The Microwave Factor

Microwave - and other forms of electromagnetic - radiation are major (but conveniently disregarded, ignored, and overlooked) factors in many modern unexplained disease states. Insomnia, anxiety, vision problems, swollen lymph, headaches, extreme thirst, night sweats, fatigue, memory and concentration problems, muscle pain, weakened immunity, allergies, heart problems, and intestinal disturbances are all symptoms found in a disease process the Russians described in the 70's as Microwave Sickness.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

A Trip to Camp to Break a Tech Addiction

Scott Sporleder

Campers perform a welcoming dance on the first day at Camp Grounded in Navarro, Calif., which prohibits phones, computers, tablets and watches, as well as the use of real names.

By MATT HABER

Published: July 5, 2013

There was a phantom buzzing in my shorts. I had carried my iPhone in my left front pocket for so many years that my jeans have permanent rectangular fade marks over my thigh. By now the phone is almost an extension of my nervous system; even without the thing on my person, I could still feel it tingle like a missing limb.

But my phone was stapled inside a Trader Joe’s bag along with my watch, credit card and ID. Any buzzing I felt was surely imagined.

Then again, it could have been a mosquito.

This was Day 2 at Camp Grounded, an adults-only summer camp held on former Boy Scouts quarters in Navarro, Calif., about two and a half hours north of San Francisco. A little more than 300 people had gathered there for three days of color wars, talent shows, flag-raisings and other soothingly regressive activities organized by Digital Detox, an Oakland-based group dedicated to teaching technology-addled (or technology-addicted) people to, in the words of its literature, “disconnect to reconnect.”

The rules of Camp Grounded were simple: no phones, computers, tablets or watches; work talk, discussion of people’s ages and use of real names were prohibited.

There was a reason such strictures seemed appealing. A year ago, I was an editor at a news blog. My days started at the office at 7:30 a.m., where I routinely worked through lunch until 6:30 p.m. I was compelled to follow 1,200 Twitter users, skim 180 RSS feeds and edit dozens of posts a day on an ever-accelerating conveyor belt of content that would have made Lucy and Ethel choke. Evenings were a chance to catch up on “important” television shows between skimming Twitter.

The work-life crises of the meth dealer Walter White on “Breaking Bad” and the advertising executive Don Draper on “Mad Men” (or, when I was feeling particularly dark, Dexter Morgan, the serial killer on “Dexter”) were amplified, better art-directed versions of my own 24/7 grind. At night, the iPhone was docked beside my bed, making me feel that even as I slept, I was on the banks of the data stream just in case anything important — or anything at all — happened.

After a few months, my hands became numb and I asked my doctor for a chest X-ray because I was convinced I hadpneumonia. I was beyond burned out: I was scorched, like a marshmallow on a stick held too close to the fire.

At Camp Grounded, however, we would no longer be bloggers, entrepreneurs, lawyers, consultants or any other title; we were just ourselves (in my case, answering to “Brooklyn”). By removing the things that supposedly “connect” us in this wireless, oversharing, humble-bragging age, the founders of Digital Detox hoped to build real connections that run deeper than following one another on Twitter or “liking” someone’s photo on Instagram.

Without the distractions of the Web, social media, television and breaking news, campers, who, according to organizers, ranged in age from 19 to 67, were invited to share with one another and learn about ourselves.

All of which started immediately upon driving up to the camp. Cars were met at the gate and we were greeted by counselors whose grinning positivity reminded me of that scene in the 1981 movie “Ticket to Heaven” in which a reluctant recruit to a religious cult was met with a chant of “Bomb With Love!”

I had had a long, twisty ride up the mountain to get to the camp, and wasn’t prepared for so much full-body enthusiasm, especially not the hugs. Normally, I find myself pressed up against strangers only during my morning subway commute, and usually that’s no cause for smiles.

What was I getting myself into?

“My goal now is to connect people,” Levi Felix, Digital Detox’s 28-year-old co-founder, told me. “There’s always going to be more media, more to do outside of where you are. The only moment that matters is right now.”

