enough to cause minor burns. Not because its electronic but because you are putting a heat source near your flesh.

If you must put your laptop in your lap, put a solid sheet (like, say, a sheet of wood or plastic) between it and your lap so the air vents aren't blocked and you aren't cooking your own pants.

Are there known long-term health effects of having a laptop on your lap?

Yes, stiff neck and a bad back. Nothing to do with the laptop itself, just the unnatural posture you'd need to use if you constantly keep a laptop in your lap. Put it on a table, use a proper chair you sit in properly and take brakes between long-period uses.

The problem with this question is that it makes no sense, aside the issue that you can't prove a negative. What aspect of the laptop? Wireless signals? As a source of heat? As a source of electronics? What? How do you expect to measure this? What do you expect it to be?

BT headphones are also actually known to warm up the flesh, do you think they could do that harmfully?

Question: has it occurred to you that it isn't the BT nature of the headphones that do this, but the fact that you have a large, (usually) padded cup on your ears? Are you aware of the fact that your ears radiate a lot of body heat?

People have said to me that you're supposed to only wear BT headphones for an hour or so, because if you wear them too long, the brain (near the head) will heat up too much and then you will die.

Okay, I have to ask this: are you a kid and is your mother telling you this?

Because no, BT headphones will not cause your brain to heat up too much. Your brain is not an icecube, it is an organ whose temperature your body regulates fairly well and you'd be passing out from heatstroke if it didn't. A bigger reason to worry about headphones is possible hearing damage from listening to music at too high a volume (really, put it just high enough to hear it) and possibly pressing on your hear too much.

It is possible to cause burns by microwave radiation, but you need something far, far, far more powerful than, well, anything in your household. You need to be standing in the middle of some high-performance RF antenna that is bigger than a car if not your room.

Dedicated, multi-kilometer ranged wifi antennas can produce about 5-10 Watts of microwave radiation. For comparison, an old 100W lightbulb works at the efficiency of 2% for light, meaning that you'll get roughly 98 Watts of heat from a lightbulb.

Do you get why the low levels of microwave radiation is not seriously? You are worrying about levels of power and energy that is less than you get from a lightbulb.

I've also heard the same people tell me about the well-known dangers of being close to fire alarms, microwaves and CRT monitors, especially older models.
[...]
The unit itself was about 10 years old then, so not exactly ancient. I mean, I guess it could be possible for a small amount of radiation to leak out of it?

What you have to understand that X-rays and microwaves are all different types of light, light at different energy levels of a spectrum. Anything that emits light at some energy level is described as "radiation". The word describes gamma rays from nuclear reactors as well as the visible light your monitor. That something radiates isn't in itself dangerous, the question is what and at what power. At low enough power, you can take gamma rays and x-rays, indeed, that is why they use x-rays. With visible light, you can be burned to death if you have enough of it concentrated on you. Sunlight is literary more dangerous to you than the stuff from your BT stuff. Unlike BT, sunlight HAS ionizing (dangerous) radiation in it, is linked to causing skin cancer, which why people wear sunblock and sunglasses as well as clothes.

[Zixinus]

If you DO find laptops that require radiation containment, please tell me the brand and seller. I think NASA might want Voyager back and talk with the people that nicked it.

[Iroscato]

Guys. Guysssss.

Remember this little prize? viewtopic.php?f=7&t=165698

Definitely him. Same posting style, comically naïve worldview, everything.