I think it's a mistake that society has unquestioningly embraced the sun. We now live in a sea of radiation. The sun typically has a peak transmission power of several trillion watts (when there is a flare and when there is not). Some stars can transmit up to a milion times this. These levels are quite high. At ALL power levels solar radiation will affect human tissue.

There I fixed it for you :) as others have said I would like to see peer reviewed evidence of mobile phones and wireless causing cancer. Skin cancer from the sun is a much bigger worry and scientifically proven. Every year millions get skin cancer from going out unprotected even in temperate parts of the world. I would say this is more important...

But its scary that its like if you will live enough to get a cancer. Who dies of old these days. Most close ppl I hear have died was from cancer.

That is the natural RNG for you.... live long enough and you will certainly roll snake eyes at one point.

I guess, when humans found a cure for aging, a cure for cancer will become the top priority in medical research.... if that is even possible. Both the aging, and the cancer part. After all, cell growth and aging is a normal process, and mutation naturally comes with it AFAIK.

Now, if we could stop cells aging and needing to be replaced... </sci-fi>

My voice resonates my skull, does that mean I have cancer?

You're confusing audio with radio to begin with, they're actually quite different. And resonating radio waves don't automatically give you cancer. But strong enough or targeted waves can cause immediate damage. This is not scaremongering. I think it was at a materials engineering lecture that a technician told us various stories about his own experiences with powerful radio waves. Birds nearby transmitters being immediately struck dead when they were turned on. And he himself had an artificial cornea (IIRC) because power was accidently sent through a transmitter he had been working on, and his eyes were immediately boiled.

The capacity for man made radio waves to cause damage isn't science fiction, nor is it scaremongering. It's a reality. Sure it's difficult to quantify the damage caused by low level radio devices on people. But ridiculing people who are prepared to discuss it and put forward arguments is in my opinion unfair and especially when you don't have the faintest understanding of what's being discussed.

Human history is filled with medicines and technologies that have proved to be harmful. And I guess that the people of the day always ignore the risks or even refuse to acknowledge that there are risks to begin with.

Eating bacon gives you cancer. Living in the city makes women more likely to develop breast cancer. Driving a car a lot can give you skin cancer.

These are all researched and proven. So far, there is no conclusive proof that using a cellphone increases your risk of cancer by any measureable amount.

The thing is, it all comes down to that key word, risk. I know that eating bacon will increase my risk of cancer by a really small percentage over my lifetime, but i still eat it. I know that flying on an aircraft gives me as much radiation as an X-Ray, but it wouldn't stop me flying. The chances are that everything in this post has a higher cancer risk than the cellphone in my pocket and my wifi router.

Reading what the experts say, there is no conclusive agreement between all parties. Some say that radio waves may cause cancer whilst others say there is not enough scientific evidence or research conducted to prove either way and are sitting on the fence. You're entitled to your opinion, but until there is scientific proof i will simply continue to use my technology the same way i always have.

It comes down to one important question: Are you going to stop living in modern society because doing so increases your risk of death by a fraction of a percent? I know i most certainly am not. Enjoy your cave in the middle of the rainforest if you choose to do so!

Short answer: Your mouse has "Class 1 Laser" printed on its bottom. Which means, translated to normal language: "Not harmful to the eye, even if you look into it for a longer time".

In comparison, Class 1M would mean "Not harmful unless you look into it through a spyglass", and Class 2 would mean "Not harmful if exposure is under 0.25 seconds". Classes 3R and 3B will mean "Harmful for eyes" and "Harmful for eyes, possibly even skin". Those are not what you can normally buy over the counter, nor what you'll find in a mouse.

Note that the barcode scanners in every supermarket are about 20 times the strength of a computer mouse. Ever glanced into one by accident without getting blind?

As for cancer... well... um. Laser. Alright? We're talking about the same thing?

In comparison, Class 1M would mean "Not harmful unless you look into it through a spyglass", and Class 2 would mean "Not harmful if exposure is under 0.25 seconds". Classes 3R and 3B will mean "Harmful for eyes" and "Harmful for eyes, possibly even skin". Those are not what you can normally buy over the counter, nor what you'll find in a mouse.

Note that the barcode scanners in every supermarket are about 20 times the strength of a computer mouse. Ever glanced into one by accident without getting blind?

