the economist篇章

另一种发动机：大脑中的声音
Jun 10th 2011, 23:18 by N.V. | LOS ANGELES
2011-06-10， 23：18 原作NV 洛杉矶
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Fears about the safety of mobile phone are overdone
对手机安全性的过分焦虑，
AT THE height of the cold war, one of the most powerful radar stations in the world flooded the Soviet Union with a river of microwave radiation from a huge antenna array at Orford Ness on the Suffolk coast of Britain. Bouncing off the ionosphere, the “over-the-horizon” radar swept across eastern Europe to Plesetsk and beyond in the heart of Russia. It was designed to provide early warning of any Soviet bombers or ballistic missiles being launched against the West.
在冷战兴盛时期，苏联充斥着来自世界最大雷达站之一的雷达设备发射的微波辐射，这个雷达站位于大不列颠suffolk海岸，有一排巨型的发射天线组成。高于地平线的雷达线，经电离层反射之后横扫东欧到达plesetsk甚至更远，这这属于俄国的腹地。这是用来警告任何用来对付西方国家的苏联轰炸机和轰炸导弹的。

The radar’s 10-megawatt transmitter—20 times more powerful than the mightiest civilian broadcasting stations of the day—was powered by electricity from the nearby Sizewell nuclear power station. When testing started in 1971, local sailors were quietly warned not to enter a designated zone where the microwave energy rippled out across the North Sea. Heat from the beam, they were informed, “would fry their eyeballs”.
雷达的转换机为10兆瓦——相当于现今功率最大民用广播台的20倍还要多——是由sizewell附近的核电站功能的。1971年测试阶段，当地海员秘密收到警告，不能进入指定区域，那里的微波能量扩散并弥漫到北海。电波束发射的能量足以灼伤他们的眼睛。
The British authorities never admitted whether the restriction was for the sailors’ protection, or merely to keep prying eyes away from a sensitive site. There is no doubt, though, that, close up, a 10-megawatt microwave beam would scramble an egg. Microwave ovens use a mere kilowatt to do that and more. The point of the anecdote is that the only physical effect radio waves have on living tissue—whether at the 4-40-megahertz part of the spectrum deployed at Orford Ness or in the 450-2,700-megahertz bands used by mobile phones—is to increase the surface temperature.
英国当局一直没有声明这一限制到底是为了保护海员还是仅仅为了让人们猎奇的目光转离这一敏感地带。但是毫无疑问，如果靠得很近的话，10兆瓦的微波束能够炒熟一个鸡蛋。微波炉仅用千瓦的微波量就可以做到或者更甚。这一传闻的重点是微波对于身体组织的物理作用——无论是orford ness使用的频谱上4-40兆赫兹的部分还是应用于手机上的450-2700 兆赫兹带——是会增加表皮的温度。

No matter how p

owerful the transmitter, radio waves simply cannot produce ionising radiation. Only gamma rays, X-rays and extreme ultra-violet waves, which operate in the far (ie, high-frequency) end of the electromagnetic spectrum, along with fission fragments and other particles from within an atom, and cosmic rays (those particles' equivalents from outer space) are energetic enough to knock electrons off other atoms to break chemical bonds and produce dangerous molecules called free radicals. It is these highly reactive free radicals that damage a person’s DNA, causing mutation, radiation sickness, cancer and death, depending X无论转换机功率多大，电波是不能产生电离辐射的。仅有伽马射线，X射线和极端紫外线 在原子裂变的碎片以及其他小物体作用下，或者宇宙射线才具备足够的能量改变院子的电离层结构从而改变化学联系从而产生被称为自由radical的危险分子。这些高活性的radical会破坏人的DNA,从而引发突变辐射病，癌症甚至死亡。
By contrast, at their much lower frequencies, radio waves do not carry anywhere near enough energy to produce free radicals. The “quanta” of energy (ie, photons) carried by radio waves in, say, the UHF band used by television, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cordless phones, mobile phones, microwave ovens, garage remotes and many other household devices have energy levels of a few millionths of an electron-volt. That is roughly a million times too weak to cause ionisation. To produce free radicals, photons need to pack at least a couple of electron-volts of energy.
比较而言，电波的频率非常低，其能量是怎么也达不到产生自由基的程度。如在电视wifi 蓝牙无线手机 ，移动电话，微波炉，车库遥控和其他家用设备使用的VFH带中，电波所携带的能量（比如光量子）仅仅是几百万伏一个电子的能量。这几百万倍的能量因为太低而不能产生电离。要产生自由基，光量子需要聚集数个电子的能量。

