Sunday, March 23, 2008

The Invisible Dangers

Electromagnetic radiation is the most natural way of energy transfer in nature, and it has been widely used in our daily life. Some applications of electromagnetic radiation are microwave oven, antenna, cable TV, and mobile phone. One caution of using electromagnetic radiation is that certain percentage of radiation which always expose to all direction in any media. If the radiation exposure is strong enough, it will cause problem to human body. According to Moeller (1992), “Nowadays exposures from radiation are potential threats to human health in the workplace and in the general environment.”(Moeller, 1992, p. 184)

Strong radiation threatens human health. The principle behind this is simple. When electromagnetic radiation passes through a conductor, it generates moving charge which is known as electrical current. When electrical current move through something which has resistance, it will create thermal energy. Generally speaking, current can heat up matters.

Human body can be seen as a conductor. It is made of molecules which are sensitive to electromagnetic radiation. When radiation passes through human, molecules inside the body will be excited and generate thermal energy. In an macro point of view, molecules’ temperature will rise. If the radiation is strong enough, molecules will then be heated. For example, if a person put his hands on a large transmitting antenna, his or her hands will be burned. That’s one of the most important reasons why large antenna must be built far away from residential area.

Being specific, one type of electromagnetic radiation has deep effect on human health, which is called cell phone radiation. Scientists call it the invisible dangerous, because when people use cell phone; their head will usually have a close contact with the cell phone which is considered to be a radiation. The radiation has a direct impact on human brain.

In China, cell phone radiation has become a big problem. Unlike in America, in China the standards of cell phone radiation are not strictly regulated. And due to the boom of China’s economic. The business circle of cell phone is very short. In every few months, new cell phone models will be seen in the market. Very often each model of cell phone may mostly last one year in the market. It created difficulty to regulate the standard. As a result, customers in China suffer health danger.

Solving this problem is not a one side job. Firstly, government must set strictly laws to regulate those cell phone producers. Secondly, lower power cell phone technologies should be used to reduce the EMF radiation strength. Thirdly, we need to use cell phone less in our daily life.

1 comment:

Ewa said...

i am not sure whether we would be affected by the EM radiation as it is strictly controlled in Singapore. Maybe in China some irresponsible peolple manufacture unsafe products which might be a threat to human life.The Chinese government need to take severe action in order to filter this threats