We certainly seem to understand many of the processes by which cell mutations are produced, but that's not the same as all of them, and, perhaps more importantly, what we do understand about how cancer is produced is that there are lots of factors besides cell mutation involved, and those of them that we do understand in general terms aren't understood in detail, and aren't sufficient to explain the entire process.
> But the probability of this study having failed to control for some other variable is higher than the probability of an as of yet unknown process allowing microwaves to produce changes in the chemical bonds holding together DNA.
That seems more like a statement of subjective plausibility than a supportable statement of quantitative probability, and, moreover, in order to be relevant to the result seems also to falsely assume that it is necessary to "produce changes in the chemical bonds holding together DNA" to alter the incidence of cancer. We already know that even when a potentially-cancer-inducing genetic mutation exists, various other non-genetic factors in the body (including qualities of the extracellular matrix around the cells which have the mutation) play significant roles in whether cancer actually develops. Its quite possible that if there is a cellphone-to-cancer link, that the mechanism doesn't involve changes in the frequency of genetic mutation at all, but affects on the body that affect the whether cancer manifests when a potentially-cancer-inducing mutation has arisen through other means.
That may be typical, in that there are definitely lots of environmental influences that work that way, but its been established for at least on the order of a couple of decades that there are also influences that impact the emergence and development of cancer when potentially cancer-causing mutations exist, and that genetics while important to cancer, aren't the whole story and mechanism. Attributes of the extracellular matrix, which can definitely be affected by physical and chemical effects that are not mutagenic, are one of the established influences.
I really like this sentence. I wish more science commentators would talk about probability like this.
[edited because using an asterisk to denote multiplication was a bad idea]
[0] http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jcp/128/10/10.1...
"But the probability of this study having failed to control for some other variable is higher than..."
It was a randomized block experiment. You don't need to assume that there were no unmeasured confounders in order to make causal inferences. That assumption is only needed in cross-sectional and cohort studies.
There is no such thing as "non-ionizing" radiation. There is just a continuum that ranges from "barely a chance for this to ionize a molecule" to "this will ionize something in the first nanometer". I mean, what's the point of understanding EMR as a continuum of wavelength, if we're going to create arbitrary distinctions therein and presume to know everything about those distinctions.
Another way to think about this is with an analogy: "non-lethal weapons"... but then see https://mic.com/articles/123410/nonlethal-weapons-are-much-m.... It would seem smarter to start thinking about things as "less" and "more" of something, rather than "non".
If you find some wavelength in the middle that seems to be safe, perhaps it is safe in the near term, but when put in terms of "less ionizing than we can notice" it doesn't sound like something I want to hold next to my brain for the next 15 years.
Also note, it's already known that Bluetooth and WiFi cause the blood brain barrier to become 10-100x more biologically leaky[1], letting more chemicals into your brain.
Edit: apparently, this Bluetooth / WiFi point is moot.
No, it is not.
Your source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8012056
No similar effect found at 1439 Mhz: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16142770
Replication of experiment at 915 Mhz sees no effect on blood brain barrier: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19580497
Do you have any other evidence? So far you are shooting blanks.
It is possible that other mechanisms cause cancer, but your conjecture is almost certainly false. Someone who does this for a living please let me know if there's clarification needed.
Take for example a single water molecule in vacuum: If you calculate the QM vibrational (motion of the nuclei) and electronic frequencies you would conclude that there is no way that microwave radiation can excite a water molecule. This is because the nuclei interact with three discrete (quantized) frequencies in the infrared (IR light), whereas the electronic degrees of freedom only interact with much higher energy photons (UV and above).
However, if you now move into the bulk, you will notice that there are is also an interaction energy between the water molecules which causes rapid changes in the water conformation at room temperature. From the quantum mechanical perspective, you now get an explosion of possible states including states which excite the hydrogen bond network between the water molecules. You can now induce translation and rotation of water with respect to each other. This is why water absorbs across a large spectrum of frequencies including radiation in the microwave region.
For DNA, the situation is similar. You will also find a continuous broadening of states. BUT how well you absorb energy at a given frequency still varies. Cell phone bands do not carry enough energy to break electronic bonds directly (unlike UV light). Instead, you can only induce thermal motions of the nuclei (heat). Luckily, our DNA transfers excess heat very rapidly (~picoseconds) to its environment, so no danger of local heating to the point of bond breaking if you don't climb up a massive cell phone tower.
In the end, its very unlikely that cell phone radiation alters chemical bonds in our DNA. However, beware of the sun while talking on the phone! I would guess that outdoor usage of cell phone significantly increases the dangers of cell phone usage. ;-)
1. http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/waves/Lesson-3/Interfe...
Do you have a source for the blood-brain barrier thing?
Furthermore, if we want to get really technical and into even lower probabilities, photons don't have single well defined energies. Wavelengths are not singularly defined for waves that don't extend to infinity. Therefore, even radiation that is emitted around, say, 500 nm, still has a small of chance of being absorbed by a 499 nm transition. Obviously these probabilities get tiny as the difference gets large, but they never drop to 0, technically.
I'm not saying any of this is medically relevant, but practically everything that is quantum mechanical is probabilistic.
(I have a PhD in physics, focusing on experimental quantum mechanics)
Two-photon absorption becomes an important effect at high intensities (if I understand the wikipedia article). How do "high intensities" compare to the intensity of radiation from a phone?
Can you recommend a good source on this? It seems like 10-100x more "leaky" BBB would have some pretty serious consequences.
Think about it... even the 0.5 W/kg treatment is still about 40W for average human adolescent male. That's a LOT of power from just a cell phone
We should certainly research this area further. But the probability of this study having failed to control for some other variable is higher than the probability of an as of yet unknown process allowing microwaves to produce changes in the chemical bonds holding together DNA.