The end of the world because of cell phones?

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece
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Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees
By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
Published: 15 April 2007
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.

German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

The case against handsets

Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer, take decades to show up.

Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.

Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.

Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically, doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from constant texting.

Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety recommendations, largely ignored by ministers.

[Righ]

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.

The only drawback to the combined pesticide/GM 'theory' is that Satan might go out of business.

[Evil Elvis]

If this causes cell phones to be banned, I'm all for it.  Fourty-five minute commute, and every asshole in front of me on the road invariably has a cell phone glued to his ear. 

Also, every chick at college is yammering on one when they're not in class.  The second they get out, it's speed-dial to blather on to someone about something.  Noone's got that much to say!  I don't want to hear how your mid-afternoon class went!  SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I feel better now.

[Signe]

I don't have a cell phone because I'm afraid it'll make holes in my brain which really can't afford to have any more holes. 

[Llava]

Vegetables aren't that good anyways.  Get rid of plants, I say.  Teach cows to eat each other.  Then we eat the winner.  Everybody goes home happy.

[Kail]

If this causes cell phones to be banned, I'm all for it.  Fourty-five minute commute, and every asshole in front of me on the road invariably has a cell phone glued to his ear. 

Also, every chick at college is yammering on one when they're not in class.  The second they get out, it's speed-dial to blather on to someone about something.  Noone's got that much to say!  I don't want to hear how your mid-afternoon class went!  SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I feel better now.

Fucking seconded.  It takes me two hours on the bus, there and back, every day, to get to and from school.  Every damn day at least three people are sitting there screaming over each other's voices "HELLO, YEAH IT'S ME, YEAH, NOT MUCH IS HAPPENING, I'M JUST ON THE BUS RIGHT NOW, YEAH, IT'S PRETTY LOUD HERE FOR SOME REASON"  I swear, the other day, I had to listen to some chick yelling to her friend about how frequently she bathed.  AAAAAAAAAAAGH!

[SnakeCharmer]

If this causes cell phones to be banned, I'm all for it.  Fourty-five minute commute, and every asshole in front of me on the road invariably has a cell phone glued to his ear. 

Also, every chick at college is yammering on one when they're not in class.  The second they get out, it's speed-dial to blather on to someone about something.  Noone's got that much to say!  I don't want to hear how your mid-afternoon class went!  SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I feel better now.

I could live with that.  No question.

If I didn't have to have one for work (and a pager), I wouldn't have one.  I hate them.  Any chance I get to turn the motherfucker off, it's off.

Things would be so much easier if I could just win the lottery and retire without having to worry about money the rest of my life.

[Azazel]

If this causes cell phones to be banned, I'm all for it.  Fourty-five minute commute, and every asshole in front of me on the road invariably has a cell phone glued to his ear. 

Also, every chick at college is yammering on one when they're not in class.  The second they get out, it's speed-dial to blather on to someone about something.  Noone's got that much to say!  I don't want to hear how your mid-afternoon class went!  SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I feel better now.

Fucking seconded.  It takes me two hours on the bus, there and back, every day, to get to and from school.  Every damn day at least three people are sitting there screaming over each other's voices "HELLO, YEAH IT'S ME, YEAH, NOT MUCH IS HAPPENING, I'M JUST ON THE BUS RIGHT NOW, YEAH, IT'S PRETTY LOUD HERE FOR SOME REASON"  I swear, the other day, I had to listen to some chick yelling to her friend about how frequently she bathed.  AAAAAAAAAAAGH!

I used to have a 2-hour each way commute to University. I'd invariably make about 2-3 calls per day, mostly to my wife and brother, because it was a fucking long and painful trip. Even now, we usually say hello once we go our seperate ways before and also after work. The difference though, is that we both know that mobile phones have a fucking microphone in the handset. Just talk into the fucking microphone properly, and the person sitting next to you shouldn't be able to make out what you're saying, never mind the guy sitting 4 feet away.

I actually had a woman say something to me recently. I was sitting next to an older woman on the bus, as the woman in the seat in front of us yelled blithely into her phone, I made a quick call on mine. After I finished, the older woman sitting next to me remarked to me that I was very quiet on my phone call. My reply (in full earshot of the shouter) was that mobile phones have a microphone in them and that there's no need to yell into them, but most people don't seem to realise that.

Basically, the issue is that most people are fucking stupid.

[Signe]

You should have smashed your phone into her face until she shut the fuck up.  I bet you would have totally turned the older woman on, too.  Dammit.  You could have experienced senseless telephone violence and then had steamy hot older woman wrinkle sex on a bus!  POSSIBLY IN FRONT OF CHILDREN AND THE ROTTING CORPSE OF YOUR VICTIM!  What the hell is wrong with you?

[Jeff Kelly]

If the mysterious bee hive death was really caused by cellular phones, then the phenomenon would have first been encountered in Europe or east Asia. The population density is much higher in Europe or Korea/japan etc. so you'd have more cellular towers and more cellular phones per square kilometre than in the US. Also cellular communication has been much more popular over here and networks have been in operation for as long as 30 years (analog A/B/C-Net) or 17 years (gsm).

Also the frequency band for cellular is used for radio communications since the 1960s so incidents of that sudden bee hive death should have been found much earlier than only a few years ago.

It is unlikely that it is caused by mobile phones.

[Nevermore]

Maybe if we gave the bees their own little cell phones, they'd be able to call back to their hives for directions.

[Paelos]

You should have smashed your phone into her face until she shut the fuck up.  I bet you would have totally turned the older woman on, too.  Dammit.  You could have experienced senseless telephone violence and then had steamy hot older woman wrinkle sex on a bus!  POSSIBLY IN FRONT OF CHILDREN AND THE ROTTING CORPSE OF YOUR VICTIM!  What the hell is wrong with you?

Were you channelling Ironwood there for a moment?

[Ironwood]

Certainly sounded like me.

[Riggswolfe]

The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

This is my biggest problem with the cell phone theory. This leads me to suspect it is something like a disease or pesticides. Other insects won't avoid a hive because "oh my god, there are cell phones scaring off our brothers."

[Yegolev]

Jeff is right.  Pollination would have ceased entirely in Japan, around 1995 at the latest.

I expect that there should have been quotes around "scientists" in that article.

[Merusk]

It's the year 2007. "Scientist" and "Zealot" are interchangable when you're looking at most media, because understanding the difference makes brains hurt.  I postulate it's some sort of radiation from this unnatural 'thinking' process I keep hearing about.

[Etro]

Little update, apparently Fungus is the culprit.

[Llava]

Damn, and I was just going to put on my Luddite pants.

[Reg]

Better those than your fungus pants I think.

[Selby]

Little update, apparently Fungus is the culprit.

But is it genetically engineered fungus in an effort to contain the masses and make us dependent on The Man?

[Etro]

There is a chemical called Fumagillin which is used to control a similar type of fungus (Nosema Apis) to what was found in those dead bees and some believe that because of over use of the chemical its encouraged the new bred of fungus, the one thats killing all the bee's off now. (long boring link).

Similar concept to how some bacteria have developed immunity to penicillin i guess?

[Azaroth]

Vegetables aren't that good anyways.  Get rid of plants, I say.  Teach cows to eat each other.  Then we eat the winner.  Everybody goes home happy.

Everyone goes home dead, actually!

[Llava]

See, your problem is that you're a pessismist.