Oddly, it might be a cause, but its not the cause.

(Reply) (Thread)

How is that odd?

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Does this mean you're not extolling the virtues of the re-furbished Nokia any more?

(Reply) (Thread)

I've had a cell phone since I was sixteen. It's mostly an annoyance, though. I mean, really. Why do I need so many people leaving me messages about how I don't answer my phone? Rarg.

(Reply) (Thread)

If you make your voicemail message something like "I never check these, so don't leave a message" people won't leave as many messages. It works great for me.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

I'd give up my cell phone not to starve to death. Or even just to ensure that I can still eat delicious honey.

I think things of annoyance are popping up way to fast these days. Like, when I was little, I thought it was only real old folk that said things like "When I was your age we did have all this new fangled technology stuff!" Now here I am, 21 years old, looking at middle schoolers walking around with their obnoxious ring tones and talking about their myspaces, thinking "When I was their age, I didn't even know anyone with a cell phone!"

(Reply) (Thread)

If cell phones were the cause, you'd think that Europe and Britain would've experienced this problem long before us, not the other way around. Europe has much, much higher rates of cell phone usage than the US, for more years.

(Reply) (Thread) (Expand)

But they are way classier than americans, I think a lot of it has to do with how classy you are.

They also maybe have different broadcast standards because in many cases their governments actually care for their citizens health unlike America?

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)

I would give up my mobile to not starve to death in a couple of years! That'd be an easy decision for me.

Now, if it came down to starving or giving up the intar-wubs, I might have to think a little bit about that one...

(Reply) (Thread)

We can still have intarwubs, they only harm your attention span

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)

I'm going to give up all technology and live in a yurt. Wanna come with? We can make tacos over a campfire like they did in the good ol days

(Reply) (Thread)

Bees are responsible for like 95% of most tacos though.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)

The only phone I have is a mobliar. Even at that, it's always turned off the battery's always dead so I don't use it anyhow. Thank you, Verizon & Motorola RAZR! If you have to reach me, you just got to think real hard.

What I'm saying is I'd totally stomp on my mobliar to let the bees make more bees. And flowers. Also honey.

(Reply) (Thread)

It's weird that our generation has one foot in two very different eras. Makes us sound like geezers when we complain about this stuff, and we're barely in our 30s. :)

(Reply) (Thread)

Sometimes I wish I was older in order to justify my seemingly premature curmudgeonliness. But then I think about it and just wish those ugly little bastards would get off my lawn

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)

I certainly would.

Maybe the bees aren't actually dying. Maybe they're just annoyed at cellphones being everywhere and they all have relocated to someplace were phones are not ubiquitous.

This definitely warrants further investigation, since cellphone towers really didn't start popping up like candy until the last five or so years.

I'm still figuring it's got something to do with GM crops, but that's partly because I hate Montsanto and I think that anything that can be stuck in their eye is a good thing.

(Reply) (Thread)

I agree with the goat.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)

seeing as it's mostly impossible for bees let alone mammals of any species to survive in my town, I'll go on my merry way!

(Reply) (Thread)

Oh Merry-dith.

Although I didn't notice until after I-Con exactly how close we were to Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a Subsidiary of the Department of Homeland Security (?) http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=19400000

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

I need my Treo to live, so I guess I'm doomed either way.

Europe does have tighter RF standards, as you mentioned elsewhere, but they are recent and I'd be surprised if newer models were in the majority yet. You can't buy older phones new anymore; the Treo 650 is unavailable in Europe (or is supposed to be, I don't live there) but you can still get them in the US.

That said, they use the GSM radio standard and we have a mix of GSM and CDMA carriers. It could be that the CDMA frequencies screw with the bees more than GSM. CDMA uses more power to broadcast longer and harder (just like America).

But don't point fingers just because cell phones annoy you! That's irresponsible journalism, sir! I think it is obvious that bees are being killed by quantum phenomina.

(Reply) (Thread)

I'm attempting to not feel justified, all of the sudden. That seems so much like justice, on some level.

