"PIERCING THE FOG AROUND CELLPHONES AND CANCER."

Como é habitual reproduzimos extracto da coluna "What's New" do físico Robert Park, que volta ao tema do efeito dos telemóveis no cérebro humano:

"The WELL blog by Tara Parker-Pope was the top story in Tuesday’s New York Times Health Section. Her story is not wrong, but it’s told in the wrong context. Science is a search for cause and effect, not an epidemiologic majority. To settle the question, WHO invited 31 experts to spend a week in Lyon, the culinary capital of France, strategically located between the two best wine regions. Meanwhile, much had been made of a study showing that the brain is "activated" by microwave radiation. Of course, it is. The effect of microwaves on the human brain, as on cold pizza, is to cause chemical bonds to vibrate, which we sense as heat. Unlike cold pizza, however, the human brain resists being heated. Deep within the brain, the hypothalamus, the thing below the thalamus, senses any increase in blood temperature. It calls on blood vessels in the heated area to expand, and increases the heart rate. The fresh blood is a coolant, but incidentally, also increases the rate of metabolism. "Microwaves have activated the brain," the human observers shouted. The shout was heard in Lyon. Amidst the clinking of glasses, the vote of the expert panel tipped from "no effect" to "possibly carcinogenic to humans." What could it matter? No one is going to stop using cell phones anyway. Does anyone care? One enormously powerful group cares, the tort industry."

Robert Park