Mr. Felix, whose camp name was Fidget Wigglesworth, is part of an emerging shift toward mindfulness among users of technology. Rather than merely accept social media’s intrusion on relationships, and the small, distancing lens onto experience that smartphones and tablets have become for many of us, some tech-savvy folks are rethinking their attachment to electronic devices.

Groups like Reboot have begun to advocate for digital sabbaths and a National Day of Unplugging. Jaron Lanier, a pioneer in the field of virtual reality, has lately begun to speak out against the dehumanizing downsides of technology. And Arianna Huffington, an undisputed doyenne of the Internet, has used her site and Twitter account to call for time offline, even plugging Camp Grounded, though she’s yet to relinquish her four BlackBerries.

Detection of Low Level Microwave Radiation Induced Deoxyribonucleic Acid Damage Vis-à-vis Genotoxicity in Brain of Fischer Rats.

2013 Jan;20(1):19-24. doi: 10.4103/0971-6580.111549.

Detection of Low Level Microwave Radiation Induced Deoxyribonucleic Acid Damage Vis-à-vis Genotoxicity in Brain of Fischer Rats.

Deshmukh PS, Megha K, Banerjee BD, Ahmed RS, Chandna S, Abegaonkar MP, Tripathi AK.

Source

Department of Biochemistry, Environmental Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Laboratory, University College of Medical Sciences and G.T.B. Hospital (University of Delhi), Dilshad Garden, New Delhi, India.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Non-ionizing radiofrequency radiation has been increasingly used in industry, commerce, medicine and especially in mobile phone technology and has become a matter of serious concern in present time.

OBJECTIVE:

The present study was designed to investigate the possible deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) damaging effects of low-level microwave radiation in brain of Fischer rats.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Experiments were performed on male Fischer rats exposed to microwave radiation for 30 days at three different frequencies: 900, 1800 and 2450 MHz. Animals were divided into 4 groups: Group I (Sham exposed): Animals not exposed to microwave radiation but kept under same conditions as that of other groups, Group II: Animals exposed to microwave radiation at frequency 900 MHz at specific absorption rate (SAR) 5.953 × 10(-4) W/kg, Group III: Animals exposed to 1800 MHz at SAR 5.835 × 10(-4) W/kg and Group IV: Animals exposed to 2450 MHz at SAR 6.672 × 10(-4) W/kg. At the end of the exposure period animals were sacrificed immediately and DNA damage in brain tissue was assessed using alkaline comet assay.

RESULTS:

In the present study, we demonstrated DNA damaging effects of low level microwave radiation in brain.

CONCLUSION:

We concluded that low SAR microwave radiation exposure at these frequencies may induce DNA strand breaks in brain tissue.

KEYWORDS:

Brain, comet assay, deoxyribonucleic acid damage, microwave radiation

PMID:: 23833433; [PubMed]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23833433

The Kids Can't Stop: Is Internet Addiction Real?

Matthew Edlund, M.D. researches rest, sleep, performance, and public health; he is the author of Healthy Without Health Insurance and The Power of Rest.

more...

Continually connecting can make you deeply disconnected.

Published on January 12, 2012 by Matthew J. Edlund, M.D. in The Power of Rest

Is This Addiction?

Can you get addicted to internet use? A new Chinese study argues that it certainly happens; that it clearly changes brain and behavior; and that the brain changes seen are in many ways similar to what happens with drug addiction and gambling.

Kids Who Can't Stop

The adolescents - aged 14 to 21 - studied in Shanghai and Wuhan were a rather special group. Their preoccupation with the Internet was encompassing. They took more and more time on the Net; tried to cut back but could not; felt restless and irritable when they did; stayed on longer than they should. Many also lied to their families about their use of the Net, and jeopardized school or job performance.

They really couldn't stop.

But they were not depressed. Previous researchers had argued that kids addicted to the internet were simply depressed, drug addicted or psychotic, or suffering severe anxiety disorders - their compulsive Net use was just an outlet for other problems. The Shanghai adolescents were clinically excluded from having such problems. They were then matched with a control group age and sexmatched kids - and sent off to be tested in the MRI machine.

Were the compulsive internet users truly comparable to the controls? No. On at least one questionnaire the unstoppable internet users were more anxious than the control group. Yet anxiety was certainly implied in their inability to stop using the Net - and in its deleterious social results.

