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Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
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Buckaroo
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Apr 14, 2007, 11:56 PM
 
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.


http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...cle2449968.ece
     
Buckaroo  (op)
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Apr 15, 2007, 02:44 AM
 
If you like honey, you might want to stock up a little. I have a suspesion that the price of honey is going to be going up within the next year.
     
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Apr 15, 2007, 04:44 AM
 
     
Nicko
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Apr 15, 2007, 05:43 AM
 
I think a combination of pollution/insecticides/fertilizers are causing the bees to weaken and become victim to viruses/infections.

IMO this could be a good thing. Could spur more development in non-gm crops.
     
OldManMac
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Apr 15, 2007, 11:43 AM
 
According to this article, it may indeed be GM crop related, as most of the hives that are disappearing seem to be near corn fields. What's scary about this is that this simply isn't about the price of honey going up. This could affect food prices across the board, as somewhere around 75% of our food crop requires pollination. Albert Einsten is reported to have said that, without bee pollination, mankind would have about four years worth of food left. If he's anywhere near correct, somebody had better figure this out quickly.

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nonhuman
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Apr 15, 2007, 01:16 PM
 
How is this political?
     
gururafiki
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Apr 15, 2007, 01:31 PM
 
While it could be radiation from cell phones, pollution, GM crops, or insecticides/fertilizers it still seems odd that it is a sudden die-off and not something that has happened gradually over time.
     
OldManMac
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Apr 15, 2007, 01:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by nonhuman View Post
How is this political?
If it is found out to be related to GM corn, then it can be tied to such large corporations as Monsanto, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland, among others, who have extensive influence in Washington, pushing genetically modified food products on the entire planet, without regard to whether they're safe or not. I'm not real familiar with this subject, but I've read that there are still lots of unanswered questions about GM foods. What would concern me is that they seem to have suddenly exploded in usage in the last decade or so, which makes me wonder about long term effects.

Some interesting reads on the subject.

Genetically modified food - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?

Howstuffworks "What are genetically modified (GM) foods?"
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nonhuman
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Apr 15, 2007, 02:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by KarlG View Post
If it is found out to be related to GM corn, then it can be tied to such large corporations as Monsanto, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland, among others, who have extensive influence in Washington, pushing genetically modified food products on the entire planet, without regard to whether they're safe or not. I'm not real familiar with this subject, but I've read that there are still lots of unanswered questions about GM foods. What would concern me is that they seem to have suddenly exploded in usage in the last decade or so, which makes me wonder about long term effects.
True. While I'm not quite as alarmist as some about GM crops, I definitely think that we've been too reckless with promoting them and planting them. It's taken millions of years for the plants and animals that we require to keep us alive to evolve to the point they're currently at, both in terms of genetics and behaviors. And it's extremely important to recognize that those species did not evolve independently of each other, they evolved together and around each other. They evolved to fit together into a fairly streamlined ecosystem. Making even fairly minor changes to a single part of that ecosystem can have disastrous effects on other parts, parts that we might not even have realized were connected, or at least not connected in a way that would matter (such as GM crops killing bees). We've seen this demonstrated time and time again when trying to introduce a foreign organism into an ecosystem (such as kudzu into the American South).

Of course, genetic engineering, and genetic engineering of food species is nothing new. We've been doing it for thousands of years, and made much bigger changes to things than those currently being made to GM crops. (Corn is a fantastic example, it's an entirely man-made species that requires human intervention just to survive. It has no wild variant, only vague relatives. We can't even figure out how early American societies were able to create it or what they created it from.) But modern technology allows us to make those changes faster, and to spread the new genetic stock further than ever before. Abilities that need to be wielded with great responsibility.
     
Nicko
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Apr 15, 2007, 02:19 PM
 
I read somewhere that honey you buy in the store is so full of pesticides that its not very healthy to eat too much of it...similar to mercury content in Tuna (which are being hunted to extinction anyway), but you get the point.

If the bee plague continues, it could be yet another warning sign similar to the equally alarming world wide die off of frogs. Canary in a coal mine?
     
Buckaroo  (op)
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Apr 15, 2007, 03:23 PM
 
Originally Posted by nonhuman View Post
How is this political?
Just in case someone went off on a tangent. hmmmm. I suppose it could have been posted in MacNN Lounge since those threads occasionally go off on tangents too.
     
Wiskedjak
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Apr 16, 2007, 02:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by nonhuman View Post
How is this political?
Possibly because it comes close to environmentalism (save the bees!!!). There will likely be people who choose a side on the issue simply because it aligns with their political beliefs.
     
nonhuman
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Apr 16, 2007, 02:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
Possibly because it comes close to environmentalism (save the bees!!!). There will likely be people who choose a side on the issue simply because it aligns with their political beliefs.
I think it's a pretty sad commentary on the state of things when we're afraid to openly discuss BEES because someone might introduce a political bias to the discussion...
     
Wiskedjak
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Apr 16, 2007, 02:31 PM
 
Originally Posted by nonhuman View Post
I think it's a pretty sad commentary on the state of things when we're afraid to openly discuss BEES because someone might introduce a political bias to the discussion...
Totally
     
Big Mac
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Apr 16, 2007, 02:32 PM
 
If it started in America and spread rapidly to Europe, that would imply a virus of some sort, would it not?

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Apr 16, 2007, 04:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by nonhuman View Post
I think it's a pretty sad commentary on the state of things when we're afraid to openly discuss BEES because someone might introduce a political bias to the discussion...
Politics affects everything.

Of course, this particular issue can't be pinned on either left or right, since assholes from both sides have been pushing GM crop.
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Atomic Rooster
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Apr 16, 2007, 06:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac View Post
If it started in America and spread rapidly to Europe, that would imply a virus of some sort, would it not?
A cell phone virus. Damn Afghans were right.
     
wolfen
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Apr 16, 2007, 11:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by Atomic Rooster View Post
A cell phone virus. Damn Afghans were right.
Speaking of which -- maybe we've figured out how to shut down the poppy fields over there, eh?

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el chupacabra
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Apr 21, 2007, 02:00 AM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac View Post
If it started in America and spread rapidly to Europe, that would imply a virus of some sort, would it not?
I leaning to virus as well. for these reasons:

1. It wipes out one hive at a time while others near by can be unaffected or affected at a completely different time, making it seem contagious. if it was cells all hive would be affected at the same rate.
2. No one is putting cell phones inside bee hives. And power lines have been around forever and not affected the bees (an argument in the article)....and bees don't use cell phones.
3. viruses are difficult to detect.
4. didn't some europe nations and others ban GM crops. They are also experiencing bee the problem.
     
Doofy
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Apr 21, 2007, 04:10 AM
 
Originally Posted by el chupacabra View Post
4. didn't some europe nations and others ban GM crops. They are also experiencing bee the problem.
Yes. But then they unbanned them.

Tenner says these problems cropping up in Europe are near GM test or production sites.
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Apr 23, 2007, 10:16 AM
 
All I can say is that I think that something changed drastically enough, environmentally, to start killing off the bees. Virus, GM, who knows. This is a very bad thing to say the least.

Alex
     
DakarÊ’
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Apr 23, 2007, 10:25 AM
 
The question is practically moot. No one is going to stop using cell phones if it turns out this is the case.
     
Dork.
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Apr 23, 2007, 10:44 AM
 
Shouldn't Natural Selection be able to fix this? What are the chances there there are bees out there who are immune to whatever is happening. These bees will survive, while the rest of them die off. The bee population might shrink for a while, but within some number of generations it will come back....
     
OldManMac
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Apr 23, 2007, 11:51 AM
 
Originally Posted by Dork. View Post
Shouldn't Natural Selection be able to fix this? What are the chances there there are bees out there who are immune to whatever is happening. These bees will survive, while the rest of them die off. The bee population might shrink for a while, but within some number of generations it will come back....
Bees are responsible for somewhere around a third of the pollination required to grow the food we eat. If this problem is due to GM crops, we may not have enough time waiting for them to go through the evolutionary process. Bees don't have a very long life span (around two to 3 months for worker bees, from what I've read), and if they're dying at the alarming rates that are being reported, we could be in for some drastic food shortages and price hikes rather quickly. What's odd is that, if this is such a huge problem, why hasn't it received more coverage in the media?
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wolfen
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Apr 23, 2007, 12:13 PM
 
RE: Natural Selection --> 2points:

1) Yes, we could be seeing the environment selecting a preference for non-pollinating bees. Not quite the Natural Selection answer we'd hope for.

2) As zoological textbooks can attest, not all species survive all ecosystem changes, particularly when changes occur over short timeframes. There isn't the time for mutation and selection to work it all out.
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el chupacabra
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Apr 30, 2007, 06:38 AM
 
I recently was talking with a biology professor and he told me that corn is a type of grass that doesn't produce nectar. It is pollinated by the wind and doesn't attract honey bees. I mention this because corn is the bulk of GM crops. Maybe this is why nobody is really jumping on GM as quickly as we would expect. Bees get the majority of their nectar from clovers often planted around the hives, which are NOT engineered. Other than canola and tomatos I can't think of anything extensivly modified. Possibly conola could be killing them. I haven't checked out any source on this... just taking what he said.
     
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Apr 30, 2007, 12:08 PM
 
The idea of GM being the culprit is that it allows for more agressive pest/weed control. For obvious reasons that effect would be wider than the animals in direct contact with the plants in question.

I don't think it's anything other than a new parasite, not man-made. According to wikipedia:
1. This phenomenon has happened many times in the past. It's simply getting more press now.
2. The bees in question are not native to N. America, and as such when they step down the native species step up to replace them.
3. The crops in question are not staples. They're things like nuts and berries. The only crop affected that says "dire" to me is soy, and surely the above two points will save it. Sure, it's bad if you're an almond farmer, but it's also bad if you're a beekeeper and we aren't exceptionally concerned for their well-being.

I guess the last point is about why this isn't important, not about why it's not our fault. Just a little perspective....
     
OldManMac
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Apr 30, 2007, 12:49 PM
 
Another article, that talks about the possibility of loss of fruit crops.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...=2007704240379
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cjrivera
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Apr 30, 2007, 01:18 PM
 
Yet another theory on the matter (which was on Slashdot a few days ago)...
Experts may have found what's bugging the bees - Los Angeles Times
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Atomic Rooster
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May 2, 2007, 01:11 AM
 
We should just get bees to stop using cell phones. If they can make people sterile I can imagine what little bees are going through.

It could also be the escalating use of crack.
     
OldManMac
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May 2, 2007, 01:50 AM
 
I knew cell phones were getting smaller and smaller, but that's ridiculous.
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