What not to do in five big cities

What Not to Do In ...
From Las Vegas to Paris, navigate the pitfalls less savvy tourists encounter with this guide to where to go and what to avoid.
Things Not to Do in Los Angeles
Don't...
Bother with Venice or Santa Monica Beaches
Venice Beach is known mostly for its wacky inhabitants who stroll the boardwalk along Ocean Front Walk. The outdoor freak show is entertaining for about 10 minutes, but eventually it starts feeling a little creepy. Plus, the beach itself is grungy at best. The Santa Monica beaches to the north are certainly less weird, but they're also much more crowded, thanks to tourist magnets like the seen-better-days Santa Monica Pier and the chain shops on the Third Street Promenade.
Instead…
Head to El Matador or Manhattan Beach
If you prefer a little serenity with your surf, head north from the Malibu Pier to the rugged, isolated beaches between Broad Beach and Decker Canyon roads. El Matador Beach, a secluded little cove with funky rock formations and plenty of parking, is a great place for a picnic or to catch the sunset. If you're looking for sun and sand but not necessarily solitude, head south from Malibu instead, to Manhattan Beach, a family-friendly stretch of sand with great surfing, a playground, and volleyball courts. This popular spot can be crowded, but the city does a stellar job of keeping the place pristine. And there are plenty of cool shops and fun cafés to explore on Manhattan Beach Boulevard, the area's main drag.

Don't...
Shell Out for Star Maps
Whether you pick up a $5 map from a vendor on Sunset or spend a few bucks more for a guided tour, you'll find that most of the information you'll get on celebrities is woefully out-of-date. Here's the thing: Most celebs don't actually live in Hollywood, or even Beverly Hills. They generally gravitate toward more secluded areas. The ones who do have homes in the thick of it treasure their privacy and have erected fences and hedges to foil looky-loos. So, skip an afternoon spent rubbernecking to catch a meager glimpse of a house where a star may or may not live or have lived.

Instead…
See Celebs in Their Natural Habitat
Serious stargazers should check into the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills and spend the day by the pool, where chances of spotting starlets are about as good as it gets. Or dine nearby at Madeo, a family-run Italian joint favored by the likes of David Beckham and Salma Hayek, which serves the best bolognese in town. Much of the Hollywood set (Tom Hanks, John Cusack, Minnie Driver, and Sean Penn, to name a few) is based in Malibu. For a sure thing, head west to the Malibu Country Mart, just off the Pacific Coast Highway—it's the go-to place for everything from yoga classes to Nobu sushi to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.
Things Not to Do in London
Don't...
Hop on a sightseeing bus
Aboard one of the Original London Sightseeing Tour's open-top buses, you'll spend an inordinate amount of time staring at the backside of other buses while inhaling noxious fumes, and, if you're a family of four, pay $130 for the privilege. Many claim it is difficult to hear the tour guide over the noise of the traffic. The upper deck (where viewing is unhindered) is also often full, and the stops are not anywhere near as close to the attractions as they should be.

Instead…
Get on your bike
July 2010 saw the launch of London's first two cycle superhighways (dedicated bike lanes that bring you from outer London into the center) and the city's much-delayed and much-anticipated cycle hire scheme (modeled on the successful Paris Vélib program). Ten more superhighways will be launched by 2015; the self-service cycle hire offers 6,000 bikes that can be removed from around 400 docking stations, which are never more than 1,000 feet apart. In recent months, London has spawned a new breed of cycle repair shops-cum-cafés, such as Look Mum No Hands! in Clerkenwell.

Don't…
Visit Madame Tussauds
If the lines lasting up to three hours don't suck the life force out of you, the price of getting in to Madame Tussauds just might (around $42 for an adult). Once inside, you might enjoy the interactive exhibits, scary-as-hell Chamber of Horrors, and the Spirit of London ride (which takes you from Tudor times to the present) if it weren't for the jostling and frustrated crowds and staff. The biggest problem here seems to be that the management has no concept of crowd control or full capacity.