Different Brains

The compulsive internet users certainly looked different from the control group. Previous work had shown decreased grey matter in the cingulated cortex, insula and lingual gyrus - areas involved with emotion and executive decision making. Other studies argued poor information processing and lower impulse control. The Shanghai-Wuhan researchers were interested in white matter - the connections between different brain areas.

And they were different.

Major changes were seen in the corpus callosum - which connects hemispheres - and areas like the internal capsule and precentral gyrus. The authors argued that white matter was disrupted in a host of areas involving emotion, decision making, and repetitive behaviors. The results were fairly similar to what was seen in people who frequently used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine.

Implications

1. There are kids using the Net who truly can't stop. Though clinicians argue about whether they're behavior is "compulsive" as opposed to addictive, it really messes up their lives.
2. Though the adolescents looked at in this study were truly extreme - and overall may be few in number - their brains were distinctly different in unhealthy ways.
3. Internet use is probably like most behaviorally defined actions - a continuous variable - not a dichotomous, yes or no one. Lots of adolescents may not be as compulsive as these Chinese kids, but fearbeing disconnected from the Net and deeply dislike having to focus their attention elsewhere. Many kids may be able to get away from the Net much of the time - but not all the time.
4. As noted by Dr. Henrietta Bowden-Jones in an interview with BBC News, behavioral "addictions" lead to the same brain changes as pharmacological ones.
5. China is advancing rapidly in biological and medical research, as it has in other arenas. Problems with plagiarism and overzealous publishing should not obscure excellent scientific work.

Bottom Line:

What you do changes your brain function and anatomy - rather quickly. Compulsive internet use can appear as functionally destructive as compulsive drug use or gambling.

And compulsive internet use may become a preferred outlet for much of the society suffering from depression and anxiety disorders.

In this case, continous connection may ultimately create disruptive disconnection - social, psychological, and emotional.

What we do is what we become. The Net continues to change human brains, as Nicholas Carr pointed out in his book "The Shallows." The changes will most probably become more profound as virtual reality technologically improves.

Will kids appearance on their Facebook page become more important to them than their real appearance?

We may soon find out.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-rest/201201/the-kids-cant-stop-is-internet-addiction-real

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Board denies cell phone tower at corner of Main and Elmwood

Published: July 9, 2013

A computer rendering shows what a proposed cell phone tower would like at the corner of Elmwood Avenue and Main Street in downtown Columbia. The city's Board of Zoning Appeals turned down Clear Talk's application to erect the tower, which would have been disguised as a flag pole.

COURTESY OF CLEAR TALK

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/07/09/2854113/board-denies-cell-phone-tower.html#storylink=cpy

By CASSIE COPE — ccope@thestate.com

The Board of Zoning Appeals Tuesday denied a 90-foot cellphone tower, disguised as a flag pole, at the corner of Main Street and Elmwood Avenue amid neighbor protests.

In a 4 to 2 vote, the board denied the tower proposed by Clear Talk, a cellphone and Internet service company, which has a store and its South Carolina headquarters at the intersection.

Clear Talk likely will submit a new proposal for a different area near their 2101 Main St., store because the area where the company has its state headquarters is a “critical location” for a cellphone tower, said Tom Persons Sr., a Clear Talk board member.

The cellphone tower was intended to provide better data service and also could be used by other cell service providers Clear Talk would contract with, such as AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile.

Mike Feigenbaum, development manager for Clear Talk, said the vote was disappointing, but the company will be back with another plan. The company has made a significant investment in Columbia, Feigenbaum said.

“We’re a part of this community,” he said.

Neighbors voiced concerns about the aesthetics of the 90-foot poll, which would be 30 inches in diameter, at an intersection of Elmwood Avenue, Columbia’s busiest street. Ellen Cooper, president of the Cottontown/Bellevue Historic District and former school principal, said an average flag pole is about 30 feet high and 10 to 12 inches in diameter.

“This is not a flag pole,” Cooper said. “This is a cell tower with a flag on the top.”

The board members also discussed the aesthetics of the cellphone tower.

