As someone now in Hong Kong about to fly back home to SF, I have always tried to schedule my flights so that I minimize my exposure to day time radiation. I guess I'm in the minority, but it's something to consider when taking international flights.
Then, in 1912, Victor Hess carried three enhanced-accuracy Wulf electrometers[12] to an altitude of 5300 meters in a free balloon flight. He found the ionization rate increased approximately fourfold over the rate at ground level.[12] Hess also ruled out the Sun as the radiation's source by making a balloon ascent during a near-total eclipse. With the moon blocking much of the Sun's visible radiation, Hess still measured rising radiation at rising altitudes.[12] He concluded "The results of my observation are best explained by the assumption that a radiation of very great penetrating power enters our atmosphere from above." In 1913–1914, Werner Kolhörster confirmed Victor Hess' earlier results by measuring the increased ionization rate at an altitude of 9 km.
Some claim that wifi and cell phone emissions bouncing around in the cabin are also cause for concern. I've no idea if it's true, but I can imagine that inside an aluminum tube 150 wifi cards trying to connect might have some biological effect.
Absolutely -- you can get RF burns from holding antennas, and you can obviously see the results of massive radars (e.g. putting a gerbil in a microwave).
What we're arguing about is the signal strength and duration (and to some extent, where on the person the radiation is administered; hands are pretty tolerant compared to brain or torso), and the conversion factor to biological effect (which varies by frequency).
With modern radios, you've also got duty cycle -- your cellphone isn't transmitting full-time.
I'm basically not afraid at all about "tower" signals as a member of the public. I wouldn't stand in a microwave point to point beam. I also wouldn't want a 5W HT radio next to my head (or groin) for high duty cycle use, but I'm ok with holding it in my hand with a hands-free kit.
The people who vote you down for saying some types of non-ionizing radiation can be bad are actually worse scientists than if you were to say all (non-ionizing or ionizing) radiation is a huge problem. We have positive evidence that some radiation is really bad, and some is sort of bad; we have a bunch of negative confirmations that low levels of many kinds of radiation aren't likely to be very bad, and certainly aren't super-bad, but the exact borderline isn't known, and varies, and a 0.01% increase in cancer with zero benefit is more of a concern to me than a 1% increase in cancer with massive benefit (e.g. a CT for trauma where you'd otherwise be likely to die).
(Incidentally, my fear of ~200 wifi devices transmitting in the milliwatts on 2.4GHz or 5.8GHz or on a flight is approximately zero -- especially since it's unclear how many would actually be using the service at any given time, and it's a pretty large volume.)
I don't know why this was down voted; while in an elevator one is not supposed to use a cell phone, because of this effect. At least in the elevator at work there is a sign that says so.
I thought one is not supposed to use a cell phone in the elevator because it doesn't work because elevators are made out of ferrous metals and hence are effectively Faraday cages.
That "in the elevator at work there is a sign that says so" is hardly evidence for anything.
People use cellphones in elevators ALL the time, ALL around the world. Especially when continuing a conversation they had as they walked in the building, and for as long as the signal stays.
The evidence was in the link of my post: because of the Faraday cage/screening, part of the radio waves that the cellphone is emitting are reflected back into the elevator; the resulting strength of this fields exceeds the norms by an order of magnitude. this is considered to be within harmful range.
The parent poster mentions the same effect in the context of aeroplanes.
The elevator/order-of-magnitude thing is an urban legend.
You'll only find it mentioned in fringe non-scientific sites.
Case in point, your source, microwavenews. This is for the kind of people who believe in chemtrails and such.
I mean, even if you don't know about the site, isn't it obvious from the BS way of writing that you're reading something designed to sell stuff to kooks? "According to some new calculations", "if you believe the research by", obscure "EMF" conferences in China (with dead webpages) and what have you.
