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I've talked about the safe use of cellular phones for awhile on this Web site for good reason: Exposing your body to harmful radiation, not to mention growing acoustic neuromas (benign tumors on the auditory nerve) near the ear that is used most often.
That radiation exposure can be reduced to almost nothing with an inexpensive bead clipped to a wire connecting an ear piece to your mobile phone, according to the chairman of the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme in the U.K.
Although British studies have shown hands-free kits reduce radiation, there are still "unintentional" emissions that travel up the wires on the outside and are absorbed by the head. Inexpensive ferrite beads absorb these emissions by blocking electrical currents.
The ferrite beads worked best, according to scientists, when they are placed below the microphone on the hands-free kit, at about chest level. You may have seen these beads (which often measure less than 1 cm in diameter) before as they are commonly used to block data interference in computers.
BBC News January 25, 2005