Cellphone Use Tied to Changes in Brain Activity

[groovedaddy]

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have found that less than an hour of cellphone use can speed up brain activity in the area closest to the phone antenna, raising new questions about the health effects of low levels of radiation emitted from cellphones.

The researchers, led by Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, urged caution in interpreting the findings because it is not known whether the changes, which were seen in brain scans, have any meaningful effect on a person’s overall health.

But the study, published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, is among the first and largest to document that the weak radio-frequency signals from cellphones have the potential to alter brain activity.

“The study is important because it documents that the human brain is sensitive to the electromagnetic radiation that is emitted by cellphones,” Dr. Volkow said. “It also highlights the importance of doing studies to address the question of whether there are — or are not — long-lasting consequences of repeated stimulation, of getting exposed over five, 10 or 15 years.”

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/cellphone-use-tied-to-changes-in-brain-activity/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23

[rfranklin]

1. Cell phone usage causes irreversible brain damage...

Just check out those people driving with the cell phone stuck to the side of their faces.

[tridim]

2. I'm sure Apple will release the iTinFoilHat soon.

Only $299 + Shipping at the Apple store.

Seriously, I bet brain neurons are trying to interact and process the incoming and outgoing RF from cell phones. I don't think anyone has a clue what that will do to our brains in the long-term.

[WatsonT]

3. Step 1) Pick some item we use every day

Step 2) cherrypick a preliminary study to imply it causes cancer.
Step 3) increased ad revenues!

47 people, a preliminary study, 7% change. May be legit, but a bit early to start panicking.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Sounds like our brains like being amplified.

And, when you think about it (if you do), there is a certain joy in being able to communicate with people long distance, as well as in being "plugged in" to what's happening "out there" beyond our physical (ear/eye) range and also beyond the range of our immediate family/community (which can be restrictive). Movable type mass printing). Postal services. Ships. Telegraph. Telephone. Radio. TV. Movies. Records. Cable amplified communication. Computers. Internet. Wireless. I remember my first experience of looking at a live blog, which happened to be originating in ! Pure joy! It was a sort of animal joy--hard to describe but I think related to our inherent physical limitations (that there was no way that I could physically meet all the people in the world that I might be interested in, but I could now leap over that limitation and get to know them anyway) --along with curiosity and sheer wonder. Must have been how the first users of telephones felt.

Another expansion I felt, with computers, was geographic. I was/am very curious about a lot of countries. I read about them in the news and know that I won't ever be able to go there, but Google maps enables me to study near-realtime satellite photos that can zoom down almost to ground level--to get a sense of the place--as well as the other internet tools from Google (rough translation of foreign language newspaper articles) and others, for exploring other countries (and of course our own) in other ways--in the words (sometimes live words) and images of the people who live there or at commercial or government web sites. (There are even CIA fact sheets about other countries available on line! That surprised me, when I first discovered it. Pretty useful site, actually).

These EXTENSIONS of myself--triumphs over my inherent physical limitations--outward, to people and places, feel SO RIGHT. Perhaps a physical analogy would be flying in an airplane. Some people feel scared but does anybody feel that it is unnatural (that we were not meant to do it--not physically evolved to do it and therefore shouldn't do it? Or driving a car. Or riding a horse. Or riding in a horse-cart. Even the "simple living" Amish drive horse-carts. (I don't know if they fly.)

So this doesn't surprise me a lot--that our brains are responding to cell phones, perhaps trying to acquire that energy and speed of interaction. Have we ever acquired an ability to go faster, physically, that we have rejected? Never, to my knowledge. And we will follow that path right out into the solar system and the galaxy and beyond. We LOVE going faster than we can run. It is exhilarating. And its object, generally, is to meet more people and see more sights. And our brains seem to want to go faster, to absorb it all. As for health impacts, when did that ever slow us down? You might attribute it to corporate profiteering, with no thought of the consequences (to individual human health or the health of Mother Earth). And there is that. But when did any of us ever say, "DON'T make that widget!"?

Well, yeah, the Luddites--but damn few of us have ever resisted technological advancement--especially physical and communication speed. We LOVE it! We want MORE of it! We are very, very restless creatures.

------

(Note: Believe me, I'm an environmentalist and very much want the corporate rulers off our backs--from the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines to the latest war profiteer widget for blowing human beings to pieces. And I think we are in big trouble--VERY big trouble--as to pollution of Mother Earth. And it ain't just climate change--that is bad enough (could wipe us out, from food shortages alone). It's that AND wreckage of earth's biodiversity with our technology. Nature is resilient but we are pressing her very hard, indeed. The number of extinctions of species, just over the last 50 years, is very alarming. And, politically, the U.S. has gotten far worse than it ever has been, in the modern era, as to curtailing these planet-killing activities. (So ironical that those who oppose abortion as "baby killing" are allied to those who are literally killing all life on earth.) I think we could go down. The end. Fini. But I don't think we can change our very nature as human beings, who love novelty and speed, and whose brains and desires range far and wide, even to the very stars. Assertion of democracy is probably our greatest hope. We CAN curtail the vast bulk of pollution/destruction--most of which comes from intense corporate profiteering--by re-asserting democratic control--and we CAN restore the Earth (we have the inherent native ability to do that). We have both of those capabilities. But whether we will assert them or not--and turn our busy brains to the real problems before us--I do not know. I am somewhat hopeful--given past human history at problem-solving, and the strong stirrings of democracy for instance in Latin America, where Indigenous reverence for Mother Earth is being reasserted--but I don't have a crystal ball.)