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Are Mobile Phones Wiping Out Bees?
Mz6 wrote with a link to an article on The Independent site about a most unusual scientific theory. "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."
It looks like the sort of work he might do, but a one-sentence paraphrasal is scant information on which to base any comment.
Add to that the seeming "spread" of this phenomenon. If this was a slow process in the US and Europe as cell phones increased, it would make more sense than some sort of more immediate collapse like we've seen. Maybe if they can show that adding new cell phone towers kills bees in the area, it would make sense. Until then, I'd guess it was some sort of virus/fungus/mite/parasite, or a chemical in a new (i.e. GM) crop.
Hopefully the strong bees will survive, and repollinate the earth.
Perhaps it's simply more to do with pesticide use, or is that too obvious.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
This biggest problem with this theory is that it does not explain why hive death has started now. We have had more than a critical mass of cell phones for years now, especially in Europe. It also fails to explain this rather telling quote from TFA itself: "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 makes it sound like a new disease to me.
...En að Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað Er Nýr Dagur
> 5) these die-offs have been happening since people have been watching, long before there was any RF except for lightening
And then add in this paragraph in the story in TFA:
"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."
This tells volumes to anyone with a hint of a clue about biology. It says that whatever is happening is natural, and has happened enough for Nature to have built in defenses against whatever it is. The only time in nature you leave food untouched is when your instincts tell you it is BAD. For that to happen takes evolution a longtime to perfect, thus this crap isn't new. It tells me it is something very nasty but very old, older than H. sapiens and certainly cell phones.
But cell phone scares are all the rage these days so...... Not saying cell phones don't pose some major risks, but that has nothing to do with a media bandwagon. They start for reasons totally unrelated to science and then in the chase for funding, marginal scientists hook up to the bandwagon and make it self sustaining.
Democrat delenda est