The cell phone on the nightstand is not “frying” your brain, but science is beginning to understand why it prevents you from resting

It is practically a ritual today: connect your phone to the charger, set the alarm and leave it on the nightstand just 30 centimeters from the pillow to sleep. According to the data, for 95% of adultssleeping with your phone within reach is a logistical necessity; For a growing stream of longevity experts, It’s a biological miscalculation. because we rest less. To do this, we have analyzed the bibliography to know exactly the effect of having your cell phone next to you. The culprit confirmed. Before entering the swampy terrain of the possible problems that radiation can generate when it is around us, we must point out the “elephant in the room.” The most solid evidence we have today does not blame antennas for having a bad sleep, but to the screens and what we do with them. To give us an idea, a meta-analysis over 36,000 participants concluded that excessive use of smartphone increases the risk of having poor quality sleep by 228%. The double responsible. The first is the suppression of melatonin, since the blue light emitted by the LED panels of mobile phones tricks our brain making him believe that it is still day. This delays the release of melatonin and fragments the architecture of sleep. But not only the blue light is information, since responding to a WhatsApp or doing doomscrolling on TikTok before bed keeps the brain alert. A study of medical students suggested that nighttime cell phone use corresponded to poorer sleep. The radiation debate. It has always been a mantra for many: having your cell phone nearby is having a large source of radiation that causes many health problems. In this case, organizations such as the WHO or ARPANSA have traditionally maintained that evidence of damage from low-level electromagnetic fields is “insufficient.” However, it does not mean that it is non-existent. The most recent studies They are beginning to see the non-thermal effects that mobile phones have. One of the most interesting was done with baby monitors that have a frequency of 2.45 GHz, similar to Bluetooth or Wifi, to simulate environmental exposure. The result was that the exposed group, compared to the placebo, showed a worse subjective quality of sleep and alterations in heart rate variability, suggesting that sensitive people do notice the invisible “presence” of the electronic device nearby. Brain wave modulation. Other research on 5G signals found that exposure to 3.6 GHz waves affected sleep spindles during N2 phasethat is, light sleep that accounts for 50% of the total rest time. The curious thing about this study is that the effect depended on genetics: only carriers of certain variants of the CACNA1C gene showed alterations in the electroencephalogram. This qualifies the warnings of some experts, since radiation may not affect us all equally, but for a genetically predisposed subgroup, sleeping next to a continuous emission source could be fragmenting their N2 phase, crucial for memory consolidation. The habit factor. It is often cited Sinha’s studio to demonize radiation, but what this study really measured were habits in a sample of 566 participants. In this case, it was seen that those people with high mobile phone use took longer to fall asleep, their sleep was less efficient, and 22.6% reported worse quality of sleep. In this way, the conclusion was not that the waves prevented them from sleeping, but that the habit of having their cell phone nearby inevitably leads to using. If it’s on the table, you look at it. If you look at it, you become active. It is a behavioral rather than a radiological vicious circle. Hygiene protocol. The question in this case is inevitable: should we wrap the room in aluminum foil? It’s not necessary. In this case, physics works in our favor thanks to the inverse square law: the intensity of the radiation falls drastically with distance. That is why the most important thing is to move the device at least one meter away from the bed, since at this distance the exposure falls to negligible basal levels, making Sleeping with your cell phone under your pillow is the worst possible decision. If we want to go a little further, we can put it in airplane mode, although the best advice, as the Spanish Society of Neurology points out, is to have a sacred hour, where the recommendation is to leave the screens an hour before going to sleep. Images | Nubelson Fernandes In Xataka | We thought insomnia was just not being able to sleep. Now we know that there are five different disorders

Volvo has equipped its electric SUV with a very potent lidar. So much that the risk of frying the camera of your mobile is real

Volvo has among its ranks a SUV up to technology, the Ex90. Presented in 2023, it is the electrical alternative to the classic XC90, presuming systems such as the Autonomous Level 3 SAE driving or the equipment of a radar Lidar to detect elements of your environment. What perhaps they had not told you is that, precisely, the lidar sensors of greater capabilities are the archNiene of our usual partner: the smartphone. You can leave you the fried camera. Volvo warns him in his own Support page: Lidar light waves can damage external cameras. The technical explanation is brief, but the message is clear. “Do not point a camera directly when Lidar. Lidar, being a laser -based system, uses infrared light waves that can cause damage to certain camera devices. This can include smartphones or phones equipped with a camera.” Although it sounds like a warning, perhaps something alarming, there are already those who have shown in real time how a lidar can instantly disintegrate the pixels of a mobile sensor. They are not color. They are supposedly fried pixels after burning when aiming at a lidar. The lucky one. In Volvo’s subform in Reddit A video has been viralized in which it can be seen how, when recording the lidar of this electric car, the sensor pixels are gradually burned. Reddit is Reddit and no one can ensure the authenticity of the video, but if we understand the theory behind that a lidar can disintegrate a camera, all the pieces begin to fit perfectly. Your camera sensor. Smartphones use sensors that not only capture visible light (spectrum of 380 to 750 Nm), they are also especially sensitive to near infrared (750 to 1100 nm). In fact, they usually come equipped with an infrared cutting filter in charge of mitigating this light and preventing it from affecting the final result. These filters usually block most infrared light, but they are not perfect. An easy test to do at home is to aim with a TV command to the camera of your mobile. That purple flash that you see is proof that smartphones cameras let infrared light. Destroying pixels. The infrared light emitted by a command has barely power, is emitted in a standard frequency of between 850 and 950 nanometers. What happens to the Lidar del Volvo Ex90? That emits pulsed lasers of 1550 nma wavelength in the middle infrared. This is still invisible to the human eye, but it is a considerable power. If a lidar laser with enough power points directly to a CMOS sensor, it can end up saturating the pixels of it. In other words, it can cause permanent damage and load the pixels that have received their emission of light. A phenomenon studied. Although the Lidar del Volvo Ex90 has put this problem on the table, this is a problem that we have been dragging for more than 20 years. In 2004, studies such as “Lase-Induced Damage Thresholds in Cmos and CCD Sensors ” The destruction of both individual pixels and complete columns after being exposed to compact laser systems was shown. It was highlighted how in wavelengths between 800 and 1,600 Nm (just the latter is the one that caresses Volvo), the damage is irreversible and there is no possible physical defense for infrared protection filters. Lidar in the Volvo Ex90 Volvo is not the only one who warns. Smartphones are not the only devices in using CMOS sensors: the vast majority of consumption miral cameras use this technology. Any manual warnsbefore even starting to explain how the camera works, not directly notice with a laser to the sensor. “When you make Tomas backwards, keep the sun sufficiently far from the viewing angle. Always maintain intense light sources, such as sun, laser or artificial light sources, outside and far from the image area. The concentrated strong light could produce smoke or damage the image sensor or other internal components.” At the moment, Volvo is one of the few companies that, together with Luminar (the company behind its Lidar technology) has detailed the emission of laser pulses in this type of radars. It is expected, however, with the democratization of the Lidar (especially in future cars that will come from China), we have to get used to these power figures. Image | Volvo In Xataka | In the war cameras vs lidar, Tesla has a lot to learn from an unexpected product: the Chinese aspiring robot

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