Instead…
Check out the brand-new galleries at the Museum of London
Revamped to the tune of over $30 million, the five new interactive galleries at the Museum of London recount 350 years of the city's history. Highlights are a Victorian shopping street and the Lord Mayor's gaudy gold State Coach. But the absolute must-see exhibit is a reconstructed Georgian pleasure garden (pictured), with mannequins adorned in wigs, masks, and period dress as well as digital projections re-creating the entertainment on offer at the time. Not only will you learn something and have fun, this museum, unlike Madame Tussauds, is entirely free.
Things Not to Do in Paris
Don't…
Spend all day at the Louvre or Musée d'Orsay
The Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay are Paris's most celebrated museums, and yes, they do house some famous works of art. But don't for a second think that they're your only—or, indeed, even your best—options. The lines to get in can be harrowing in high season, the crowds are exhausting, and the sheer quantity of art on display is overwhelming. If the prospect of beating back the hordes seems like it will detract from the experience (and, really, how could it not?), don't despair.
Instead…
Get to know Paris's lesser-known museums
Many of Paris's smaller museums contain equally important and beautiful art—and are often more pleasant, since you won't be elbowed out of the way by a photo-snapping swarm. You'll find Monet's famous Nymphéas (water lily) murals in the Musée de l'Orangerie (pictured), at the far end of the Tuileries Gardens. The Musée Marmottan is home to the world's largest collection of Monets. And the Musée Rodin, housed in a luminous villa with a lovely garden, is one of the most romantic museums in all of Paris. Not in the mood for an art lesson? There are plenty of museums in Paris that focus on lighter and frothier fare, including fashion, wine, and money. Once you've discovered the pleasures of these intimate galleries, you might be hard-pressed to bother with the Louvre at all.

Don't…
Seek out bohemian ambience on the Left Bank
Sartre and de Beauvoir may have loved Les Deux Magots on the Boulevard St. Germain, but these days, this onetime hangout of intellectuals has all the authenticity of Times Square. You're far more likely to find yourself cheek by jowl with your tourist brethren than eavesdropping on any famous philosophers. You may, however, find yourself delivering a tirade on the immorality of charging $16 for buttered toast and orange juice. Does gouging tourists for the privilege of sitting on a sidewalk mark the decline of civilization? Yes, indeed.

Instead…
Find the "real" Paris on the Canal St. Martin
Bobo (short for bourgeois bohemian) hipsters have laid claim to the area around the Canal St. Martin, a once-derelict part of the tenth arrondissement that now buzzes with cafés and hip boutiques, particularly along the Rue Beaurepaire. Settle at a sidewalk table at Chez Prune, the see-and-be-seen ground zero for this trendy Right Bank 'hood, sip your café crème, eavesdrop on the locals, and enjoy the views of the picturesque canal—and bask in the smug knowledge that you've found a corner of real Paris, far from the touristy hordes.
Things Not To Do in Las Vegas
Don't...
Use the Casino ATMs
Most casino ATMs charge anywhere from $2 to $6 (plus whatever your bank tacks on) for the pleasure of spitting out more money for you to lose.

Instead...
Do yourself a favor
Bring either bring plenty of cash or hit the BofA and WaMu-Chase machines off the Strip.

Don't..
Arrive at the Airport 30 Minutes Before Your Flight
OK, maybe if you are a veteran you can pull this off. However, security lines in Vegas are legendarily long. Furthermore, once you check your bags and clear security, there is a good chance you are going to have to hop on the monorail to get to your gate.
Instead...
allow yourself one and a half hours
While the Strip is only about five minutes from the airport, leave enough time to make your flight. Don't worry: There are plenty of Wheel of Fortune slots in the terminal if you happen to breeze through the security and monorail hurdles.
Things Not to Do in New York City
Don't...
Take a twilight carriage ride in Central Park
You may recall the scene in Manhattan where Woody Allen and Mariel Hemingway take a romantic, private, horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park, quipping their way through the leafy quiet. We regret to inform you that your carriage ride will be nothing like that experience. The horse will seem tired, the driver's patter will be even less entertaining than Mia Farrow's memoirs, and you'll spend the entire ride crawling along the park's main drives, staring at the back of another carriage, and enduring dirty looks from locals and animal lovers.
Instead…
Get up early and walk through Central Park
The park is at its most magical in the morning, when the crowds are thin and the green lawns are fresh, and you'll want to wander off the main roads and explore its 843 acres at your own pace. You might even want to, you know, stop and smell some flowers—or at least something more aromatic than horse poo. So get up early one morning, grab a cup of joe and a roll from a street cart, and eat your breakfast walking some of the park's woodsier byways. Enter the park from either Fifth Avenue or Central Park West in the mid-Seventies, and head toward the center: This latitude offers easy access to some of the park's best features. You can drift around the marshy shores of the lake, climb Pilgrim Hill near the Conservatory Water, or stand still with a view to the east and watch for Pale Male and Lola, the famous red-tailed hawks who use an apartment building on Fifth Avenue as a launchpad for their own Central Park explorations.

Don't...
Eat at a restaurant in Times Square
We understand the slickster appeal of Times Square, with its gaudy neon, its aura of history, its unbridled commercialism. But we don't understand why anyone bothers to eat there. The Giuliani-era campaign to make Times Square safe for families and visitors had the side effect of attracting faceless national chains: Red Lobster, Applebee's, and Chevy's Fresh Mex hadn't set foot in New York City until they marched up 42nd Street. And guess what? The chains are exactly the same as the ones in the 'burbs—just more expensive.

Instead ...
Eat in Hell's Kitchen
Two blocks west of Times Square is Hell's Kitchen, a gentrified neighborhood of former tenements now populated by young actors, writers, and other up-and-comers. These people need reliable, inexpensive places to chow down, and Ninth Avenue is lined with obliging eateries that run the ethnic gamut from Vietnamese to Puerto Rican to Greek to Italian—ideal for a quick, affordable lunch between sightseeing stops, or for a pre- or post-theater bite. Try Pam Real Thai for an authentic taste of Bangkok, Chimichurri Grill for Argentine-style steak, Meskerem for savory Ethiopian food (pictured), or Esca for first-rate Italian seafood—or just walk up and down the avenue till you find something that appeals.

How to burn off 12 delicious holiday foods

What these top 12 holiday foods will cost you in exercise

Tis the season to be jolly—and pack on pounds indulging in rich, fattening fare. Here are 12 holiday diet hazards you and your family should avoid, along with healthier options that only taste indulgent!

If you simply can’t resist a calorie-laden holiday favorite, we've figured out how much exercise–running, jump-roping, skiing, etc.–it'll cost you.

Glazed ham
What it’ll cost you: A 6-ounce slice contains 1,760 milligrams of sodium, 6 grams of sugar, and 300 calories. This might not seem outrageous, but think about how many slices of ham you fork onto your plate. The numbers add up!
How to burn it off: Ski for 45 minutes

Open the link please to see others:-
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/what-these-top-12-holiday-foods-will-cost-you-in-exercise-2422417/#photoViewer=2

Four moves for a ballerina body

4 Ballet Moves For A Beautiful Body

Every good workout begins with mat work! Ballet Beautiful founder Mary Helen Bowers shares a few of her favorite exercises from her new video series, debuting online next month.
1. Lengthen Your Bod
“Stretching before and after every workout keeps muscles supple and helps elongate the lines of a ballerina’s limbs,” says Bowers. “Begin by lying on your back and bringing your leg above you, pulling the ankle gently toward your head. Work toward stretching your knee all the way straight over time. Change legs.”

Ballet Beautiful
2. Be Ab-Fab:
“For a ballerina, the center of balance is everything—creating a strong center of balance begins with building strong abdominal muscles,” says Bowers. “Lie on your back with your knees slightly bent and the arms open wide in second position. Lift the body up, contracting the abs as you close the arms to first position—a wide yet graceful circle with the hands—just above the abdomen. Pull the stomach in, closing and opening the arms as you lift up and lower. Repeat 30 times.”

Ballet Beautiful
3. Firm Your Behind
According to Bowers, ballerinas are known for their “tight, toned butts!” To work on your derrière, begin on your hands and knees and make sure you have plenty of cushion underneath. “Bring one knee into your chest and then extend the leg straight back, into arabesque,” says Bowers. “Stretch the knee all the way and be sure to pull in through your stomach. Repeat 30 times, then change legs.”

Ballet Beautiful
4. Tone Those Arms!
Ballerinas are known for their elegant posture and strong yet graceful upper bodies. “Sitting down on the mat, extend your legs out straight and place your hands just behind your hips, with the fingers facing the outer edge of the mat,” says Bowers. “Lift your hips off the mat as you stretch the elbows, keeping your chest open and your neck long. Pull your stomach in tight and then bend the elbows slightly. Repeat this 30 times.”

Ballet Beautiful

Four things you should know about milk

The Truth About Milk

You might expect an organization called the Dairy Education Board to promote milk as a good thing. But instead, this advocacy group claims that “Milk is a deadly poison.” Oops. And as Americans have grown more wary of saturated fat, and more concerned about hormones and other substances fed to—and injected into—dairy cows, milk consumption has fallen dramatically. In the post-war days of 1945, the average American was consuming 45 gallons of milk a year. By 2001, per capita consumption was down to just 23 gallons.

But here’s the thing: Plenty of new research says that we should be drinking more milk, not less. In fact, swapping soda, juice, sweetened iced teas, and other beverages for milk might be one major reason why Americans are gaining weight at such a rapid pace. Milk not only helps boost protein intake and cut down on sugar, but consuming calcium through dairy foods such as milk may actually reduce the fat absorption from other foods. Who wouldn’t want that? (Hungry for more hard-hitting nutrition facts and findings every day? Follow me on Twitter or subscribe to our daily Eat This, Not That! newsletter.)

Here are four milk myths you might have heard, and why you should consider answering the cowbell more often.

Claim #1: “Milk is a fat-burning food.”

The Truth: Maybe. In a 6-month study, University of Tennessee researchers found that overweight people who downed three servings a day of calcium-rich dairy lost more belly fat than those who followed a similar diet minus two or more of the dairy servings. In addition, the researchers discovered that calcium supplements didn’t work as well as milk. Why? They believe that while calcium may increase the rate at which your body burns fat, other active compounds in dairy (such as milk proteins) provide an additional fat-burning effect.

Bonus tip: For more surefire ways to eat healthier and slim down, check out our list of the 25 Best Nutrition Secrets!

Claim #2: “Drinking milk builds muscle.”

The Truth: Absolutely. In fact, milk is one of the best muscle foods on the planet. Milk is full of high-quality protein: about 80 percent casein and 20 percent whey. Whey is known as a “fast protein” because it’s quickly broken down into amino acids and absorbed into the bloodstream—perfect for post-workout consumption. Casein, on the other hand, is digested more slowly—ideal for providing your body with a steady supply of smaller amounts of protein for a longer period of time, such as between meals or while you sleep.

Bonus Tip: Remember the old saying "Milk: not just for breakfast anymore." Well, here are 20 foods that shouldn't be for breakfast, period. Check out our shocking list of the Worst Breakfasts in America!

Claim #3: “Cows are given antibiotics. Doesn’t that make their milk unhealthy?”

The Truth: No one really knows. Some scientists argue that milk from cows given antibiotics leads to antibiotic resistance in humans, making these types of drugs less effective when you take them for an infection. But this has never been proven.

It is true that hormones and antibiotics have never been part of a cow’s natural diet, and they have been shown to have adverse effects on the animals. Canadian researchers, for example, discovered that cows given hormones are more likely to contract an udder infection called mastitis. If you’re uneasy, you can purchase antibiotic-free (and typically hormone-free, as well) milk from producers like Horizon and Organic Valley at most major supermarkets. The cows will certainly thank you.

Bonus tip: While you're at the supermarket, add these foods to your list: the 125 best supermarket foods. Remember: You don't have to sacrifice flavor to eat healthier.

Claim #4: “Fat-free milk is much healthier than whole.”

The Truth: Nope. While you’ve probably always been told to drink reduced-fat milk, the majority of scientific studies show that drinking whole milk actually improves cholesterol levels—just not as much as drinking fat-free does. One recent exception: Danish researchers found that men who consumed a diet rich in whole milk experienced a slight increase in LDL cholesterol (six points). However, it’s worth noting that these men drank six 8-ounce glasses a day, an unusually high amount. Even so, their triglycerides—another marker of heart-disease risk—decreased by 22 percent. The bottom line: Drinking two to three glasses of milk a day, whether it’s fat-free, 2%, or whole, lowers the likelihood of both heart attack and stroke—a finding confirmed by British scientists.

Heart attack symptoms you may be ignoring

Heart Attack Symptoms You’re Most Likely to Ignore

Heart attacks don't always strike out of the blue -- there are many symptoms we can watch for in the days and weeks leading up to an attack. But the symptoms may not be the ones we expect. And they can be different in men and women, and different still in older adults. Last year, for example, a landmark study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Institute found that 95 percent of women who'd had heart attacks reported experiencing symptoms in the weeks and months before the attack -- but the symptoms weren’t the expected chest pain, so they went unrecognized.

How to Tell if Someone Is Having a Heart Attack

Don't let that happen to you. Here, 10 heart symptoms you're likely to ignore -- and shouldn't.

1. Indigestion or nausea

One of the most oft-overlooked signs of a heart attack is nausea and stomach pain. Symptoms can range from mild indigestion to severe nausea, cramping, and vomiting. Others experience a cramping-style ache in the upper belly. Women and adults over age 60 are more likely to experience this symptom and not recognize it as tied to cardiac health.

Most cases of stomach ache and nausea aren't caused by a heart attack, of course. But watch out for this sign by becoming familiar with your own digestive habits; pay attention when anything seems out of the ordinary, particularly if it comes on suddenly and you haven't been exposed to stomach flu and haven't eaten anything out of the ordinary.

2. Jaw, ear, neck, or shoulder pain

A sharp pain and numbness in the chest, shoulder, and arm is an indicator of heart attack, but many people don't experience heart attack pain this way at all. Instead, they may feel pain in the neck or shoulder area, or it may feel like it’s running along the jaw and up by the ear. Some women specifically report feeling the pain between their shoulder blades.

A telltale sign: The pain comes and goes, rather than persisting unrelieved, as a pulled muscle would. This can make the pain both easy to overlook and difficult to pinpoint. You may notice pain in your neck one day, none the next day, then after that it might have moved to your ear and jaw. If you notice pain that seems to move or radiate upwards and out, this is important to bring to your doctor’s attention.

3. Sexual dysfunction

Having trouble achieving or keeping erections is common in men with coronary artery disease, but they may not make the connection. Just as arteries around the heart can narrow and harden, so can those that supply the penis -- and because those arteries are smaller, they may show damage sooner. One survey of European men being treated for cardiovascular disease found that two out of three had suffered from erectile dysfunction before they were ever diagnosed with heart trouble.

4. Exhaustion or fatigue

A sense of crushing fatigue that lasts for several days is another sign of heart trouble that's all too often overlooked or explained away. Women, in particular, often look back after a heart attack and mention this symptom. More than 70 percent of women in last year's NIH study, for example, reported extreme fatigue in the weeks or months prior to their heart attack.

The key here is that the fatigue is unusually strong -- not the kind of tiredness you can power through but the kind that lays you flat out in bed. If you're normally a fairly energetic person and suddenly feel sidelined by fatigue, a call to your doctor is in order.

5. Breathlessness and dizziness

When your heart isn't getting enough blood, it also isn't getting enough oxygen. And when there's not enough oxygen circulating in your blood, the result is feeling unable to draw a deep, satisfying breath -- the same feeling you get when you're at high elevation. Additional symptoms can be light-headedness and dizziness. But sadly, people don't attribute this symptom to heart disease, because they associate breathing with the lungs, not the heart.

In last year's NIH study, more than 40 percent of women heart attack victims remembered experiencing this symptom. A common description of the feeling: "I couldn't catch my breath while walking up the driveway."

6. Leg swelling or pain

When the heart muscle isn't functioning properly, waste products aren't carried away from tissues by the blood, and the result can be edema, or swelling caused by fluid retention. Edema usually starts in the feet, ankles, and legs because they're furthest from the heart, where circulation is poorer. In addition, when tissues don't get enough blood, it can lead to a painful condition called ischemia. Bring swelling and pain to the attention of your doctor.

7. Sleeplessness, insomnia, and anxiety

This is an odd one doctors can't yet explain. Those who've had heart attacks often remember experiencing a sudden, unexplained inability to fall asleep or stay asleep during the month or weeks before their heart attack. (Note: If you already experience insomnia regularly, this symptom can be hard to distinguish.)

Patients often report the feeling as one of being "keyed up" and wound tight; they remember lying in bed with racing thoughts and sometimes a racing heart. In the NIH report, many of the women surveyed reported feeling a sense of "impending doom," as if a disaster were about to occur. If you don't normally have trouble sleeping and begin to experience acute insomnia and anxiety for unexplained reasons, speak with your doctor.

8. Flu-like symptoms

Clammy, sweaty skin, along with feeling light-headed, fatigued, and weak, leads some people to believe they're coming down with the flu when, in fact, they're having a heart attack. Even the feeling of heaviness or pressure in the chest -- typical of some people's experience in a heart attack -- may be confused with having a chest cold or the flu.

If you experience severe flu-like symptoms that don't quite add up to the flu (no high temperature, for example), call your doctor or advice nurse to talk it over. Watch out also for persistent wheezing or chronic coughing that doesn't resolve itself; that can be a sign of heart disease, experts say. Patients sometimes attribute these symptoms to a cold or flu, asthma, or lung disease when what's happening is that poor circulation is causing fluid to accumulate in the lungs.

9. Rapid-fire pulse or heart rate

One little-known symptom that sometimes predates a heart attack is known as ventricular tachycardia, more commonly described as rapid and irregular pulse and heart rate. During these episodes, which come on suddenly, you feel as if your heart is beating very fast and hard, like you just ran up a hill -- except you didn't. "I'd look down and I could actually see my heart pounding," one person recalled. It can last just a few seconds or longer; if longer, you may also notice dizziness and weakness.

Some patients confuse these episodes with panic attacks. Rapid pulse and heartbeat that aren't brought on by exertion always signal an issue to bring to your doctor's attention.

10. You just don't feel like yourself

Heart attacks in older adults (especially those in their 80s and beyond, or in those who have dementia or multiple health conditions), can mimic many other conditions. But an overall theme heard from those whose loved ones suffered heart attacks is that in the days leading up to and after a cardiac event, they "just didn't seem like themselves."

A good rule of thumb, experts say, is to watch for clusters of symptoms that come on all at once and aren't typical of your normal experience. For example, a normally alert, energetic person suddenly begins to have muddled thinking, memory loss, deep fatigue, and a sense of being "out of it." The underlying cause could be something as simple as a urinary tract infection, but it could also be a heart attack. If your body is doing unusual things and you just don't feel "right," don't wait. See a doctor and ask for a thorough work-up.

And if you have any risk factors for cardiac disease, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, or family history of heart disease, make sure the doctor knows about those issues, too.

New health worries about mobile devices

Is Your Health on the Line?

Unless you've had your cell phone permanently glued to your ear, chances are you've heard the recent health buzz: Mobile devices may cause cancer. While it's true that the National Cancer Institute has ruled them safe, a growing number of independent researchers disagree.

Those experts point out that the FCC wireless regulations on cell phone safety are largely based on something called specific absorption rate (SAR) levels, or the rate at which our bodies absorb radiation. Most phones do comply with the federal standards, but SAR monitors only thermal effects. (In other words, if the radiation from your phone isn't cooking your brain, it's regarded as safe.) But mounting scientific evidence suggests that nonthermal radio frequency radiation (RF)—the invisible energy waves that connect cell phones to cell towers, and power numerous other everyday items—can damage our immune systems and alter our cellular makeup, even at intensities considered safe by the FCC.

Is your body giving off important clues about your health?

"The problem is that RF can transfer energy waves into your body and disrupt its normal functioning," explains Cindy Sage, an environmental consultant in Santa Barbara, California, who has studied radiation for 28 years. "Here's why that's crucial: Overwhelming evidence shows that RF can cause DNA damage, and DNA damage is a necessary precursor to cancer."

The 2010 Interphone study, the largest to date on RF exposure from mobile phones, has spawned a quagmire of controversy, says health researcher and medical writer Kerry Crofton, Ph.D., who spent four years reviewing RF science for her book Wireless Radiation Rescue: Safeguarding Your Family from the Risks of Electro-Pollution. Many groups, including the National Cancer Institute and the telecom industry, read the results of that study as a green light for wireless calling. Others, like Crofton, point out that because it was largely based on lower cellphone usage in the '90s, the research has little bearing on today's world, in which 285 million Americans have mobile phones and 83 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds are "wired" all the time and sleep with their cell phones next to their heads.

One thing the Interphone study did find? People who chatted via cell for just 30 minutes a day for 10 years saw their risk of glioma (the type of brain tumor that killed Ted Kennedy) rise 40 percent. As a result, many European countries are considering banning cell phones for children under age 6 (RF penetrates little kids' brains more easily), and France has already banned all wireless technology in some schools and many public places, notes physician and epidemiologist Samuel Milham, M.D., a leader in the growing field of electromagnetic research.