All of which leaves your correspondent a little puzzled as to why the World Health Organisation should recently have reversed itself on the hazard that mobile phones pose to people’s health. Late last month, the organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) decided to classify radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (ie, radio waves) as “a possible carcinogenic to humans” based on a perceived risk of glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer.
对于世界卫生组织进来推翻自己关于移动电话给人类带来的危害方面的结论，作者有些不解。上个月底，who的国际癌症研究机构决定将电波磁场（如，电波）归为可能致癌物，基于引发glioma（一种恶性脑癌）的危险，
In May 2010, following a landmark, decade-long study undertaken by teams in 13 countries, the IARC reported that no adverse health effects could be associated with the use of mobile phones. In

deed, the group went so far as to highlight the biggest risk to mobile-phone users as being, not brain cancer, but road-traffic injuries caused by talking while driving. As for the heating effects of radio waves, the increase in temperature of the skin caused by holding a mobile phone close to the ear was found to be an order of magnitude less than that caused by being exposed to direct sunlight.
2010年5月，经过13个国家小组十多年的研究，国际癌症研究机构得出了一项标志性的结论，使用手机不会给身体带来任何负面影响。确实，这项研究强调目前手机使用者所面临的最大危险不是脑癌而是一边打电话一边开车所造成的交通事故伤害。由电波而引起的体表升温比太阳直射所产生的要低。
The Group 2B classification the IARC has now adopted for mobile phones refers to “possible”, not “probable” (Group 2A) nor “proven” (Group 1), carcinogens—and ranks the mobile phone’s health risk alongside the chance of getting cancer from coffee, petrol fumes and surgical implants such as stents and false teeth. In other words, pretty small and, even if such effects were ever detected, nothing to get hysterical about.
IARC应用于手机分类中的2B类涉及到可能的而不是很可能（2A）也不是以证明的（第一组）的致癌因素——并且将手机致癌的几率与咖啡， 汽油味手术移植比如血管支架和假牙。换句话说，即使曾经检测到这种影响，也是非常小的，没有必要变得歇斯底里。
That has not stopped the tinfoil-hat brigade from continuing to believe that deadly waves in the ether are frying their brains. Lately, the paranoia has focused on smart electricity meters. Such meters interrogate various appliances within the home and relay wireless messages continuously to the power company about the household’s pattern of electricity use. Such real-time information allows the company to manage its generating capacity more intelligently. In so doing, it can pass some of the benefits back to customers who let it adjust their heating or air-conditioning remotely at certain times of the day.
这并没有阻止以锡箔纸帽为特色的人群继续坚守他们的观点，天空中的致命电波能够灼伤他们的大脑。最近，这种偏执现象又集中在智能电力测量表上。这种测量表能够检测多种家用电器并且通过无线消息发送让电力公司了解到家庭电力的使用情况。这种即时信息传递使公司能够更加智能化的控制电力产量。这种方式，也能是消费者得到好处，让电力公司在一天的某一时间远程遥控供热或空调系统。
Lately, a backlash among homeowners in northern California, who fear they are about to be drenched in dangerous radio waves, has forced a handful of municipalities to slap moratoriums on the smart meters being introduced by Pacific Gas & Electric. The California Public Utilit

