Suspicions that using mobile phones might cause brain cancers – a view that most scientists reject – have been prevalent for some time. Now there is surprising evidence that spending hours a day on a mobile might actually be good for the brain.
University of South Florida research suggests mobile phone use protects against and may even reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
Their conclusion, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease this week, is based on studies that show that exposure to electromagnetic waves similar to those generated by mobile phones helped to prevent the formation of the sticky brain plaques typical of Alzheimer’s disease in young mice. The exposure also reversed memory loss in older mice.
The researchers say such electromagnetic field exposure could be an effective, non-invasive way to treat humans.
Professor Gary Arendash, the lead researcher, said their experiments were designed with a view to extrapolating the work to humans. “Since we selected electromagnetic parameters that were identical to human cell phone use and tested mice in a task closely analogous to a human memory test, we believe our finding could have considerable relevance to humans.”
Maths explains animal calls
Nobody truly knows what the cry of a dinosaur such as a Tyrannosaurus Rex sounded like but scientists believe they can make a good guess based on simple mathematical models.
The idea that the call of an orang-utan can be directly compared to the chirping noise crickets make by rubbing their back legs together may seem far-fetched but the work carried out by Professor James Gilhooley and his colleagues at the universities of Florida and Oklahoma State provides the first theoretical underpinning for a general theory of animal communication.
It may prove vital to an understanding of the evolution of animal calls.
Prof Gilhooley of Florida university said: “Our results indicate that, for all species, basic features of acoustic communication are primarily controlled by individual metabolism, which in turn varies predictably with body size and temperature.
“So, when the calls are adjusted for an animal’s size and temperature, they even sound alike.”
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