Technology site The Future of Things reports that a research team from Israel’s Ben Gurion University has found that mobile phone usage affects reaction time. 48 men were given a number of tests in an experiment. A third of the participants were subjected to a working phone on the right side of their head, one third on the left side and one third to no phone at all. The subjects didn’t know which one of the phones (if any) was active during the experiment. Participants with a phone on the right-hand side of their heads took longest to react, followed by those with left-hand mobiles and finally those with no phone. The scientists say further research is needed, pointing out that the results were less robust after the first ten minutes and involved mobiles working at full power, which is unlikely to happen for long periods during normal usage. Unfortunately there’s no link to the research on the TFoT website.