Radiation to many is a vague concept that people may hear about when traveling through the TSA kiosks at the airport, go in for an MRI or CAT scan, or if they are older, maybe what they heard about when kitchen microwaves started to become popular.  Though obscure, radiation can be found in places that may not be that intuitive. 

     Radiation is a form of energy. It travels through space, and can in some cases, goes through materials. For example, light gives off radiation, as do certain foods and minerals, cellular phones, and many other electronic devices. 

     Radiation occurs when there are unstable atoms.  If an atom picks up or loses an electron (considered unstable), it becomes electrically charged and highly reactive.  These electrically charged atoms don’t have the same number of protons and electrons and are known as Ions, or unbalanced atoms. An atom cannot stay unbalanced and therefore releases energy in the form of photons, or less commonly known as radiation. 

     Radiation can be classified into two groups. Non-ionizing and ionizing. When radiation is released, the human body receives the radiation energy (if in proximity). Non-ionizing radiation does not carry enough energy to break molecular bonds in living species immediately, but ionizing radiation can destroy bonds in DNA causing cell damage, which can lead to mutations such as cancer and tumors, and/or cause varying degrees of radiation sickness. Some examples of ionizing radiation are X-rays, cosmic rays, gamma rays (emitted by radioactive materials), visible light, ultraviolet (UV) light, heat, and some types of radio waves. 

     Most electronic devices that can be found in a home (i.e. computers, cell phones, microwaves, radios) are forms of non-ionizing radiation. This means that they theoretically do not cause immediate breakage of DNA because the energy released is not great enough.

     If we look at cellular phones specifically, we know they give off radiofrequency (RF), non-ionizing energy waves. These waves have a higher frequency (the number of waves that pass a point per second) than FM radio waves (which carry commercial radio signals between 88-108 MHz), but less than microwaves (which range in frequency between 300MHz and 300 GHz). 

     According to NWO, a Dutch Research Council, non-ionizing radiation can cause heating or photochemical reactions at the molecular level. Though in the general sense, this shouldn’t be a source of concern, most things heat up and are fine…right? But on a molecular level, once cells heat to a certain point, and are constantly heated, the DNA in living species can denature, and lose their ability to perform their given function (this means that their molecular bond is broken). When this occurs, mutations can develop because a pathway to perform a specific function is destroyed, and your body may function incorrectly. Sometimes these mutations are unnoticed, but sometimes they are recognized as tumors or cancers.

     Ionizing radiation has a higher frequency than ron-ionizing radiation. This means that the waves affect the cells in one’s body much more, leading to denaturing and thus possible mutations sooner than non-ionizing radiation.

     In comparison, non-ionizing radiation is essentially the slower frequency of electromagnetic waves. This type of radiation has not been scientifically proven to harm humans, but there have been tests that show correlation, and it biologically makes sense that correlation would occur as previously explained. 

     This really gets you thinking about the radiation that we are surrounded by, throughout each (and every) day. Most people are rarely far from cell phones, computers, TVs, microwaves, etc., …and though they all seem inert and harmless, we as humans are not looking at the big picture. What if the buildup of non-ionizing radiation can be just as harmful in the long term as ionizing radiation is in the short term?!