Cell Phones could end civilization..

[Martin]

"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"."

http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...cle2449968.ece

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.

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."

The case against handsets

Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer, take decades to show up.

Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.

Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.

Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically, doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from constant texting.

Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety recommendations, largely ignored by ministers.

[waltky]

Maybe the frequency of a diamond based cell phone wouldn't harm the bees...

The age of diamond-powered cell phones could be close
July 27, 2007: Within the next decade, you might take calls and surf the Web on a diamond-laced handset that would put the iPhone to shame. Unlike high-end, gem-studded cell phones, no bling would sparkle on the shell. But inside, diamond-covered components would enable crisper, faster communications.

Advanced Diamond Technologies is bringing diamond down to size for potential usage in a vast array of products, including wireless phones and medical implants. The company announced last week that it can make the first diamond coatings ideal for use in microelectromechanical devices, such as "tuning forks" in cell phones. The grains in ADT's diamond films are nearly a billion times thinner than those used in industrial cutting tools and surgical scalpels, and they don't need to be polished. "What we're trying to do is remove barriers to companies evaluating diamond," said Neil Kane, president of ADT. "It's still a young technology and I'm not trying to say it's equivalent to silicon, but we've removed one of the largest bottlenecks towards adoption."

The global market for radiofrequency chips in mobile phones alone could amount to $1.1 billion by 2010, according to Wicht Consulting in Germany. The hardest natural substance on the planet, diamond resists heat and water and is biochemically inert, making it a natural fit for smart chips and surgical implants. Diamond glitters with potential, but until recently has been too costly to make a common ingredient in consumer electronics.

Yet prices are coming down as the manufacturing process speeds up. ADT can cultivate diamond films in a matter of hours. The spinoff of Argonne National Laboratory converts the carbon atoms in methane gas into diamond, which it then essentially spray-paints onto surfaces for a mirror-smooth finish. The company is working with Argonne and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to create high-speed telecommunications devices. ADT's diamond coatings are also being explored for use in retinal implants that would restore sight to the blind.

More The age of diamond-powered cell phones could be close | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

[waltky]

Colony collapse disorder...

Bugged about dying honeybees?
Friday, September 07, 2007 - THE BEE QUESTIONS THAT BUG YOU

If a virus is killing off bees, is it safe for humans to consume honey, or bee pollen, or royal jelly? Are organic bees less vulnerable? What about all these other suggested causes of the bees’ “disappearing disease”? If you see some strange bee behavior, who you gonna call? We handle these questions and more in the wake of the journal Science’s latest study on Colony Collapse Disorder.

Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, is characterized by the rapid disappearance of a bee colony even though there seems to be no reason for them to vanish. One week, the hive seems to be buzzing, with plenty of food. The next week, the bees are gone to who knows where. Scientists took note of CCD's rise a year ago and have suggested a range of causes for the phenomenon - including parasites, pesticide poisoning, global warming and the stress of the bees being moved around by commercial pollination operations.

The latest research cites a correlation with another factor, the presence of a little-known virus that was first isolated in Israel. But the mystery has not yet been solved, and researchers say they still have more questions than answers. Msnbc.com users had questions as well, and to answer them, I consulted research entomologist Jay Evans at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service and reviewed my notes from past interviews. Here's a sampling of the frequently asked questions:

I was wondering if there in any research on possible effects to humans. I personally take bee pollen every day for vitamins, minerals, amino acids, energy, etc. Believe it or not, I also take it as a possible antivirus [measure]. My children take daily spoons full of honey to help with allergies. Any thoughts? - William Brewer

More Cosmic Log : The bee questions that bug you

[waltky]

Savin' the bees...

Breakthrough on Mystery of Vanishing Bees
Sep 10, 2007 - Over the past year, honey bees have been dying across North America in unprecedented numbers and, until this month, no one seemed to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what the cause may have been.

What has been dubbed "colony collapse disorder" can work through a honey bee colony in a matter of weeks. Bees fly off to collect pollen, but never return -- or simply weaken and die in the hives. Beyond the larger effects on the food chain, the economic implications of these deaths are immediate because honey bees are integral to the pollination of tens of millions of dollars of cash crops in North America.

