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Cell Phones a Greater Threat Than Smoking, Asbestos?

Cell Phones a Greater Threat than Smoking, Asbestos?

There are plenty of people out there who believe that talking on a cell phone is just as unhealthy as sticking your head in front of an active X-Ray machine and holding it there while you engage in idle conversation with a friend. Others, though, think the first group are being overly paranoid and probably are the sort who won't use a public restroom under any circumstances for fear of picking up a flesh-eating virus. Scientific findings are still rather divided on this one, with most indicating that mobiles are perfectly safe, but an Australian researcher is bucking the trend, saying that cell phone use is a greater global threat than cigarette smoking or breathing asbestos.

Dr. Vini Khurana of Canberra Hospital doesn't actually believe that, on an individual basis, cell phones are more dangerous than those things that have been conclusively shown to be deadly in the right concentrations. However, due to the global spread of mobile phones, he believes they provide a much greater overall threat to people worldwide than either of the other two. He cites eight worldwide studies indicating a link between cell phone use and brain tumors, "a life-ending diagnosis in the vast majority of those diagnosed," and believes that in the next four years more studies will prove the link.

In the mean time we'll keep holding on to the 2005 study from the European Institute of Cancer Research that showed no cancer link among the 4,000 people who participated, and maybe try to keep our calls to a minimum.

From NEWS.com.au

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The Electric, Smokeless Cigarette

Crown 7 Offeres Electric Smokeless Cigarette
For those of us who have yet to kick our nicotine habits, fulfilling our smoky urges is progressively more difficult as we're banned from lighting up virtually everywhere outside of our bedrooms. There are a few ways to get your nicotine fix sans smoke, but most of us just don't get the same satisfaction from terrible tasting chewing gum at $70 a pop.

Crown 7, in an effort to cash in on us overtaxed cancer-stick wielding suckers, is offering electric cigars, cigarettes, and pipes that the company claims will allow you to smoke in normally smoke-free areas. A filter cartridge is inserted in the device and a rechargeable lithium-ion battery (just like in your cell phone or laptop) activates a smoke-like water vapor that fills your lungs with nicotine and an earthy (read: tastes vaguely like dirt) tobacco flavor.

While the idea sounds pretty good on paper, in practice the whole thing sort of falls apart. First, we doubt you'll actually get away with smoking this thing in restaurants, on trains, or any other place where smoking is banned. Second, the price is astronomical, even for us smokers who are pretty used to being taken advantage of. The cigar unit runs $65, the cigarette $100, and the pipe $150. Cartridges run $10 for a pack of five. Third, we're not sure how comfortable we are sucking on anything that needs to be charged like a cell phone.

From Sci Fi Tech

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