“You’re not going to be able to miss it,” Chairman Ernest W. Cromartie III said.

Board member Patricia Durkin said that the flag pole was tacky.

George Rogers, a former University of South Carolina football player and Heisman Trophy winner, attended the meeting to show support for Clear Talk. Rogers said Clear Talk has been loyal to the George Rogers Foundation, his nonprofit organization, which helps first-generation college students attend school.

Rogers said the cell tower would help the community, but he said he also understood the grievances from neighbors.

Clear Talk will consider those grievances before submitting new plans to the zoning board, Persons said.

“We’re very sensitive to the neighbors,” he said.

http://www.thestate.com/2013/07/09/2854113/board-denies-cell-phone-tower.html

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/07/09/2854113/board-denies-cell-phone-tower.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/07/09/2854113/board-denies-cell-phone-tower.html#storylink=cpy

CPS cuts into schools’ cellphone tower cash deals

BY LAUREN FITZPATRICK Education Reporter lfitzpatrick@suntimes.com July 8, 2013 8:04PM

Victori'Tori' Bens35 is Local School Council chair Portage Park Elementary School. The school has two cellphone towers roof. CPS

Victoria "Tori" Benson, 35, is the Local School Council chair at Portage Park Elementary School. The school has two cellphone towers on the roof. CPS will now take two-thirds of the income that the towers bring in. | Alex Wroblewski~Sun-Times

It was a way for a number of cash-strapped Chicago Public Schools to generate a little extra income on their own: leasing roof space to cellular phone companies looking for a place to erect their towers.

But now CPS is putting the arm on the schools, allowing them to keep only a third of the money they raise.

The change was quietly slipped through, surprising school administrators in an already tumultuous budget year.

The district told them, via their new budgets for the year, that the schools could have just a third of that money and the other two-thirds would be distributed to the rest of CPS schools.

In a $5 billion budget for the district of about 400,000 children, the $4.2 million generated by about 140 cellphone leases at some 95 schools could run a CPS elementary school.

CPS officials say it’s only fair to spread the money around since all schools are hurting.

But at schools already staring down deep cuts in their draft budgets, the tens of thousands of dollars matter. They mean extra aides and supplies and equipment.

“It’s scary. Why are we working so hard for our school if you’re just stepping in and taking it anyhow?” said Victoria Benson, local school council chairwoman at Portage Park Elementary. “We’ve had that money every year. It’s that comfort money.”

Portage Park, 5330 W. Berteau, generates about $60,000 from leases to two cellphone companies that put towers on the roof. Last year, the money paid for substitutes when teachers had special education meetings, for security guard overtime and badges, and for a new school marquee and website that keeps parents better informed.

The school of about 1,100 kids is 81 percent low income. Under CPS’ new student-based budgeting system, Portage Park lost $800,000 compared to last year’s budget. Add in the extra things the school now needs to pay for that used to be supplied by Central Office — such as soap and toilet paper — and the cuts now feel more like $900,000, Benson said.

Other schools had more to lose. Mount Greenwood Elementary School, 10841 S. Homan, pulls in about $61,500 from two towers. Bogan High School, 3939 W. 79th St., earns $67,500 from cell towers. Amundsen High School, 5110 N Damen, makes about $95,000, Onahan Elementary School, 6634 W. Raven, about $108,000, and Thorp Elementary Scholastic Academy, 6024 W. Warwick, about $114,000.

Topping the list, according to CPS records is Steinmetz College Prep High School, 3030 N. Mobile, with about $117,750 from three cellular contracts. Most of the best deals are on the North and Northwest Sides, rather than the impoverished South and West sides.

Benson does feel bad that other schools don’t have the same opportunities to lease space. “They should have the same.”

The district is trying to redistribute the money among all its schools. But the two-thirds of the money — approximately $2.8 million — won’t show up as a separate cell tower line item to the rest of the schools,CPS spokeswoman Kelley Quinn said.

It’s already been redistributed as part of the new school-based budget formula. Each of the schools that doesn’t have a tower lease will see slightly more money per pupil, she said. She could not provide exact figures.