Scientists from Penn State University say they have found a connection between Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) and colony collapse disorder. In a conference call last week, researchers argued that the virus, in conjunction with other stress factors, is likely the cause of the disorder, which has resulted in a loss of 50-90 percent of North American bee colonies. It was originally discovered in Israel in 2004, the same year that Australian bees were imported in to the United States.

Colony collapse disorder has also been observed in Poland, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, and unverified reports have surfaced in Switzerland and Germany. Cases have also been reported in India and Brazil.

David Hackenburg, a beekeeper near Tampa Bay, Florida, lost nearly 2,000 of his 3,000 hives in a matter of weeks last winter. He has since been raising the issue with university researchers, bureaucrats at state agencies and elected politicians. He has told a number of media outlets that new synthetic nicotine-based pesticides known as neonicotinoids, or neonics, are the major contributing factor. Researchers told IPS that further studies will include these pesticides as possible contributing factors. Some large environmental groups, like the Sierra Club, also believe that genetically modified food production could be a contributing factor. A comprehensive British study found that genetically modified crops in conjunction with powerful chemicals were harmful to bees, butterflies and birds.

More ENVIRONMENT: Breakthrough on Mystery of Vanishing Bees

[waltky]

How come killer bees are not vanishing too??...

'Killer Bees' Descend on New Orleans
Sep 12, 2007 - La. Agriculture Minister Says Africanized Honeybees Appear Established Near New Orleans

Africanized honeybees, a fierce hybrid strain sometimes referred to as "killer bees," appear to have established themselves in the New Orleans area, the state agriculture commissioner said. A swarm of the bees was captured about five miles from where demolition workers found a colony of Africanized bees in January, commissioner Bob Odom said Tuesday. The most recent find was close enough to the earlier find that the bees might have come from the same colony. But they might also have flown ashore from a passing ship or barge, Odom said in a news release.

"Although the exact source can't be identified, we have to assume Africanized honeybees are now established in the area and people should be careful when working outside," Odom said. The Department of Agriculture and Forestry keeps traps along a north-south line through the state and at all deepwater ports to monitor the bees, which are smaller and more aggressive than the European honeybees raised for honey. "Because Africanized bees have been labeled 'killer bees' for years, there's an idea around that they are bigger than European honeybees," Odom said. "The truth is they're actually smaller but a lot fiercer."

They have the same venom as honeybees, but attack in groups. Experts recommend that anyone confronted with Africanized bees find cover quickly. Africanized bees are the result of an experiment to increase honey production in Brazil. A swarm escaped a lab in 1957 and headed north. When they mated with native strains, the offspring were as aggressive as the African parents. They reached Texas in 1990 and have spread west to California and east to Florida. They were first found in Louisiana in Caddo Parish, in June 2005, and identified the following month. They have moved steadily east since then, and were most recently found near Pecan Island and Turkey Creek.

ABC News: 'Killer Bees' Descend on New Orleans

[waltky]

Climate change could end civilization...

Global Warming Is Biggest Security Threat
WASHINGTON, Nov 5, 2007 - Global climate change, if left unaddressed, is likely to pose "as a great or a greater foreign policy and national security challenge than any problem" the United States currently faces, according to a major new report released here Monday by two influential Washington think tanks.

Under a worst-case scenario, that nonetheless remains "plausible" given the latest scientific estimates, climate change's impacts on global stability "would destabilise virtually every aspect of modern life," according to the conclusions of a task force assembled by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS). "The only comparable experience for many in the group was considering what the aftermath of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange might have entailed during the height of the Cold War," according to the 119-page study, "The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change."

The rising temperatures and sea levels that are caused by climate change will probably set off "large-scale migrations of people, both inside nations and across existing national borders" even under more benign scenarios. The impact of drought and glacial melt in some parts of the world will is also likely to spur large population movements. "The more severe scenarios suggest the prospect of perhaps billions of people over the medium or longer term being forced to relocate," according to the report, which stressed that any mass migrations will almost certainly trigger sharp increases in regional tensions and increasingly draconian efforts by wealthier countries to prevent migrants from crossing their borders.

