If Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer so What About Laptops???
My laptop’s a different story. Since I started writing full-time in late 2005, I’ve held laptops on my lap daily. And for the past eight months, I’ve been trying to have a kid. No luck so far, but then—all other things being equal—they say the odds of conception are still just one in four each month. I don’t blame my laptop, but I’m done taking chances. I recently opted for one of those “chill pad” coolers, to hold the machine an inch or so off my legs, and cool the all-aluminum frame—one guess what kind of laptop I own—with a fan.
I know, the WHO’s talking about cell phones, not laptops. No one at the WHO said laptops cause cancer (not even “potentially”). But aren’t cell phones just palm-sized computers? We’ve heard for years cell phones might pose at least some sort of risk, and now this. Should we therefore be slightly more worried about the much larger and electronically ultra-complex objects we’re resting on our laps?
Let’s talk about the differences first. Laptops emit much lower electromagnetic field energy than mobile phones. That’s a quantifiable fact. EMF levels generated by Wi-Fi devices are also much lower than levels emitted by cellphones, so the argument that Wi-Fi signals might scramble your brain (among other things) isn’t currently science-supported. In short, laptops and mobile phones are different beasts entirely as far as radiation goes.
That said, the science does suggest that the heat generated by laptops can cause serious problems, from singed skin to male fertility problems. According to Dr. Mark Perloe, medical director at Georgia Reproductive Specialists: “Men who sit with a laptop directly on their laps create a temperature rise of up to five-degrees in their testicles. A one-degree rise for longer than 20 minutes drops sperm activity by more than 40 percent. You damage the DNA, affecting fertility and increasing the likelihood of a miscarriage.”