Nintendo Switch: The Kotaku Review. The Nintendo Switch is a fascinating new game console built around a novel and well-executed Read more Read. In case you’ve somehow managed to avoid the growing hype, on August 21, a solar eclipse will pass over the United States. And to protect your eyesight when staring. So far, results of EHS studies have been inconsistent. In fact, subjects experienced symptoms whether or not they were exposed to real electromagnetic fields. · The Asahi Shimbun is widely regarded for its journalism as the most respected daily newspaper in Japan. The English version offers selected articles from.

Watch Out for Counterfeit Solar Eclipse Glasses. In case you’ve somehow managed to avoid the growing hype, on August 2. United States. And to protect your eyesight when staring into the sun, you’ll need protective glasses. Naturally, though, there are already sketchy retailers out there peddling counterfit eclipse- watching gear, that might not appropriately protect your vision.

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A post from Quartz warned against counterfeit eclipse glasses that are being sold on Amazon by companies that don’t normally make astronomical gear. One seller, for example, also sold fidget spinners. Of course they did.)According to NASA, you should check if your glasses fit these criteria: Have certification information with a designated ISO 1. Have the manufacturer’s name and address printed somewhere on the product.

Not be used if they are older than three years, or have scratched or wrinkled lenses. Not use homemade filters or be substituted for with ordinary sunglasses — not even very dark ones — because they are not safe for looking directly at the Sun. The American Astronomical Society has approved these five brands for buying eclipse glasses: American Paper Optics, Baader Planetarium (Astro.

Solar Silver/Gold film only), Rainbow Symphony, Thousand Oaks Optical, and TSE 1. However, many counterfeit companies also use the names of the approved companies on their glasses.

NASA and the American Astronomical Society will approve more brands in an upcoming post, and retail stores like Walmart will likely soon begin selling approved eclipse- viewing glasses. These counterfeits aren’t necessarily dangerous to use, but there just isn’t a guarantee that they’ll protect your eyes. Solar- eclipse fever means counterfeit glasses are flooding Amazon’s market Quartz.

Is Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity a Real Illness? The National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) is a 1. West Virginia, Virginia, and part of Maryland that heavily restricts radio transmissions and other electromagnetic radiation on the same spectrum. Since 1. 95. 8, the ban minimizes interference with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, home to the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope.

In recent years, however, the NRQZ has been a safe haven for sufferers of electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS), which is not currently recognized as a medical diagnosis according to the World Health Organization. Folks claiming to suffer from EHS reports a variety of symptoms, which include dermatological issues, like redness or burning sensations, and other symptoms, such as fatigue, heart palpitations, and nausea. Fans of the television series Better Call Saul experienced the strange and exasperating malady through the unraveling of Michael Mc. Kean’s Chuck Mc. Gill—a hard- nosed lawyer and former bright star of his profession who wrapped himself in space blankets, lit his home with lanterns, and made guests leave their mobile phones in the mailbox outside. So far, results of EHS studies have been inconsistent.

In fact, subjects experienced symptoms whether or not they were exposed to real electromagnetic fields. Watch Hear `Em Rave Online. Watch Terror Trap Streaming'>Watch Terror Trap Streaming. Double- blind experiments (where neither the subject nor the researcher know if the subject is being exposed to real or sham electromagnetic fields) showed no evidence of symptoms being caused by electromagnetic fields. In this week’s Giz Asks, we talk to doctors, researchers, and medical field workers with a variety of opinions, from mainstream to fringe.

Is EHS ever a valid medical diagnosis? Does it even matter if EHS is a real disease since people say they feel legitimate pain? Is it possible to overcome EHS if you come to realize you don’t actually have a problem and it’s simply the culmination of some kind of obsession or paranoia?

Dr. Jonathan Pham. Doctor and medical researcher working on COSMOS (an international study investigating whether long term mobile phone and RF- EMF technologies cause adverse health outcomes), Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics (a unit that specialises in environmental EMF research) at Imperial College London.

In the past decade, the use of mobile phones and other wireless technologies has become widespread in our everyday lives, not only in our homes but also at workplaces and schools. These technologies emit electromagnetic fields (EMF) in the radiofrequency range. A small number of individuals have reported a range of symptoms which they attribute to EMF exposure. This has been referred to as electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS).

