As I head over to Rome this weekend, I see the EuMW news starting to pour into our e-mail box. We have the EuMW Online Show Daily posted on our home page that will be updated continuously during the week but with so much news to cover, we decided to make a news summary page so you can quickly browse the headlines.
Please use this blog to talk about or comment on any news items, new products, interesting papers, hot events, etc. during the week. Also, as noted below we have quite a number of companies and individuals using Twitter to post the happenings at the conference and exhibition as they occur. Remember to include the text #EuMW in your Tweat as our feed and others searching for show information can easily find them.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
EuMW 2009 Coverage Has Started!
The Microwave Journal Online Show Daily for EuMW 2009 is live at http://www.mwjournal.com/#EuMWOSD (on our home page). Our September show issue contains several articles about the conference, exhibition, events and what to see and do in Rome. The site is updated frequently with news and featured products from the show plus a live Twitter Feed. Set the keyword to "EuMW" to follow the action and follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pathindle.
We will have various entries on this blog over the next couple of weeks covering the show and what we find are hot topics and products in Rome. After attending IMS 2009 MTT-S, I think the two hotest topics might be new non-linear characterization techniques and high power GaN/LDMOS products. What do you think?
We will have various entries on this blog over the next couple of weeks covering the show and what we find are hot topics and products in Rome. After attending IMS 2009 MTT-S, I think the two hotest topics might be new non-linear characterization techniques and high power GaN/LDMOS products. What do you think?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Is that a cell phone in your pocket....
Fertility researcher, John Aitken, is advising men wishing to have children to avoid keeping their active mobile phones below the waist. His research group at the University of Newcastle in Australia has found that human sperm exposed to mobile phone radiation (1.8 GHz) for 16 hours had reduced vitality and motility, two key indices of fertility. Notably, he has also confirmed his own previous study, published in 2005, which showed that RF radiation could lead to DNA damage. In that earlier experiment, he had exposed mice to 900 MHz signals and then looked at the animals' sperm, in contrast to the new study in which he exposed semen collected from human volunteers.
The new data show striking dose responses for all three effects over a wide range of SARs —above 0.4 W/Kg and up to 27.5 W/Kg. The changes in motility and vitality became statistically significant at 1 W/Kg and the DNA damage at 2.8 W/Kg. In all cases, the statistical reliability of the effects became much more significant with higher SARs. These new results appear in a paper published on July 31 in PLoS ONE, a Web-based, peer-reviewed journal. All Public Library of Science journals offer free access to all.
"After 16 hours exposure, there was clear evidence of DNA damage," Aitken said at a fertility conference in Brisbane last fall when he first presented these findings. Aitken is the director of the Australian Research Council's Center of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development. "Several independent lines of evidence suggest that RF-EMR has the potential to influence semen quality and could be an important contributor to DNA damage in the male germ line."
Aitken also demonstrated a "potential causative mechanism" as to how RF radiation can lead to DNA damage. He acknowledges that cell phone signals do not have enough energy to directly break chemical bonds, but, he goes on, "[T]his form of radiation may have other effects on larger scale systems such as cells and organelles, which stem from the perturbation of charged molecules and the disruption of electron flow." Specifically he believes that the RF can cause leakage of electrons from the mitochondria and produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), which in turn can attack DNA. This process, he states, is unrelated to thermal stress.
The new data show striking dose responses for all three effects over a wide range of SARs —above 0.4 W/Kg and up to 27.5 W/Kg. The changes in motility and vitality became statistically significant at 1 W/Kg and the DNA damage at 2.8 W/Kg. In all cases, the statistical reliability of the effects became much more significant with higher SARs. These new results appear in a paper published on July 31 in PLoS ONE, a Web-based, peer-reviewed journal. All Public Library of Science journals offer free access to all.
"After 16 hours exposure, there was clear evidence of DNA damage," Aitken said at a fertility conference in Brisbane last fall when he first presented these findings. Aitken is the director of the Australian Research Council's Center of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development. "Several independent lines of evidence suggest that RF-EMR has the potential to influence semen quality and could be an important contributor to DNA damage in the male germ line."
Aitken also demonstrated a "potential causative mechanism" as to how RF radiation can lead to DNA damage. He acknowledges that cell phone signals do not have enough energy to directly break chemical bonds, but, he goes on, "[T]his form of radiation may have other effects on larger scale systems such as cells and organelles, which stem from the perturbation of charged molecules and the disruption of electron flow." Specifically he believes that the RF can cause leakage of electrons from the mitochondria and produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), which in turn can attack DNA. This process, he states, is unrelated to thermal stress.
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