While much of the techno-savvy world screamed "WTF?" at a WHO panel's announcement that cell phones might have something to do with cancer, Slate's Farhad Manjoo simply LOL'd. "When you dig into this issue, the decision seems to be an over-cautious interpretation of the current understanding of cell phones and our brains," he writes. "There's very little in the research about cell phones and cancer to suggest we should consider them to be among the more deadly products we come into contact with every day."
We probably suspect cell phones "because they're new, and they're everywhere," writes Manjoo. "The paranoia over cancer reflects this sudden, uneasy intimacy: What if these alien devices are silently killing us?" But the new finding comes from results that were "wildly inconclusive—and, according to its own authors, the study was most probably flawed." Worst case, it seems that extremely heavy users without headsets might face a slightly higher risk. "When it comes to cancer, you likely face more danger going out into the sun than you do on a cell phone," he writes. (More cancer stories.)
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