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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 8:14 pm Post subject: Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? |
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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
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.
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http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece |
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twg
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Location: Getting some fresh air...
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| Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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| The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. |
So long and thanks for all the pollen...? |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 3:43 am Post subject: |
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A very interesting article.
Bees are dissapearing, plankton is dissapearing. The web of life unravelling. Our modern existence is unnatural.
Also the bit about the danger from mobile phones- brain tumours etc. 40% risk of tumor after 10 years on the cell phone? wow. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 3:50 am Post subject: |
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| Well, be that as it may J, there are some serious problems with that article. The UK has FAR more cells/person and cells/sq.km and their bees are disappearing at a slower pace. Also, plants are pollinated by many different species. The quote by Einstein is clearly an 'argument from authority'. Other causes might be the introduction of a new diseases or predators due to global migration and many others. |
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daskalos
Joined: 19 May 2006
Location: The Road to Ithaca
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 3:56 am Post subject: |
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I've been following this for a month or so, and it's really terrifyingly scary. Humankind extinguished not by bombs or aliens but a lack of bees? (Not with a bang, but a fading buzz?)
I have some profound doubts about the cause lying with cell phones. It didn't start happening until last autumn, and it started in the U.S. Cell phones have been around in huge numbers for nearly ten years in the U.S., but longer than that and in greater densities in the EU, so one would have expected the problem to have started in the Western Europe, if cell phones were the cause.
Likewise, the theory concerning GM crops doesn't seem to me to hold water because the EU is rather uniformly against them, even if they can't keep out foodstuffs produced from GM crops.
If it were global warming, we could expect to see it all over the globe, couldn't we? The same, I think, with pesticides, unless the US and EU are using something China and Australia, et al, aren't.
Some disease or parasite seems to me to be the most logical cause, and we'd better find out what it is double-time, because what's the alternative? Hordes of spring workers pollinating crops by hand?
What's really galling to me about all this is that people who already have a cause (anti-cell phone, global warmingists, anti-GMOists, etc.) are all going to try to use this very real and species threatening phenomenon to advance their own agendas, instead of taking a logical, scientific approach, thereby muddying the road to its solution. And it's not a problem whose solution should be muddied. If we don't find out what the problem is and how to stop it, fast, we're all screwed. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 3:59 am Post subject: |
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| One of the problems with cell phone use and cancer is there is no conceivable biological process. Cancer is a result of damage to the DNA. Damage is done by radiation or chemicals. Cell phone radio waves are not small enough to get into the DNA and do damage. |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 4:11 am Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| Well, be that as it may J, there are some serious problems with that article. The UK has FAR more cells/person and cells/sq.km and their bees are disappearing at a slower pace. Also, plants are pollinated by many different species. The quote by Einstein is clearly an 'argument from authority'. Other causes might be the introduction of a new diseases or predators due to global migration and many others. |
Bee afraid. Bee very afraid.
The Cape bee may have been accidentally unleashed. Its already devastated large areas of S.Africa after being "introduced'.
Africa's 'killer' bee is being wiped out by an even more lethal invader which infiltrates its hives and turns the bees against each other. So far, about 50 000 colonies in South Africa have succumbed to the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis) - and some apiaries have been utterly destroyed (American Bee Journal, vol 132, p 519).
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13718633.000-science-cape-crusaders-kill-african-killer-bees-.html
Unlike workers of other bee races, Cape workers can lay eggs that grow into females. The workers slip past lax security to deposit eggs, and the Cape presence seems to trigger the natives to kill their queen. With pampering, the Cape eggs become queenlike and produce bees that refuse to forage. The colony can then dwindle away or the Cape bees can raise a new queen bee of their own to complete their conquest.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_20_157/ai_62791823 |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:13 am Post subject: |
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| daskalos wrote: |
What's really galling to me about all this is that people who already have a cause (anti-cell phone, global warmingists, anti-GMOists, etc.) are all going to try to use this very real and species threatening phenomenon to advance their own agendas, instead of taking a logical, scientific approach, thereby muddying the road to its solution. And it's not a problem whose solution should be muddied. If we don't find out what the problem is and how to stop it, fast, we're all screwed. |
Well said.
| Quote: |
| It was originally apparently limited to colonies of the Western honey bee in North America,[1] but European beekeepers have recently claimed to be observing a similar phenomenon in Poland and Spain, with initial reports coming in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a smaller degree.[2] |
Assuming the reporting is accurate, it sounds like some kind of virus or parasite. |
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ella
Joined: 17 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:10 pm Post subject: |
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| What I find baffling is they aren't finding many bodies. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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| ella wrote: |
| What I find baffling is they aren't finding many bodies. |
That just means they're not dying in the hive but when they're out looking for food. Hence the argument about cell phones. If they're not making it back to the hive, it's something messing with their navigation. A bee that drops dead to the ground would rather quickly be consumed by ants.
But if it was cell phones, you'd think Japan and Korea wouldn't have a bee alive. |
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Juregen
Joined: 30 May 2006
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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It could aswell be that the minor changes in the weather paterns is disturbing them.
What about the reduced amount of floral plants? If there are less flowers, less bees no? |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 10:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
A very interesting article.
Bees are dissapearing, plankton is dissapearing. The web of life unravelling. Our modern existence is unnatural.
Also the bit about the danger from mobile phones- brain tumours etc. 40% risk of tumor after 10 years on the cell phone? wow. |
Destruction by design.
Also, i don't see why anyone should simply assume the coprorate propaganda to be true. Still they do!
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ... !!!
Here's likely another key factor. It FINALLY formally came "on-line" just a few months ago 
High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haarp |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:18 am Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
| 40% risk of tumor after 10 years on the cell phone? wow. |
Actually if you read it correctly, it didn't say you had a 40% chance of getting a tumor. That would be rather amazing and if any reasonably controlled study found 40% of the people getting cancer, you and I wouldn't be able to buy cell phones until the New England Journal of Medicine ran a definitive study.
| Quote: |
| 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. |
What it's saying, if you remember your university level stats, if you have a brain tumor, your chances are increased by 40% of getting it on the cell phone side. Assuming it's 50/50 and you always hold your cell phone to your right ear, you're chances of the tumor appearing on the right side are (50% * 1.4). |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 3:56 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder
Wiki entry. Makes little of the cell phone theory. |
True, but a whole host of diseases, infections etc can attack bee colonies. In a healthy environment, they do not persist. In a stressed environment as we see nowadays, the bees succomb en masse. Its just another symptom of an increasingly degraded environment.
If you look at the time period quoted (half of american hives lost from 1971-2006), You can find many other examples of a collapsing ecosystem matching this time frame. Talking of the past 30 years, scientists say that a third of arctic ice has dissapeared, and a third less water is evaporated now than in 1970. Not to mention a third less light is reaching the earths surface due to our clogged atmosphere. Plenty of other animal species have collapsed by similar amounts in this time. |
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