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Saturday, July 3, 2010

Honey Bee Declines

Honey bee populations around the world are in decline, which is a serious agricultural problem since bees are one of the main pollinators of flowers of all kinds, including food crops. A parasitic mite had been believed to be the culprit, but now there's another suspect: Cell phones. Bees use earth's magnetic field to navigate and cell phones and towers generate electromagnetic radiation that may interfere with the pigment in bees which is involved in sensing the magnetic field. In some studies this has caused the bees to be unable to find their way back to their hives.

If this indeed turns out to be the problem it's possible that changing the frequencies at which cell phones operate will solve the problem, but no one knows for sure.

Go here to read a fuller account of the research that has led to cell phones being implicated in the crash of bee populations.

RLC