New study says mobile phone use not linked to brain tumours

Over the years, the health experts have debated over the connection between mobile phones and the occurence of cancer. Many reports have claimed  in the past that mobile phones can cause several health disorders, including cancer, but there's never been any conclusive proof or study. Recently, World Health Organisation (WHO) published a report that said that the electromagnetic fields produced by mobile phones are classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as possibly carcinogenic to humans.

The WHO report though also highlighted that till date research has not yet confirmed adverse impact on health due to exposure to radiofrequency fields. It also said that the search “has not been able to provide support for a causal relationship between exposure to electromagnetic fields and self-reported symptoms, or “electromagnetic hypersensitivity”.

It further noted, “There are some indications of an increased risk of glioma for those who reported the highest 10% of cumulative hours of cell phone use, although there was no consistent trend of increasing risk with greater duration of use.”

It's notable that the disorder is not considered as cancerous but still is being considered as important part of the ongoing debate over the link between cancer and cell phones. "Of interest is that acoustic neuromas grow in the area of the brain where greater energy emitted from the cell phones is absorbed, compared to other areas of the brain," says Dr. Joachim Schuz, who works with the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and is part of the study.Meanwhile, a new study suggests that people who have been using cell phone for more than a decade have not shown vulnerability to the increased risk of brain tumor. The study reached at its conclusion after looking at data on more than 2.8 million Danish adults. The researchers found that people who were using cell for 11-15 years were no more likely to develop an acoustic neuroma. According to experts, acoustic neuroma cause disorders such as ringing in the ears, dizziness and balance problems. And in some cases, they may rapidly grow and become life-threatening.

So, while the study conducted by Schuz's team did show that there is little or no correlation between the occurence of acoustic neuroma and cell phone use, even in long term cases, it would still be a little early to say that their use did not cause any harm at all.

Google unveils official URL shortcut for Google webpages - g.co

Google had created a website called “goo.gl” last year, opening its public URL shortening tool for everyone. It ensured that the users were no more dependent on Google Toolbar or Feedburner to use the tool. And now Google has come up with its own URL shortcut called “g.co” that will only link to official Google products and services.

Google says on its blog that the 'g.co' link ensures it will only direct to web pages that are owned by Google and that only Google is authorised to create those g.co shortcuts. “That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service.”

The url shortening tools are becoming increasingly popular as they enable users to shrink up long, unwieldy URLs. Google's dedicated g.co addresses for its own services also add some security to the scary world of URL expansion, assuring users that a 'g.co' page will always be a legitimate, Google-curated page.Google also clears air on future of the existing goo.gl. It says, “There’s no need to fret about the fate of goo.gl; we like it as much as you do, and nothing is changing on that front. It will continue to be our public URL shortener that anybody can use to shorten URLs across the web.”

Nearly a month ago, Twitter had rolled out an automatic version of its t.co URL shortening service. The feature allowed users to paste a URL of any length in their tweets.