Okay, this is making my bullsh!t meter twitch, but I am not up on the latest research. This article from ‘Inhabitat’ cites a study which claims that cell phones are killing honey bees. I think this has about as much credibility as the claims that wind turbines make people sick, but I need some help refuting it. Anybody out there have any better information? I’d appreciate it.
There was actually a study done in 2007 by the University of Landau that indicated that radio waves from certain types of cordless phones might be affecting bee populations. Unfortunately, the press completely misinterpreted what the researchers were saying and CELL PHONES KILL BEES got reported all over the news. This made the researchers involved very angry since they didn’t even test cell phone radiation as part of their study, and they have been very vocal about what they believe was a blatant misrepresentation of their study in the media.
You may find this link helpful.
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070422/GJNEWS_01/104220119
There has been a lot of debate about what exactly is killing the bees, but I don’t think anyone takes the cell phone cause seriously these days. A viral infection and a fungal disease have both been found to be at least partially responsible, and pesticides and other causes are also thought to be involved.
Cell phones killed Old Yeller.
Here’s the newest study that just came out, which is probably why this is all coming back up again:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/13/cell-phones-caused-mysterious-worldwide-bee-deaths-study-finds/
(Notice that the headlines says “Cell phones kill bees,” but the first line says, "Cell phones may be responsible.)
Basically, some guy help cell phones next to bees and found out they swarm like crazy when it puts out a signal.
Of course, it’s a big leap from “Cell phone underneath hives annoys bees” to “Cell phone use causes worldwide bee population decline.”
But news isn’t in the business of real science.
ETA: And ninja’d by lieu. Yeah, that article is better.
Thanks for that link. So it looks like a newspaper headline and photo caption writer was responsible for the whole misinterpretation.
Luckily, I heard from a reliable source that this writer was later found dead in his apartment. He was all puffy with hundreds of stingers in him. The coroner ruled he’d died from a bad case of hives.
Any scientist that says anything is official probably should have his scientist badge removed. That said, it seems that more and more research is providing data that supports the hypothesis that honey bee’s are adversely affected by signals emitted by cell phone towers. If I am reading it right, it seems to have something to do with how bees locate where the hive is. The signals confuse them, and possibly interfere with their immune system.
It sure seems that way from the press, but I haven’t read any real information at all that supports that hypothesis. Annoying bees with a cell phone right next to their hive doesn’t really do it because the RF levels are far too high (there’s the inverse square law to consider) and other factors (like ultrasonic noise that might be generated by the cell phone’s speaker) might come into play.
If you have any links to data that really does support this I would be very much interested in seeing them.
Those darn honeybees, always flying around talking on cell phones instead of paying attention to flight paths. No wonder they’re always getting killed in accidents