ies Commission has rightly ignored such silliness. But it intends to give customers the option of keeping their old meters, though the utility will be allowed to charge them for sending someone out to read their dumb analogue meter every month.
最近，北加利福尼亚的家庭主人们因担心他们会被浸到危险电波的漩涡，发出在各政府发出强烈抗议，促使很多政府机构对太平洋燃气和电力公司引进的智能电表喊停。加州公共设施委员会不在乎这样做的精明与否。它允许消费者保留旧的电表，但是必须要缴纳因每月派出人员查看电表度数所承担的额外费用。
Actually, smart meters are just about the last thing to worry about. In an independent study released last April, the California Council on Science and Technology, an advisory arm of the state legislature, concluded that wireless smart meters, when installed and properly maintained, produce much lower levels of radio-frequency exposure than many existing household devices, especially microwave ovens and mobile phones. The council, comprising dozens of the state’s most eminent scientists, engineers and scholars, noted that, to date, it had not been possible to identify or confirm any health problems resulting from potential non-thermal effects of radio waves (should such effects exist). But nor had it been possible to show categorically that there weren’t any.
实际上，智能电表是最不用担心的东西。在去年四月的一项独立调查中，加州科技委，州立法的咨询机构发表结论称，无线只能电表，只要安装维护合理，所产生的电波频率比任何家用设备的都要低，特别是微波炉和手机。组委会综合国家的十几位最有名的科学家工程师和学者表明迄今为止都不可能确定因电波带来的出热能以外的因素所产生的健康问题（如果这中问题存在的话）但是，也不能够证明就是没有。
The latter is next to impossible. Indeed, by classifying mobile phones as a Group 2B risk, what the IARC was effectively saying (and the California Council on Science and Technology implying) was that, even if such a health risk exists, there is no way of ruling out bias, chance or other confounding circumstance with any reasonable degree of confidence. So, to hedge bets, protect careers and guarantee future funding, the obvious thing to suggest is yet more research on the long-term, heavy use of mobile phones. The most likely result, given the nature of the problem, is that the conclusion will be equally inconclusive.
后者的可能性几乎是零。确实，通过将手机归在2B组，IARC想要说明的是即使有这样的危险存在，因此对于各种偏见，几率或者其他的情况都应该给于一定的理解。所以为了消除这些疑虑，更多对于手机安全使用这一项任重而道远的课题进行研究。最有可能的结果，出于对这一问题本质的考虑，

应该是得不到完全确定的结论。
And equally irrelevant. The Twitter generation already texts rather than talks. Adults are catching up fast. According to Nielsen, a media-research company, the number of text messages sent and received by people aged 45 to 54 years of age rose 75% during a three-month period when measurements were made last year. Over the same period, the number of phone calls adults made and received fell 25%. Meanwhile, for those who insist on yakking, hands-free is fast becoming the norm, thanks to stiffer penalties for using handsets while driving and the proliferation of talking gadgets.
同样不相符的是，twitter一代已经用发文本代替了打电话。成年人正在快速的追赶这一趋势。根据nielsen，媒体研究公司，去年的调查显示，年龄在45到54之间的人发送和接受短信的比率上升了75%,而打电话的人数却同比下降了25%。同时对于那些坚持通话的人们来说，由于开车时禁止打手机和通话设备的发展，不用手的手机正成为流行趋势。
As readers have no doubt gathered, your correspondent thinks the whole brouhaha over mobile phones causing brain cancer is monumentally irrelevant compared with all the other things there are to worry about. He is more concerned about irresponsible scofflaws rear-ending him while they are texting or talking on the phone—and causing serious injury to himself and his family, as well as themselves. Regretfully, that is far more likely to happen than anything so bizarre as to fall victim of some inexplicable form of radio-induced glioma.
正如读者们体会到的一样，作者认为对于手机与大脑癌症是完全无关的比起其他应该担心的因素来说。更关心在使用手机时所产生的交流问题会给自己和家人带来的伤害。遗憾的是这却成了无谓的牺牲品。