For some individuals these symptoms can be mild and for others it can be severely disabling, precluding them from being able to work or do simple daily tasks like cooking or self- care. Unfortunately, very little is known about the physiological mechanism by which EHS causes symptoms. Despite its name, a number of studies have shown no correlation between EHS symptoms and RF- EMF exposure. Given the lack of evidence linking EMF exposure and EHS, other triggers for this illness have been proposed.

These include other environmental factors like noise and lighting as well as psychological factors such as stress and mental illness. Studies in this regard are, unfortunately, limited. As to the question whether this is a real disease: despite the unlikely link between EMF and symptoms of EHS, I would say that individuals suffering from this subset of symptoms warrant medical care and relief of discomfort, just as individuals suffering from any other condition. What makes this difficult is our current lack of understanding of this condition: whether it represents one condition or a collection, what the real triggers are, and whether it is physiological, environmental or psychological in nature.

Therefore, further research is needed in this field, which will be essential in guiding quality medical care for these individuals. James Hamblin, MDHost of the video series If Our Bodies Could Talk, Senior Editor for The Atlantic. I love Better Call Saul and thought it did a good job showing the complexity of a disorder like this. It would be inappropriate to say it isn’t real. I think that’s pretty straightforward as a thing in life, don’t deny the reality of other people’s suffering The question is, are the symptoms caused by electromagnetic fields, and in what sense?

That’s where it gets tricky in terms of people arguing fake- or- real. I think of it as something analogous to a phobia—and I know this isn’t a perfect comparison, but—think about a really extreme “fear of heights,” acrophobia. If you take him to the observation deck of a skyscraper and make him look down, even if he’s behind glass or whatever other barrier that makes it impossible for him to fall, and he knows he can’t fall, he can still have every symptom of a person whose body is in real crisis—racing heart, surging blood pressure, stress hormones pumping. If he already had cardiovascular disease, he could be brought to the point of having a heart attack, and that could kill him. You killed him. And if you sit there and yell “fake!” that’s not insensitive, it’s ignorant, possibly legally tenuous. So that’s real, even though if that same person were brought to the edge blindfolded, he’d have no symptoms. The mechanism of the reaction works via perception of height, not height itself.

And I think it can be helpful to think of electromagnetic “hypersensitivity” in the same way. We have no reason, to my knowledge, to believe that the electromagnetic radiation from a light bulb can directly cause a severe reaction in the same way peanut can imperil an allergic person. The mechanism is different and needs to be treated accordingly, but there’s no reason to think of one as real and another not, or to compare how valid either person’s suffering is at all. Jeffrey Mogil, Ph. D. Head of Pain Genetics Lab at Mc.

Gill University, E. P. Taylor Professor of Pain Studies, Canada Research Chair in the Genetics of Pain (Tier I), Director of the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain. I don’t think people can create pain in their minds. Real diseases produce real pain, and just because EHS has no current medical explanation doesn’t mean it’s not real. Fibromyalgia was thought not to be “real” until imaging studies showed cortical activation in the same brain areas as “real” pain, and now we know that some reasonable percentage of fibromyalgics actually have small fiber polyneuropathy, which is only diagnosable with specialized biopsy staining. That being said, it is far from credible that electromagnetic radiation of the frequencies and intensities in current use could produce any actual pathology, so I remain extremely skeptical of this particular “disorder.”Harriet A.

Hall, MDRetired family physician and former Air Force flight surgeon, Skeptic magazine columnist, contributing editor to Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer, medical advisor and author at Quackwatch. It is not real. When sufferers have been tested, they have not been able to tell whether the electronic devices are turned on. They are indeed suffering, and blaming their symptoms on EHS only distracts from seeking the real cause of their symptoms and helping them. Of course it matters whether it is real or not: contact with reality is much more effective than imaginary beliefs in solving problems.

David O. Carpenter, MDDirector of Institute for Health and the Environment, a Collaborating Centre of the World Health Organization at the University at Albany. Electromagnetic hypersensitivity is a real disease. And it does matter if it is real or not. Clearly some people suffer from chronic ills and would like to blame EMFs, when in fact they are not electrosensitive. There are likely many more people who are electrosensitive but have not identified the cause of their symptoms.