51
votes
Does 5G pose health risks?
I would say this is
Not True
Just going by the sentence you’ve highlighted:
Health experts believe this increased exposure to 5G will have a devastating impact on our health.
It’s already ...
- 614
29
votes
Is it possible to bake a cake with a phone inside, leaving the phone intact?
The pictures are not fake. They are real photos of a phone baked into a cake, and then removed. However, the "Imagine this scenario. You drop your phone..." text is just imagination, not ...
- 104k
24
votes
Accepted
Does keeping phone in the front pocket cause male infertility?
The article provides no evidence for the claim.
While there is some evidence linking cell phones to specific types of cancer, her claim that putting your phone in your pocket puts you at higher risk ...
- 17k
21
votes
Does charging a phone use the same power as a washing machine?
This site calculates the use, in 2013, per year of your phone:
How Much Electricity Do Your Gadgets Really Use? (Forbes, 7 sep 2013)
It comes down to about 2kWh/year, assuming one full charge per ...
- 511
18
votes
Accepted
Are the methods and conclusions of the study "Clear connection between wireless devices and cancer, experts say" sound?
Problem 1:
"Table 1. Publications which reported positive findings on oxidative stress caused by RFR exposure of cellsin vitro."
Problem 2:
"Table 2. Publications which reported positive ...
- 9,486
18
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to bake a cake with a phone inside, leaving the phone intact?
It's possible, but unlikely.
It's possible
Cakes cook from the outside in. If you are not careful you might pull out a cake cooked outside but raw inside. This happens when the oven is too hot.
What ...
- 78.6k
14
votes
Is the loss of (15-21) million mobile users in China in part or partly linked to cover up of COVID-19 numbers?
Wrong assumptions can lead to wrong conclusions.
that probably these closed numbers belonged to the people who died
That assumes that each closed number belonged to one person (or maybe two ...
- 2,785
13
votes
Was text messaging originally developed for deaf people?
On wired commercial networks text communication predated voice communication.
As such it was voice that was added later.
For mobile networks text communication was added on the basis of offering all ...
- 9,486
13
votes
Do cell phones relay their locations to emergency services?
This is Enhanced 911 (easier-to-understand Wikipedia article): cell-phone network operators are required to transmit the location of a cellphone with a given level of accuracy to a 911 call center. ...
- 2,755
12
votes
Accepted
Does radiation from sleeping next to your smartphone affect your brain patterns negatively?
Seeing this question pop up again, I want to share something. I did not write an answer before because I did not want to dig up an old question without a conclusive answer.
While the claim is ...
- 14.1k
11
votes
Do Samsung phone batteries contain secret chips and antennae for stealing data?
This conspiracy theory has been widely debunked already. It is obviously false to anyone familiar with the Near Field Communication (NFC) antenna, installed on Samsung Galaxy batteries.
Here are some ...
- 140k
11
votes
Was text messaging originally developed for deaf people?
The TED speaker was not referring to wireless communications, but rather a telecommunications system pioneered for the deaf back in the 1960's, long before cellphones. It used older-style Teletype ...
- 1,561
10
votes
Can cell phones be remotely converted into listening devices?
Edward Snowden seems to think so:
"Mr Snowden said [UK intelligence agency] GCHQ could gain access to a handset by sending it an encrypted text message and use it for such things as taking ...
- 201
10
votes
Do wifi and cellphones increase the risk of miscarriage?
No, wifi and cellphone radiation have not been shown to increase the risk of miscarriage.
A recent peer-reviewed publication suggests a correlation between magnetic field exposure from all sources ...
- 17.6k
9
votes
Is the loss of (15-21) million mobile users in China in part or partly linked to cover up of COVID-19 numbers?
possibly attributed to cover up of deaths?
No, because as the Bloomberg article you link to points out, the likely explanation is that people are canceling extra phone plans. They may no longer be ...
- 44.4k
9
votes
Accepted
Do elevators increase radiation from cell phone use?
Resonant Cavity
Resonance will turn out to be one important factor that could cause increased radiation at certain spots, so let's take a minute to understand this.
The same effect that we observe ...
- 122
7
votes
Accepted
Could the Nokia 1100 be hacked to sniff SMS messages intended for third parties?
TL;DR answer: It seems like Nokia 1100 made it easier to spoof someone's phone number, but it wasn't as easy as media presented it. You still had to copy someone's SIM card.
I don't see how such a ...
- 1,363
6
votes
Can mobile phone cell towers be spoofed in ways that allow interception of calls?
The basic idea of GSM is that a mobile phone scans for base stations and that are applicable and then syncs with the base station that has the strongest signal.
In 2010 the relevant equipment cost 1,...
- 33.3k
6
votes
Do mobile phones attract lightning strikes if they are not switched off?
No, mobile phones do not attract lightning strikes.
NPR specifically addressed this BMJ article in Debunking the Cell Phone-Lightning Connection on August 2, 2006:
You may have heard something a ...
- 852
5
votes
Accepted
Can ionizing radiation be seen in videos taken on a mobile phone?
Plausible
Not a scientific paper, but Q&A from Health Physics Society describes experiment with disassembled CCD and CMOS sensors.
[...] it is true that both the charge-coupled silicon ...
- 26.6k
5
votes
Accepted
Do 48% of women in the Arab world not own a mobile phone?
The claim is largely supported by a 2015 report by GSMA (an international consortium of mobile operators). The report does not appear to be peer-reviewed.
Bridging the gender gap: Mobile access and ...
- 140k
4
votes
Accepted
Does fully discharging a Lithium-based battery reduce its lifespan?
For a TLDR version, jump to the last paragraph.
Since AccuBattery links to another paper than the one they actually cited, I felt like double checking if they represented the paper correctly... and ...
- 57.1k
4
votes
Are people more careless with their mobile phones when an upgrade is due?
Tech Digest Seems to disagree.
The research also revealed that 41% of those with a broken mobile admit they have not bothered fixing it because they are still able to make and receive phone calls, ...
- 260
4
votes
Can cell phones be remotely converted into listening devices?
Yes. And not just by the police.
There are existing demonstrated attacks which allow a malicious 3rd party to do so.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2472441/cybercrime-hacking/mobile-rat-attack-...
- 9,486
2
votes
Do mobile phones have anything to do with brain cancer?
Summary
Studies with mice and rats have shown there may be an increase in some rare forms of cancer (in schwannoma and glial cells) but if so, the effect is very small and the mechanisms remains ...
- 17.6k
2
votes
How can a call use cellular service when cellular service is off in Airplane Mode?
Airplane mode is software controlled. In other words, when you touch the screen in the area that indicates "activate airplane mode" the software behind the scenes changes some data that prevents calls ...
- 57.4k
2
votes
Did a woman go blind after playing a mobile game?
According to a 看看新闻 news report, yes, an (at the time) 21-year-old Chinese woman regularly binge-played the mobile game 王者荣耀 and lost vision in her right eye (via retinal vein occlusion or "eye ...
- 7,948
1
vote
Have people died by being shocked through the headphone cord of their cell phone?
It seems there's some evidence that you can be shocked through earphones especially during lightning strikes:
Listening to MP3s in a storm could blow your mind
Some evidence of other shocks non ...
- 170
1
vote
Does the Wowfixit screen protector harden phone screens?
There are several patent applications claiming to do what this product is advertised to do.
The only paper I found was "Hossein Habibi, M., Nasr-Esfahani, M., Emtiazi, G., & Hosseinkhani, B. (...
- 185
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible