laptops detrimental to joystick functioning

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=751&e=1&u=/nm/20041209/hl_nm/health_laptop_dc

LONDON (Reuters) - Teenagers and young men should keep their laptops off 
their laps because they could damage fertility, an expert said 
Thursday. 

Laptops, which reach high internal operating temperatures, can heat up 
the scrotum which could affect the quality and quantity of men's sperm. 

"The increase in scrotal temperature is significant enough to cause 
changes in sperm parameters," said Dr Yefim Sheynkin, an associate 
professor of urology at the State University of New York at Stony 
Brook. 

"It is very difficult to predict how long the computer can be used 
safely," he told Reuters. "It may not be at all, if the testicular 
temperature goes up high within a very short period of time." 

Adolescents and young men who use laptops several times a day over many 
years face the greatest risk. Sheynkin fears that if laptop use is not 
curtailed, in 15-20 years when they want to start a family the men 
could face problems. 

"Long-term use may have a detrimental effect on their reproductive 
health," he said. 

Sheynkin and his team studied the impact of using a laptop on 29 healthy 
volunteers between the age of 21-35 by measuring scrotal temperature 
before and after they used a computer on their lap. 

The research is reported in the journal Human Reproduction. 

Even without turning the laptop on, the scrotal temperature rose by 2.1 
degrees Centigrade when the young men sat with their thighs together to 
balance the computer on their lap. 

When they switched it on the temperature rose -- by 2.8 degrees C on the 
right side and 2.6 degrees C on the left. 

"It shows that scrotal hyperthermia is produced by both special body 
posture and the local heating effect of laptop computers," Sheynkin 
said. 

A serious case of laptop burn was reported in a letter published in a 
medical journal two years ago after a 50-year-old man burned his penis 
while using a laptop balanced on his legs for an hour, despite wearing 
trousers and underpants. 

The researchers used two different brands of computers in the study. 

"All laptop computers generate significant heat due to the increasing 
power requirements of computer chips. New laptops with higher power 
requirements may produce even more heat," Sheynkin added.
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The secularists have not wrecked divine things; but the secularists
have wrecked secular things, if that is any comfort to them.
				    -- G.K. Chesterton, "Orthodoxy"