Cell phones could bee the end of us

"Albert Einstein once said that
if the bees disappeared, 'man would
have only four years of life left' "

I HATE CELL PHONES. At best, they're handy in an emergency or in a pinch on the road.

At worst, they're a distraction, a hazard when driving -- or when you're in the path of distracted phone-yakking drivers -- and a facilitator of collapsing public decorum. They destroy any sense of privacy (or quiet time) we ever had, and they allow work to consume all of our lives, as opposed to just the part between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. (or whatever).

Well, we thought that was the worst about cellular telephones. Scientific studies are beginning to indicate the things might literally be the end of us. Really.

From The Independent in London:

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.

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.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.

German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

SO, IT COULD BE that we're soon going to find out whether we love our gadgets more than we love life itself. How do you text "I'm starving to death" in 1337 5P34K?

Wouldn't it be the most delicious (sorry, poor choice of words) of ironies if the "meek" in the poverty-ridden "undeveloped" world REALLY DO "inherit the earth," because the First World kills itself off for the love of mammon?

And for the dread of being alone with our own thoughts.