(Reply) (Thread)

Oh, I know. It would be delicious (until we starved, anyway) if it were true. (whoops typo)

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Remember back when everyone was saying cell phones caused brain cancer?

(Reply) (Thread)

And then science said "it probably doesn't but we really need to test the long term effects" and everybody said "oh that's good enough for us where y'all at."

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)

I'm something of an interested party here, so I should probably keep quiet. I'm open to the idea that cell phones are doing something horrible. But, among other things, the article doesn't seem to make any distinction between bees in general, and the commercial honeybees that are suffering from CCD. Is it really true that those particular bees are responsible for pollinating all the world's crops? Is there any evidence at all of crop failures happening in the US because of the decimation of its honeybee population? The US seems to be at the center of the problem, after all.

That list at the end is ridiculous--is anyone reputable really claiming that teenagers are going to "go senile in the prime of their lives" because of cell radiation?

(Reply) (Thread)

robot bees! I can easily picture a world where flowering plants are pollinated by robot bees instead of organic bees.

the entire story makes me wonder: what came first, the flowering plant or the cross-pollinator?

also we won't starve, we will just lose produce from flowering plants - like peaches, soybeans, apples, pears, pumpkins, cucumbers, cherries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries.

or we'll hire mexicans to manually pollinate crops.

(Reply) (Thread)

I've gotta say, the wildflower meadow in my front yard and the ones at the botanical garden I work at are both still full of bees, native and honey.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

I'd put my money on an increase in pollution over cell phones. Does wi-fi harm the hive mentality? Since pretty much ever coffee shop has wi-fi and it'd be easy to put a wi-fi antennae on a cell tower, we could all have wi-fi handsets and Skype accounts! No more minutes of texting charges! Damn I'm brilliant.

(Reply) (Thread)

I have nothing constructive to say.

(Reply) (Thread)

Is there a way I can get Verizon to starve?

I'm only 34 and they've gone a long way towards making me cranky as hell.

(Reply) (Thread)

This is incredible.

(Reply) (Thread)

People have been blathering into cell phones near-constantly for nigh on ten years now, why is this just happening now? No, no, I don't think it's cell phones. I think it's the work of an infamous, nefarious, criminal mind. My money's on The Hivemaster.

(Reply) (Thread)

I'm with you on this one. Hivemaster is just crazy enough to do something like this to bring himself out of obscurity. Who's laughing now Superman? Who's laughing now??

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Hm... well my cell phone is basically my home phone except it goes with me to the store in case I suddenly need to talk to my mother, grandparents, or roommates about something. I try to keep my conversations constructive and useful...

(Reply) (Thread)

I guess this is like the time that a whole bunch of birds died of lead poisoning, only this time people care because bees aren't jerks.

(Reply) (Thread)

so you're saying birds are jerks? just because they can't interact with the quantum world doesn't make them jerks, sir, it makes them quark-challanged.

did anyone notice that we are all conversing in a co-educational gymnasium locker room? i wondered why there was a locker to conveniently lean on here.

save the bees, save the world.

sorry, i really need season 2.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread) (Expand)

I remember when I was 13 and I started working, my dad got me a phone so that they could keep track of me and make sure I hadn't been kidnapped from a city bus or something equally horrible.

I got made fun of for it relentlessly at school. Now you cannot walk into a middle school and find a 13-yr-old WITHOUT a cell phone. I am still a little bitter about being made fun of for it.


Personally I feel that people only need to be able to contact me when I want them to contact me. Anyone who berates me for not answering my phone gets a verbal reaming. (I feel the same way about instant messaging programs: just because I'm signed on doesn't mean I'm here and ready to talk to you. Once upon a time there were no away messages.)

(Reply) (Thread)

Instapundit has some interesting responses to this "bee-zaster." There have been massive bee suicide pacts in the past 100 years. Also bees don't like being trucked around by crazy farmers. Who knew people traveled with bees? That would be a scary car wreck; you crash, get out of your car and bees are EVERYWHERE!

(Reply) (Thread)

It happened. Of course, the CNN link doesn't work anymore, because 'news' sites suck like that.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)