Cellphones and the Brain

 

A study funded by the National Institutes of Health in the United Kingdom has found what is reported to be physical evidence of changes caused by the usage of cellular devices.  Specifically the study established a statistically significant increase in the consumption of glucose in the region near cellular phones’ radio transmitters. Unsurprisingly, those who claim that cellular phones cause brain cancer have leapt on this study, claiming it supports their hypothesis.  However, there is no reasonable interpretation of this study that can support such a link.

Firstly, the number of individuals tested was only 47, and the study has yet to be repeated or the mechanism explained.  This is a preliminary study, and the conclusions are interesting enough to warrant further research, but without additional studies using larger sample groups to confirm the results, the study itself is not very meaningful.

Finally, even if future studies do confirm these findings to a high degree of confidence, there is not a plausible mechanism that would link the results of this study to an increase in brain cancer.  The only known mechanism for radiation to cause  an increase in brain tumor rates is by damaging DNA.  The energy level of microwave photons used by cellphones is not high enough to lead to this effect at any flux level a person could reasonably be expected to be exposed to from cellphones or cellular towers.

Since the brain is essentially a dense collection of moving charges, it is not implausible that exposure to low energy electromagnetic sources might have a measurable physical effect; however, even if such an effect exists, there is no plausible mechanism for it to lead to an increase in the incidents of brain tumors, nor is there any good epidemiological evidence of a correlation. 

The results are interesting, but have no reasonable connection to the debate on whether cellular phones cause brain tumors.  Unfortunately, this is how the issue is being cast in the media.  The best science we have available indicates no good evidence of a correlation between cellular phone usage and brain tumors nor does it provide any physical explanation of how the radiation from cellular phones might cause such tumors.  To the best of our current scientific knowledge, the hypothesis that cellular phones cause cancer violate everything we know about physics and biochemistry.  This study makes no comment on that debate

 

Links:

Cellphone Use Tied to Changes in Brain Activity

The Pseudo-Skeptics of High Speed Rail

High speed rail has been a subject of controversy in California and elsewhere, with people (more often on the right) expressing “skepticism” about “trains to nowhere”.  For the purpose of full disclosure, I love trains.  I have since I was child and might not be the most unbiased commentator, but I think even true skeptics will  find a lot of these pseudo-skeptics’  claims regarding high speed rail to be dubious and badly reasoned.

Like the “skeptics”, I can only look at the proposed system at first blush, without the kind of deep insight that a significantly priced study would produce, but I think most of the skepticism is unwarranted.

For instance, the federal government recently funded the construction of a section of track in the Central Valley that critics have dubbed, “the train to nowhere.”  This is disingenuous because every transportation system connecting “somewhere” to “somewhere else” is likely to pass through “nowhere”.  The interstate highway system started this way, and I think most thoughtful people see through the specious claim.

Another common claim is that it will not be competitive with automobiles or airplanes, but this is unlikely.  For instance, according to the Wall Street Journal,

In the year since the Madrid-Barcelona line opened in February 2008, the AVE, costing passengers roughly the same as what they would pay to fly, has snatched half the route's air-passenger traffic. [1]

While this is no guarantee that this will happen in the nation’s second biggest air corridor (SFO – LAX), it is a pretty good indicator.  Train travel over these distances is more comfortable, more environmentally friendly, and when factoring in total time from door-to-door, is usually much quicker than air travel. 

Another claim of the critics is that Europe, Japan, and China are different than the United States because of their higher population density.  However, Spain’s population density is about the same as California’s population density (actually slightly lower than California’s), and high speed rail has been very successful there.

One of my fondest memories was traveling across Europe with a rail pass, and it would be nice one day to travel from San Francisco to New York the same way.  However, the “skeptics” often try to conflate individual projects with some kind of grandiose scheme for transcontinental high speed rail.  This is a straw man.

I suspect very few in Europe take the train from London to Athens (even though they could), because it is simply not competitive with air travel.  However, any route that is more than two hours by car but less than two hours by plane is.  Europeans built lines that made sense, which eventually resulted in the stitching together of a transcontinental high speed rail system.  It may mean that one day it will be possible to travel from California to New England on a high speed train, or it may not.  The end-game is irrelevant to individual projects. 

This grandiose system that “skeptics” like to criticize has no bearing on the systems that are being proposed to be built.  A plane can beat a train from San Francisco to Los Angeles, but when you factor in the time spent going through airport security, and the time spent stuck in (possibly commute) traffic getting to popular destinations (downtown LA for business travelers, Anaheim for tourists), the time saved by stepping on a train in downtown San Francisco (we will not count time in traffic there because heavy rail connects downtown to two of the three major airports) and stepping off near your destination more than makes up for the slower ground speed. 

The final major criticism is that high speed rail requires government subsidies.  This is likely to be true in most cases; however, so do automobiles, so the argument is logically inconsistent unless the “skeptics” believe that roads should not be paid for with tax subsidies.

Now certainly, there may be more legitimate criticisms, like the ability of State governments to successfully construct and operate a system, or of the best routes, technology, et cetera.  I will not address them here because there will always be some legitimate questions about any large new infrastructure project.  The questions Californians in particular, and Americans in general have to ask is, do we want to invest in infrastructure now and risk maybe making some minor mistakes, or do we want to wait until the point where the need for such a system becomes unquestionable?  Imagine the different path our nation might have taken had the “skeptics” of the Interstate system managed to halt its construction for three or four decades.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124018395386633143.html?mod=googlenews_wsj