In the desk drawer downstairs i have a class IIIa laser product of about 5 milliwatts. It is dangerous to the eyes, even via reflection and refraction (yeah, the regulations say it shouldnt be, but it is). When playing around with it as all good geeks do, i accidentally refracted it through water for a fraction of a second, and back into my eye and had a dark green dot in my vision for a good half an hour.

Laser light is a form of radiation, but i think the OP is confusing different forms of radiation as being the same thing. It's not like you can compare a laser with exposure to Chernobyl's nuclear reactor, or similar. Enough laser light can do you damage but to think that your mouse would ever emit such levels is a fallacy...

I know that flying on an aircraft gives me as much radiation as an X-Ray,

Indeed, this has been known for a long, long time, and it didn't prevent people who fly for a living from doing so. Including e.g. my father who did it for 40 years and is well and alive (a bit too obese, but no sign of illness otherwise). He is doing the bacon thing, too, and tops it off with a non-trivial amount of beer. No cancer so far.

Indeed, a "healthy" amount of radiation is not at all bad to healthy tissue. Our organisms and their predecessors down to the very first lifeforms on the planet, have been subject to radiation for literally billions of years, and they have very good mechanisms for repairing the damage and dealing with the radiation unless it exceeds a certain threshold (which is surprisingly high).

In the desk drawer downstairs i have a class 3A laser product of about 5 milliwatts. It is dangerous to the eyes, even via reflection and refraction. When playing around with it as all good geeks do, i accidentally refracted it through water for a fraction of a second, and back into my eye and had a dark green dot in my vision for a good half an hour.

Ah yes, certainly... but comparing a Class-1 to a Class-3A laser product is like... well, we're speaking of a difference of a scale of 10³ to 10⁴ here.

It's funny you just have such a thing in the drawer downstairs. Those are not something you can "normally" buy here just like that (but maybe UK is more relaxed than Germany). Biggest stuff you get over the counter in a normal store is 1mW in fear you could deliberately blind a driver on the highway or a pilot who is trying to land an airplane. Unless of course you buy a M-Disc capable DVD writer, which is another 2-3 orders of magnitude more powerful than what you have in your drawer, and despite being outright dangerous has no restriction whatsoever. Which I'm assuming the people who are brain-damaged enough to try and take down an airplane would certainly know, too. So, banning the relatively harmless laser pointers is kind of pointless (wow, I didn't see that pun coming!).

Laser light is a form of radiation, but i think the OP is confusing different forms of radiation as being the same thing. It's not like you can compare a laser with exposure to Chernobyl's nuclear reactor, or similar.

Very true, you cannot even compare Chernobyl with Chernobyl easily. Or Chernobyl with an X-Ray in a hospital (although ionizing radiation is involved in every case, in one form or another).

Beta radiators such as one of the fallout products that became infamous with Chernobyl, for example, are pretty much harmless because beta radiation cannot cross the outermost (dead) layer of the skin. Even more so as the half-life time is a couple of days, so after some months there remains none of it anyway.

Well, except if it's a substance like iodine which your body will greedily take up and place directly inside a very vital endocrine organ. In which case the radiation is much more harmful than some gamma radiation would be (even if gamma radiation was 100 times higher dose). Except of course, if your body sees a gamma radiating isotope as calcium substitute with a half-human-life half life time. As is the case with the other involved fallout product.

You could of course cause cancer with especially crafted laser light if you are trying to be plain malicious, it would only need to be ultraviolet and sufficiently high energy, and you would need to make sure there are no prolonged rest periods. But I may assume that this is an unlikely scenario for a computer mouse. :D

It's funny you just have such a thing in the drawer downstairs. Those are not something you can "normally" buy here just like that (but maybe UK is more relaxed than Germany).

The laws here are pretty restrictive these days. I got mine before the restrictions on sale of laser printers came into force, which were created partly due to idiots pointing them at planes coming in to land. Even then, back in 2007, I had to buy it and have it shipped to a friend in America who then posted it to me in plain packaging as a gift through usps. Think geek simply wouldn't ship to the UK back then, more of a logistical than legal restriction. It's a fun toy for playing with the dogs though, or shining a line 15km across town in the dark onto tower blocks. I really can't imagine any other legitimate use for it... :lol:

I really can't imagine any other legitimate use for it

Astronomers can get licences here in Australia for green lasers which are otherwise illegal in order to point to bodies in the sky for onlookers.