RADIATION from cellphones is too weak to heat biological tissue or break chemical bonds in cells, but the radio waves they emit may still affect cell behaviour.
"Our study suggests that it is possible that mobile phone radiation alters the expression of some proteins in living humans," says Dariusz Leszczynski at the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, in Helsinki.
Leszczynski exposed 10 female volunteers to radiation at 900 megahertz from GSM phones to simulate an hour-long phone call. He screened 580 different proteins in their skin cells and found that the numbers of two proteins were altered in all of the volunteers: one protein increased by 89 per cent, the other decreased by 32 per cent (BMC Genomics, DOI: 10.1186/1471-2164-9-77).
Although similar effects have been observed in cultured cells, this is the first study to show molecular effects of phone radiation on humans. It does not ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.