Science News

Mobile Phones Can Increase Worm's Fertility

Mobile phones might have unexpected effects on human health, according to New Scientist this week. A team of scientists exposed nematode worms, a type of small worm, to microwave radiation similar to the kind of radiation emitted by mobile phones, and they found that the radiation made the worms more fertile! So if microwave radiation affects fertility in worms then it's quite likely it will affect us in some way too. Until now scientists thought the only way mobile phones could affect human health was by heating the cells in our body - similar to the way food gets cooked in a microwave oven. But scientists say that it's very unlikely that microwave heating made the worms more fertile and that there must be something else going on.

10th Feb 2002