Cell Phones & Popcorn

The latest e-mail spam making the rounds is about the video which apparently shows some young folks placing an array of a couple of cellphones around a few kernels of popcorn, then calling those cellphones and watching the kernels pop from the energy coming off of those cellphones. Needless to say, something like that gets people’s attention. And since most people never check this sort of thing out, I decided to set aside 30 seconds from my busy day and look it up.
First, for reference, you can find the video in question here. Check it out and come back here for some de-bunking.
Or, basically, you can just take my word for it. It’s bullshit. A cellphone doesn’t generate enough energy to pop a damned popcorn kernel. Microwave ovens run around 1,000 watts and it still takes them about 30 seconds to start popping the first kernels of popcorn, and a few minutes to pop a bag. Cellphones tend to run in the 200 milliwatt range (that’s a tiny amount of energy). There’s no way in hell even an array of a couple of cellphones could pop a few popcorn kernels.
Don’t believe me? Then mosey over and read this article on Yahoo! Tech titled … wait for it …
Headset maker comes clean .. phone + popcorn gag.
I’ll save you a trip. It turns out it’s all a viral marketing stunt  from Bluetooth headset maker Cardo. I imagine would like you to then start thinking about buying a Bluetooth headset … ideally one of its models. Now Cardo’s come clean. Possibly because of the panicked responses some viewers had of the video.
In a recent statement the company said, “The ‘cell phone and popcorn popping campaign’ is completely untrue and a joke. It has been seen by over 4.1 million users already and has become a sort of global urban legend as it continues to be tried throughout the world.”
Believe me, folks. If cellphones could emit enough energy to almost instantly pop a kernel of popcorn, every time you put the damned thing to your head you’d feel intense pain. Come on. Think about it. Your microwave takes five minutes to pop a bag of popcorn, but your cellphone can do it instantly? Work with me here.
I’m not saying that cellphones aren’t potentially dangerous. Human beings are essentially electrical devices. All of our functions, from muscle movement to organ functions to higher brain functions are caused by electricl impulses. We’re subject to the energy fields around us (I still remember the severe recurring headaches and occasionaly nose bleeds I got during the year I lived across the street from a telephone company’s relay station). So while cellphones won’t cook popcorn, it can’t be healthy to have those devices connected to the side of your head all day long. Especially not over ten or twenty years.
But that’s another issue entirely, isn’t it?
For now, your brain is safe from getting instantly fried from your cellphone. Although now that I think of it, if cellphones can cause brain damage, it would explain the rise of the radical right conservatives in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. Hmm. Increased cellphone use coincided with increased right wing fascism. Maybe there’s a case to be made here after all. I’ve always thought that someone had to be brain damaged to be a right-wing Conservative. Have we found the source at last?