The idea of traveling back in time has long fascinated humans, such as in Back To The Future’s Delorean DMC-12. But claims that we’ve done it, like claims of perpetual motion, are the work of charlatans, not bona fide scientists. Image credit: Ed g2s of Wikimedia Commons.

Humans can’t tell legitimate science from junk science

When you’re confronted by some new information, how do you tell whether it’s valid or not?

“I’m old enough to remember when the polio vaccine was still new. Also, it hadn’t been that long since most people who caught pneumonia died from it. These medical breakthroughs were practically miracles.” -Pat Cadigan

In 2013, a study came out testing the relationship between brain tumors, both malignant and benign, and Wi-Fi or wireless phone use. They found, shockingly, that people who used wireless phones for more than 25 years showed a 300% greater risk of developing brain cancer than those who used wireless phones for a year or less. This was the third study done by the same group, following patients who had been diagnosed with brain cancer (as well as a control group) from 2007–2009 over many years. The study was peer-reviewed and published in the International Journal of Oncology, and was used to argue, by a prominent UC Berkeley scientist, that the World Health Organization should upgrade the type of radiation that wireless phones emit from possibly carcinogenic to probably carcinogenic to humans.