“In a time of financial crisis — and of this magnitude — we need to do all we can to mitigate impacts on all schools,” Quinn said. “Cell tower revenue should benefit all schools but we have allowed those with cell towers to keep a portion of the revenue generated at their school.”

Other kinds of leases have not been touched — fields and auditoriums and parking spaces leased to Zipcar — according to the district and several LSCs.

Not yet, anyway, said Tony Porfirio, LSC chair of Blaine Elementary School in Lake View, which abuts a particularly congested segment of Southport Avenue near the Music Box Theater and half a mile west of Wrigley Field.

The Lake View school doesn’t have a cell tower agreement anymore, but it does lease its auditorium and some classrooms to a church on Sundays, and its parking lot is frequently used during Cubs games on nights and weekends. The church deal yields it about $34,000 a year, according to the lease documents; the parking deal is worth another $60,000.

Last year, Porfirio said, that extra money paid for a long list of goods: printer supplies, field trip buses, professional development on using technology, refurbished iPads and part of a learning program used during study hall for enrichment. And this year, Blaine stands to lose about $600,000 overall over last year, threatening the school’s arts programs.

Without the lease buffer, Porfirio said, “I don’t even know where we’d go.”

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/21117111-418/cps-cuts-into-schools-cell-phone-tower-cash-deals.html

Monday, July 08, 2013

Electronic devices may cause plane crashes - and older aircraft are especially vulnerable

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
UPDATED: 17:29 GMT, 21 January 2011

Passengers increasingly forget to switch off laptops and e-readers which can interfere with electronics

The growing obsession with mobile phones and other gadgets could create a 'perfect storm' of interference with aircraft instruments to cause a crash.

As more and more portable electronic devices come on the market, passengers are becoming increasingly blasé about potential dangers to sensitive cockpit equipment, experts say.

Others may forget to switch off one of their many - including laptops and electronic readers.

Investigation: There is no definitive way to tell the effects of electronic device on aircraft instruments but it thought to be a factor in several crashes

Or perhaps they fail to realise when they use a mobile to play music it is still emitting an electromagnetic signal that could jam navigation and safety systems.

U.S. engineer Bill Strauss said older planes may be vulnerable.

Describing the situation as 'worrisome', he added: 'A plane is designed to the right specs but nobody goes back and checks if it is still robust.

'Then there are outliers - a mobile phone that's been dropped and abused, or a battery that puts out more than it is supposed to, and avionics that are more susceptible to interference because gaskets have failed.

'And boom, that's where you get interference.

Perfect storm: A combination of advancing technology in personal devices and aging aircraft electronics can combine to be problematic

It would be a perfect storm that would combine to create an aviation accident.'

The UK Civil Aviation Authority found electromagnetic signals emitted by phones can produce 'errors' on instrument displays and noise on pilot radios.

Blase: passengers don't think their devices will affect the plane

It received 35 safety alerts blamed on phones over six years.

Phone interference was cited as a possible factor in a 2003 crash in New Zealand in which eight people died after the plane flew into the ground short of the runway.

The pilot had been calling home.

And in 2007, the navigational equipment of a Boeing 737 in the U.S. failed after take off, only to reactivate after a passenger was told to turn off a sat-nav.

David Carson, an engineer with Boeing, stressed that problems do not occur in every case.

'And that's good,' he said.

Warning against complacency, he told the New York Times: 'It's bad in that people assume it never will.'

Some airlines have systems that intercept phone signals.

Many devices also have a 'flight safe' mode to turn off wireless signals.

However, Will Stewart, of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, points out that plane electronics are designed not to operate on the same frequency as gadgets used by passengers.

An earlier version of this article was mistakenly attributed to the writer Liz Thomas. We regret that a revised version of the article also failed to attribute the source to the New York Times.

Amazing pictures: Photographer captures electromagnetic waves from plants

A lot of people are unaware that every body on earth aura of electromagnetic waves in the form of bright surrounded by a casing can not be seen with the naked eye, this band can not see, but using a special camera called a Kirlian

Robert Mueltman a photographer who lives in San Francisco, he captures an impressive array of images to a group of plants in a scene to be closer to the imagination

http://24topics.com/more/227-5/amazing-pictures:-photographer-captures-electromagnetic-waves-from-plants