All parties agree on this: More studies need to be done. In the meantime, it's best to take easy precautions—and not just with mobile phones. "Never before in human history have we gone from one radiated environment to another," says Crofton. "We're going to wireless offices and living in wireless homes. Even beaches and parks are going wireless. We're exposed everywhere."

The good news is that you don't need to ditch your gadgets. This advice will let you stay plugged in—and keep you healthy.

You're surrounded by electronics at home and work. But you can avoid this number one health enemy.

Cell Phones

When your phone is on (which it probably is even as you read this) it's constantly sending and receiving RF signals to and from the nearest cell tower to keep you in service. The farther you are from a tower, the harder your phone has to work and the more RF it emits, explains David Carpenter, M.D., director of the Institute for Health and Environment at the University at Albany. The activity really amps up when you're, say, driving through rural areas. Plus, within the close confines of a car, your entire core is exposed to the radiation.

The safer solution: Keep your phone off when driving until you really need it, says Carpenter. And no matter where you are, avoid holding a cell phone directly to your noggin (the Interphone study showed gliomas were more prevalent on the side of the head people continuously pressed phones to), always keep it at least six inches or more from your body (in your purse, not your pocket), and use either speakerphone or a corded headset (not a wireless headset). Or text up a storm. If you have a smartphone that's loaded with games, music, and movies, turn your wireless settings off while playing or rocking out. Similarly, don't ever use your cell phone as a bedside alarm clock without first disabling the wireless mode.

Cordless Phones

These stealth wireless threats "have become so powerful, they're often as strong as cell phones," says Sage. "The phone base is like a mini cell tower. It radiates 24-7 and can have a range of up to 300 feet." Particularly suspect are digital enhanced cordless telecommunication (DECT) phones. Preliminary blind studies have found that, when sitting beside a DECT phone base, some people experienced arrhythmia, a troubling heartbeat irregularity that could eventually lead to stroke or coronary disease, says Sage.

The safer solution: You might feel somewhat retro, but "just get a corded phone with an extra-long cord so you can still walk around," says Crofton. "They're better, they're cheaper, and they work in a power outage. Every time you replace a DECT with a corded phone, you're cutting the RF levels in your home significantly."

8 Essential health tests you must have.

Wireless Routers

Your neighborhood coffee shop's wireless Internet access may often seem like a godsend, but the router that's needed to provide the service is continuously emitting high levels of RF (up to 200 feet out), and that constant exposure has been linked to deadly diseases. "If the whole body is radiated by a router's RF emissions, the greatest concern is cancer, especially leukemia," says Carpenter. Also, be aware of your at-home router and any plug-in wireless USB cards you often use.

The safer solution: Ditch your wireless router and plug your computer directly into a cable modem, says Sage. That Ethernet technology doesn't leak RF and is often faster and more secure. If you just can't give up your wireless router (e.g., if you live in a home with a handful of computer users), make sure you sit as far away from it as possible, says Crofton, and turn it off at night and whenever you're not online. Another easy fix: Plug your router into a surge protector with a timer, and set it to go off each night so you don't have to remember to flip the switch.

Laptops

"When you hold your laptop on your lap, what you're essentially doing is radiating your pelvis," says Carpenter, "so all the cancers that affect that area are of concern." Indeed, early studies point to a heightened risk of testicular cancer for men who keep RF-emitting devices close to their belts. For women, adds Carpenter, "the studies aren't quite there yet, but I think we can say that anything that might cause cancer almost always causes birth defects, so pregnant women—or those wanting to become pregnant soon—should take extra precautions."

The safer solution: Keep your laptop off your lap (if you have to rest it there, buffer it with a sturdy pillow that's at least six inches thick). Try to use a desktop computer at home and treat your laptop as an on-the-go convenience. One thing to keep in mind: Laptops are a high RF radiation risk only while connected to wireless Internet, so when you're watching a DVD, fiddling around with your photos, or writing that dissertation, just disable your connection and you'll be much safer.

Baby Monitors

"Baby monitors release more RF than cell phones do, and putting them next to a crib is very, very unwise," says Carpenter. He points to a recent University of Utah study that shows RF radiation can penetrate almost entirely through a child's brain, which doesn't form completely until nearly 20 years of age. "It's very clear from all the existing research that the younger the child is, the more vulnerable he or she is to the effects of RF radiation."

The safer solution: Consider not using a baby monitor. If you absolutely must use one, place it far from your baby's crib—at least 10 to 15 feet away.