Good story for sure, except that the study in question had nothing to do with mobile phones and was actually investigating the influence of electromagnetic fields, especially those used by cordless phones that work on fixed-line networks, on the learning ability of bees. The small study, according to the researchers who carried it out too small for the results to be considered significant, found that the electromagnetic fields similar to those used by cordless phones may interrupt the innate ability of bees to find the way back to their hive.
Full Story: International Herald Tribune.
(via The Guardian via Robot Wisdom).
May 1, 2007 at 7:40 am
Not to say that phones don’t have anything to do with it, but:
http://www.ento.psu.edu/MAAREC/pressReleases/FallDwindleUpdate0107.pdf
Seems here like the vanishing disease is the result of hard core commercial beekeeper practices, and so by being less industrial with our bees we can hopefully avoid this.
May 2, 2007 at 1:17 am
I asked a friend on the east coast who’s a beekeeper about this, and he said that they think it’s a bee’s version of AIDS. Something is messing with their immune systems, but they’re not sure exactly what it is. It could be electromagnetic fields, a vicious mite they recently discovered feeding on the bees, the commercial beekeeper practices or all of the above. For an excellent article on this go to
http://www.hive-mind.com/bee/blog/2007/3/silent-spring-stephen-hawking-style.html
May 2, 2007 at 2:40 pm
There used to be many articles in the blogs I read about all the disappearing frogs and mutant frogs. Humans and our evil ways were killing the frogs. Then when it was discovered that parasites were to blame, the stories ended. A great deal of ‘environmentalism’ in the West is crypto-Protestantism: there used to be an ideal world in a natural state of balance, but humans and our evil ways have caused great suffering and will eventually destroy the Earth itself.
June 1, 2011 at 10:00 am
Let’s most people fully grasp this. It some sort of no-brainer