Cell Phones and Radiation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Cell Phones and Radiation - Essay Example From this study it is clear that the technology of cell phone has eliminated the factor of geographical distances and made the general population more socially connected. The acceptance rate of the cell phone technology can be realized by the fact that from the year 1990 up till 2011, the worldwide cell phone subscriptions raised from 12.4 million to over 6 billion, penetrating nearly 87% of the world population (MobiThinking). Cell phone technology may not be all that safe. Amidst the life of convenience offered by cell phones, the potential threat the cell phone technology may have to the health of humans can get ignored. On October 19, 2012, the Supreme Court in Rome (Italy) gave a ruling wherein a â€Å"causal link† was found to exist between the mobile phone and the illness of an Italian Company’s Director Innocente Marcolini, 60. Marcolini was diagnosed to have developed a tumor (neurinoma affecting a cranial nerve) on the side of the head that he held his mobile phone to for 5-6 hours a day for 12 years.   As the paper outlines Cell Phone Radiations Cell phones use a type of electromagnetic energy called radiofrequency (or simply RF) energy for communication. RF are the radio waves and microwaves. On the electromagnetic spectrum, where the energy ranges from ones that have extremely low frequencies with long wavelengths to those that have extremely high frequencies with short wavelengths, the radio waves and microwaves lie between the two extremes. In the RF region, the frequencies are in the range of 3KHz to 300GHz. Microwaves are a category of radio waves located towards the higher end i.e. range starts from several hundred MHz to several GHz. In medical applications, one supportive use is in chemotherapy where the selective tumors are heated up. Electromagnetic radiations can be ionizing or non-ionizing. Ionizing radiations are high energy radiations that strip electrons from the atoms or molecules. E.g X-rays and Gamma rays. These radiations can cause molecular changes thus damage biological tissue (i.e. can effect DNA and genetic material). The non-ionizing radiations are low energy radiation that are not powerful enough to disintegrate atom structures. E.g. visible light, infrared radiation. RF radiations are non-ionizing radiations. RF energy heats up objects, therefore it has two types of biological effects; thermal and non-thermal. Thermal effects are those where the biological tissue heats up so rapidly that the body cannot manage or dissipate the energy.