cell phones (Page 3)

Phone towers for the new, high-tech cell phones can cause headaches and nausea, according to Dutch researchers, because they operate at a higher frequency than those for traditional cell phones. This new technology allows callers to use their phones to send messages and photo images.

The Dutch study exposed volunteers in laboratories to radiation from either the new or the “traditional” cell phone towers, without telling them which one they were being exposed to. Of the 72 people who took part in the study, half experienced nausea, headaches and tingling sensations from the radiation level of the new cell phone towers. In contrast, the radiation level of traditional cell phone towers produced no bad effects.
read more

Is your doctor always talking to his office or to patients on his cell phone? According to Israeli investigators, physicians are actually spreading infections throughout hospitals as they talk on their phones.

Deborah Mitchell writes about a study in which Dr. Abraham Borer randomly screened 124 hospital personnel for the germ Acinetobacter baumannii, a common source of hospital infections. He found that 12% of doctors’ cell phones were contaminated with the bug.
read more

Michael Barr writes in abcnews.com that switching to a hands-free cell phone while driving does not reduce accidents. States like New York, that have banned driving while talking on a conventional cell phone, are discovering this.

Psychologist David Strayer says, “We’ve done a couple of studies that have directly compared handheld and hands-free cell phones. We didn’t find any difference.” He used a driving simulator to track the eye movements of people behind the wheel as they talked on a hands-free phone. The simulator displayed signs and billboards along the virtual highway, and at the end of the trip, drivers were asked how many they saw. Drivers who used hands-free cell phones only noticed half as many signs as drivers who weren’t talking on the phone at all.
read more

The Japanese company Modtones hires musicians to translate hit tunes and television themes into the beeps that announce you have a call on your cell phone. In Europe and Japan, customers have spent about $1 billion to have their ring tones customized with their favorite songs. In Japan, 80 million new ring tones are ordered every month, and 60 million are ordered in Europe.
read more