Cellphones have been blamed for everything from killing honey bees to frazzling our neurons with their deadly electromagnetic radiation. And, with the increasing penetration of mobile phone in all parts of the world, it's not hard to draw casual correlations between cellphone use and all manner of deadly diseases and fatal events. But, there's a critical distinction between a correlation and causation - just because Little Bo Peep was eating curds and whey when she was attacked by that infamous spider does not mean those curds caused the spider-clash.
Still, some scientists in Russia haven't let the correlative vs. causative argument stop them from jumping to the conclusion that over a dozen recent-deaths due 
to lightning strikes were caused by cellphones.
The past two weeks has seen more than a dozen Russians struck down by searing bolts of sky-bound electricity, with the most recent death happening just last week. Reports indicate that at least some of these people were using cellphones or portable music players when they were hit by lightning - leading some to believe that the electromagnetic fields surrounding these gadgets are directly causing the lighting strikes.
Leonid Tarkov of the weather observation center FOBOS believes that electronics are the cause of these increased lightning strikes. “These things are electromagnetic field carriers,” stated Tarkov. “That makes them, in essence, conductors. Thunderbolts are frequently attracted to such things, and hits are often connected with a lethal outcome.”
Fortunately, most in the scientific community realize that cellphones are most likely not the direct cause of lightning strikes. The weak electromagnetic fields generated by portable electronics are not powerful enough to guide or attract massively charged lightning bolts, and most scientists reject the idea that a mobile phone's electromagnetism can attract a lightning strike. But, they do acknowledge that any metallic objects could make lightning strikes more likely.
[Via: CNN]
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