Debunking the viral video: Pop corn with cell phones

You can view the video here: Cooking kernels with cell phones. In short, the video depicts a few outdated cell phones surrounding a number of kernels. The phones are set off and the kernels are cooked or in other terms, "popped." As such, it's amazing that there is so much fear and/ or concern in radiation that people do not realize we're exposed to radiation...All. The. Time. In this case, the viral video depicts the idea that these cell phones are emitting enough radiation to cook kernels. The problem is that this is physically impossible. 

Wired.com provides an article that debunks this video through several statements made by
physicists such as Louis Bloomfield, a professor of the University of Virginia. All of which boils down to the explanation:

 In a microwave oven, energy excites the water inside popcorn kernels until it turns into highly pressurized gas, causing the kernels to pop. If mobile phones emitted that much energy, the water in the fingers of people holding them would heat up.

 Bloomfield add his personal statement by saying:

Ringing the phones doesn’t help because they’re interfering with each other and receiving a signal [from a cellphone tower] — not transmitting it. Furthermore, while it is possible to heat with sound, it’s not likely to happen at the low volume emitted by a mobile phone. "It would be like gathering opera singers together to sing, and trying to make the corn pop

In addition to Wired.com's article, Snopes, provided an article regarding the possibility of cooking eggs or popcorn kernels in which they debunked a viral chain email that showed the results of an egg exposed to the "radiation" of a cell phone. Others, as noted by the article, have tried experiments in which they've attempted to obtain the same results as those depicted in the chain email but have failed.

Mobile Manufacturers Forum, which is basically an association between many radio communication equipment manufacturers, states:

The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg.

Their entire statement is posted on the Snopes article, regarding the technicalities behind why eggs nor kernels can be cooked in this manner.

Via  Snopes, Via Wired

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Posted in: cell phones,Ken,radiation

Radiation in your life? Nonsense!

Let's give it up to the idiots who assume that every little dose of radiation is a guaranteed trip to cancer. But as a result of such nonsense, I'm here to take a break from coffee art and present to you the reasons why the recent events concerning Japan's failed nuclear station may mean absolutely nothing to food with an increased level of radiation -- to a point.

As many of you may know, the resulting leak from the nuclear plant did not only result in local increases of radiation but tests have shown that radiation has been detected in milk as far as California. So should we be worried? Should we, who find ourselves under the sun all the time, be seriously worried that we are drinking milk that "may give us cancer?" No, no we shouldn't. As presented to you by a well known webcomic, here is a radiation exposure chart  created and presented by XKCD:

 

Clicking on the image will allow you to view the actual size of it. The chart works in a clockwise manner, starting with the top left chart. 

*Ahem* As you can all see, we're constantly exposed to radiation no matter where we live. But what I'm truly saying is that we should be concerned by the AMOUNT of radiation we are exposed to RATHER than the idea that so and so is completely unsafe because there is an indication of radiation.

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Posted in: Fast Food,Ken,radiation