Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY


	Posts tagged with "science"

Don't take your space visor off...
posted by GJ on February 1, 2012 @ 8:30AM

4 comments | Tags: science

Need a good scare?
posted by GJ on January 10, 2012 @ 11:26AM

It would seem that the first big bad superbug has been discovered, and it's our old friend tuberculosis. Scary news, indeed. 2012 is gonna be a fun ride, folks.

8 comments | Tags: science, scary

Want to see light animated?
posted by Marc on December 13, 2011 @ 3:38PM

This is a cool article about an MIT project that uses some trick photography to essentially get a slow motion video of light being projected onto an object. Good (and light!) read.

5 comments | Tags: video, science

Phil Plait - An Asteroid Can Ruin Your Whole Day
posted by GJ on October 15, 2011 @ 8:03AM

3 comments | Tags: video, science

This might get you thinking about energy conservation...but it's really about population control
posted by GJ on August 3, 2011 @ 8:08AM

Let a physicist explain why our continued growth (both in energy consumption and economic) is a problem. A big one, in another 300 years.

2 comments | Tags: science

Cell phones might cause cancer, according to WHO
posted by GJ on May 31, 2011 @ 1:15PM

Supposedly some scientists at the UN's World Health Organization has reversed earlier recommendations and now say cell phones might cause cancer.

OK, repeat after me. Cell phones cannot cause cancer. Do you know what causes cancer? DNA damage. What damages DNA? Usually, ionizing radiation (you can get it from other means as well, but cell phones supposedly cause EM field issues that cause cancer). You get that exposure from the sun--and from your surroundings, to a degree, depending on where you live.

You don't get it from microwaves. You don't get it from watching TV. You don't get it from cell phones.

First and foremost, radation is a fancy word for light. Radio waves? Light. Heat from your toaster? Light. Difference is the freqency of the light wave, that's all. Ionizing radiation is simply a light wave over the very high end of the electro-magnetic field spectrum. Think gamma rays, x-rays, and ultraviolet rays. Ultraviolet is the threshhold--below this level, EM fields are no longer ionizing.

So, here's the scale:

Low end of the frequency bar: cell phones, wifi, microwaves, radio waves, tv broadcasts. Good thing this is non-ionizing, since we're bathing in this stuff.
Middle range of the frequency bar: visible light. Again, good thing this is...oh, you get it by now.
High range of the frequency bar: UV, X-ray, and Gamma rays. Light goes invisble again at UV. That same UV is what gives you a tan--another way to get cancer (of the skin). UV isn't really too bad though, or we'd all have cancer. X-rays are far worse--which is why you only get a few of those a year to minimize your exposure. Gamma rays are way worse--don't expect to see those used for medical scans anytime soon.

So, cell phones are in the non-ionizing band. In slightly non-sciency words, cell carrier waves just don't have enough juice to modify your DNA. Thus, no cancer. Perhaps those knuckleheads at WHO should read their own website.

5 comments | Tags: woo, science

Marc said about 2 hours later

I definitely don't think cell phones and most other types of non-ionizing radiation cause cancer, but I'm not convinced they are terribly healthy for you either. As is true with nearly anything in life, overexposure or indulgence to anything is usually bad and these low end frequency types are certainly causing a stir too (Enjoy the pun). While it can take relatively small doses of ionizing radiation to cause problems, huge doses of non-ionizing are almost sure to be causing some health issues too. Cancer? No, probably not directly, but perhaps in large doses it helps to weaken cells enough to make them more susceptible to the ionizing bad boys.

I just don't have the belief that our increased exposure to non-ionizing is all "good vibrations." Is it going to stop me from using all these awesome things? No, I've got a short life to live and they are friggen cool. I'm glad WHO is looking into it, but I know this will cause another group of people to start spreading cell phones == cancer fallacies.
GJ said about 17 hours later

The simple fact is, we distinguish between non-ionizing and ionizing radiation by the fact that ionizing has the energy to modify DNA. That's not a soft limit. As for it being healthy or not--you have been bathed in it since birth. So have I. There's this thing we call background radiation--it's all around us.

Further, cell phones have been in use for over 20 years. If they caused cancer, we'd have seen a pretty noticeable bump in cancer rates. Only problem is--there is no bump. Nada, nothing. What there is: a fair amount of hysteria pushed by a few unscrupulous authors. These same knuckleheads proposed that power lines caused cancer in the 1970s and 80s. You can guess how well that panned out--but there are lots of uninformed people out there that believe that too.

So, all we have is "feelings" that cell phones are bad for us. That's exactly why the WHO is looking at this, and it's not science.
Marc said about 19 hours later

I think the real problem is the journalists looking to write sensational articles and the idiots that believe them at face value. In additional, the journalists tend to fall in that second category too so they actually believe what they are writing is truth.

Based on the original article, it really pretty clearly says that scientists have never found definitive evidence that cell phones are an issue, but they have found some correlative evidence which is making them investigate. I would read that as is, but most people won't get past the article title and they'll spin it to say cell phones do cause cancer. This particular article isn't all that bad, but I'll bet people like Yahoo and others who use Reuters as their templates will spin it to sound scary (and then slap it on their front page for all to see) :)
GJ said about 21 hours later

It doesn't alter the fact the the WHO, the UN's scientific body, is taking this seriously when most scientists treat it with the same skepticism they reserve for other made-up maladies. I take it as a sign the UN bureaucrats are dictating what work the WHO must do, regardless of its worth in scientific terms. That's the real shame here.
GJ said about 23 hours later

BTW, Marc, your last line proved to be right on the money.

You might have heard that cancer was recently cured.
posted by GJ on May 17, 2011 @ 11:13AM

And of course, we have the usual story about how this is being unnoticed, even surpressed. Leave it to cranky biologist PZ Myers to outline what's really going on here.

No comments | Tags: science

Climate Change 1, Climate Change Denial 0
posted by GJ on May 2, 2011 @ 4:47PM

Science in action. Gotta love it. Well, unless your name is Joe Bastardi. :)

1 comment | Tags: video, science

Possible Huge Science Discovery
posted by GJ on April 7, 2011 @ 3:06PM

Unlike most of the science you read about in the news, this report is absolutely huge news. It's also why those expensive accelerators like the one they killed off in Texas are pretty important investments.

Now, you're saying--oooh, a new particle, big fat hairy deal. New particles of this type can bring into play forces that may help explain quite a bit of what we do not understand about the subatomic world. You want ever faster communications, more efficient transportation, expansion of our reach into outer space? This is where it all starts.

If validated, this could be the biggest find during our lifetimes. Strangely enough (pun intended), this particle did NOT turn out to be the God Particle (Higgs boson). Even stranger, it could well end up being a bigger discovery. This is way, way cool to we physics geeks.

6 comments | Tags: news, science

High school class sets off nuclear explosion
posted by GJ on March 24, 2011 @ 9:39AM

3 comments | Tags: science


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