Since talking on the cell phone is extremely popular, this is good news.

This proves nothing about the possible hazardous effect of RF radiation. The only thing it might prove is that people claiming to be sensitive to radiation probably are a bit imaginative.

Anyway, I’m cynical enough to believe that for every research report that comes to the conclusion that RF radiation IS hazardous, there will be another report, somehow funded by people with interests in this industry, stating the opposite…

Is it just me, but did intelligence just drop sharply? Please tell me what a lack of any detrimental subjective experience by these participants has anything to do with disproving any potential long-term health effects such as increased risk (however slight) to brain tumours????!!!!!

Most "headaches", increase tension, etc. were self induced. Electromagnetic radiation and biological beings are not connected whatsoever. There are people working in power plants in which currents and electromagnetism is thousand times higher than what an average mobile phone puts out, and nothing happens to them. That "sensitivity" was, is and always will be only in some people's immagination.

They could have given some people carcinogens. And at early stage of cancer they could have asked them whether they felt any different. Guess what the result would be?
This test sounds like, whether one can detect the cell phone radiation at frequnecies used in england and quite a lot of other countries but not all. And answer seems only very few feel it. So what?

It is well known that these waves are absorbed in tissues, whether they can cause enough chemical change to threat health is the question.

And they also do not like to address the transceivers, these towers typically have at least two orders of magnitude power, and when you're close to them, this may get really serious.

I always doubt medical studies anyway, it is no science.

Was this published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal? Were there any competing interests declared by the researchers (e.g., work funded by Nokia)?

The title of the article is indeed misleading.

put two mobile phones standing upright(you may need to use something to keep all of this in place like blue tac or leaning on a cig packet) about 5cm away from each other. put an egg in an egg cup in between them.

from phone A call phone B and leave an open call for say 60-90 minutes. you will have cooked the egg!!! funny thing is the egg gets remarkably hot at times.

I lie to you not. this is something you can try in your own home to answer the Q for yourself once and for all.

Whilst this experiment may be amusing, it suggests a lack of understanding of how cellphones work. This experiment implies that the two phones communicate directly, or have I missed something? They don't - they communicate via one or more base stations.
If people wish to express concern over a base station, the first thing to do is to throw away their cellphone and all the other sources of non-ionising EM radiation

Your "experiment" has nothing to do with radiation and everything to do with heat being emitted from the devices. You could do the same experiment with any two consumer electronic devices that emit some heat--even ones that don't communicate wirelessly in any way.

That being said, there have been some studies into how the constant heat of a phone up against your head can cause skin cancer. I can't find one online right off hand, though. I use BT headset. :-)

We've had some comments about the title of this article. To avoid any further confusion, I have changed the title to make it clear that the article is just talking about short term effects of cell phone radiation. As noted in the article text, the study did not talk about long-term health problems associated with exposure to mobile phone waves.

Thanks Mark. The title is better. However, as a scientist who reads news headlines, people need to understand just how important *peer review* is. Even peer-reviewed stuff is wrong sometimes, but without critical analysis of research by experts, there can be little or no confidence in these result. We should always wait for publication, and preferably, replication.

I happen to have found a video of the guy who originally started this whole mess about cell phone radiation. Its on season two of Penn and Tellers "Bullshit." The guy has this little device that reads radio waves coming off of devices, and because the needle on it jumped to a certain level when placed near a cell phone, he says he thinks brain tumors will be on the rise.

Funny thing: he did the same thing to a microwave that was on and the needle went higher. I believe he said the needle was at less than a rating of "1" when he measured the cell phone. Later, they asked him to walk up to some power lines and test the level of dangerous "radiation" coming off them (I believe its actually electromagnetic interference). The needle jumps to an 15!

Moral of the story: you are far worse off being next to a set of power lines then a cell phone. People have lived with those under them in the ground and above them on power lines for 100 years. Somehow, those do not cause tumors, do they?