Focused Practice

I. Answer the following questions:

1. What has the new generation of the kilns enabled to do?

2. What was the principle of this new firing technology?

3. When did the act come into force in Italy?

4. How harmful is SO₂ considered to be?

5. What systems have been developed?

6. When does the degradation of SOV occur?

II. Analyse the grammar structures underlined in the above text.

III. Speak on: The recent innovation in firing technology.

Unit 52 Grammar: Non-finite Forms of the Verb. The Infinitive Constructions Word List:

1. to emit	излучать
2. handset	мобильный телефон, мобильник
3. tissue	ткань
4. tumour	опухоль
5. rate of radiation	качество излучения
6. DNA	хромосомы
7. benign tumour	доброкачественная опухоль

Mobile phones: a health risk?

Are mobile phones harmful to your health? There^’s been an ongoing debate over this question since the first analogue mobiles appeared in the 1980s.

It’s an important question given that worldwide, about 1.5 billion people use one. This year 650 million are expected to be sold. If they are harmful, the health of very large populations could be at risk.

We do know that mobile phones emit radiofrequency radiation from the handset and that these low-energy electromagnetic waves travel into the head. But do they cause injury to living tissue, possibly triggering a brain tumour or other disease?

Unfortunately, no-one knows for sure – hence the fierce debate. There hasn’t been much research into the effects of the radiation, especially over the long term. Mobile phones haven’t been around long enough. Also, the technology keeps changing. Third generation (3G) phones – which emit higher rates of radiation than earlier models – are just coming onto the market in big numbers. The technology is evolving faster than scientists can do trials to monitor safety. And many brain conditions, such as brain tumours, take years to develop.

Still, there is enough evidence to make some scientists concerned. Studies have shown mobile phone radiation does produce biological changes in humans- such as changes in brain temperature and activity as well as blood pressure changes. Others have shown they cause an increased incidence of illness in laboratory animals- for example cancer in mice.

Last December, a consortium of 12 research groups in seven European countries announced it had found evidence mobile phone radiation can damage DNA in human cells in the laboratory – changes that weren’t repaired by the cells and remained when they divided.

Many scientist dismiss these findings as inconsistent and unreliable. Millions of people who use mobile phones don’t seem to be harmed by them, they point out. The energy emitted by a mobile phone is so low as to be almost biologically insignificant – and it is fear of new technology rather than radiation that is the real problem.

Mobile phone companies are anxious to push this line too. They point out that there hasn’t to date been any evidence that mobile phones cause disease in humans. It’s a view supported by an influential report from a UK panel, the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones. It concluded in 2002 that while mobile phones do cause biological effects there’s no evidence that they cause illness.

But a study published in October last year challenged this notion. The Swedish study, published in the journal Epidemiology, showed a four-fold increase of a benign (non-cancerous) brain tumour in people who had been using a mobile phone for more than ten years. The increase in the tumour – called an acoustic neuroma – occurred in the side of the head where the person used the phone. But there was no increased risk of any other type of brain tumour.