"Global warming has the potential to destabilise the world," said CNAS president Kurt Campbell, who served as deputy defence secretary under President Bill Clinton. "In my view, this will quickly become the defining issue of our age." The report, which comes as the Democratic-led Congress has begun moving legislation designed to reduce global warming emissions from power plants, factories and cars by as much as 60 percent under current levels by 2050, is aimed at what Campbell called the "surprising and alarming" lack of knowledge about climate change's geo-political implications within the U.S. national security community.

More ENVIRONMENT-US: Global Warming Is Biggest Security Threat

[waltky]

Public health threat too...

Climate change is public health issue: experts
Thursday, November 8, 2007 - Climate change should be treated as a public health issue, especially by the United States, the world's biggest long-term emitter of greenhouse gases, health and ecology experts said on Tuesday.

An Earth transformed by climate change could lead to more climate-related diseases, especially those transmitted by insects and those borne by water supplies, the experts said at a meeting of the American Public Health Association. The United States and other rich countries bear special responsibility because their climate-warming emissions will have a disproportionate impact on poor countries that emit the least and have the fewest resources to deal with public health problems, said Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin. "There is ... an issue of disproportional vulnerability," Patz said at a news conference. "But ... in the industrialized world, because we live in a globalized economy, an increase in disease anywhere in the world really puts everyone at risk."

Health hazards related to climate change include severe heat waves and droughts, which can affect the food and water supply; more severe storms; and more ground-level ozone, also known as smog, which is sensitive to temperature and can affect people with breathing problems such as asthma. "Climate change is one of the most serious public health threats facing our nation," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, the association's executive director. "Yet few Americans are aware of the very real consequences of climate change on the health of our communities, our families and our children."

The United States has long been the top emitter of climate-warming greenhouse gases, notably the carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and petroleum-powered vehicles. At least one study this year found China was overtaking the United States on this score, but over time, the United States has still emitted more. "In the aggregate, we are still the number one country responsible for climate change," he said, noting that carbon dioxide stays in the environment for about 70 years.

Source

See also:

Climatologists helping fight meningitis
Thursday, November 8, 2007 - Climate and health experts are teaming up to combat meningitis in Africa, fearing that creeping desertification and dust storms will aid a disease that thrives where people suffer from sore throats.

The novel partnership aims to map areas south of the Sahara most vulnerable to droughts and storms, to guide a 10-year U.N.-backed meningitis vaccination drive due to start in 2008 to protect 350 million people from Ethiopia to Senegal. "Health experts need to know where to go first, where the hotspots of the disease will be," Jose Achache, head of the Swiss-based Group on Earth Observations (GEO), told Reuters on Tuesday. GEO comprises 70 governments as well as other groups.

"The first thing we can do is to have an estimate of the amount of increased desertification to expect," he told Reuters. "The next mechanism will be the wind: where and when sandstorms will make outbreaks more likely." African epidemics of meningitis, an infection of the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, are often linked to sandstorms, apparently because dust inflames noses and throats and allows the bacteria to invade the body.

People cram indoors during such storms, helping a disease spread by coughs and sneezes. Meningitis killed 25,000 people in major African epidemics in 1996-97 and affected 250,000. Many survivors suffer brain damage or amputations. The World Health Organization says a new meningitis vaccine, expected for use from 2008, could help eliminate the disease in Africa where it is most widespread. The vaccine, developed by the Serum Institute of India, costs just US$0.40 a dose -- a fraction of what past rivals cost. But enough cannot be produced to vaccinate everyone immediately.

MORE

[waltky]

More likely climate change will end civilization...

Can We Save the World by 2015?
Saturday, Dec. 01, 2007 - If international leaders were as united as the scientific community on climate change, warming might be a thing of the past.

This year the UN's Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a series of reports that laid to rest any doubts that global warming is real — and outlined the frightening consequences of continued inaction. At the release of the IPCC's final summary last month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon — who has made climate change a top priority of his administration — laid out the threat in stark terms. "The world's scientists have spoken clearly, and with one voice," he said. "I expect the world's policymakers to act the same."

Unfortunately, the global political community is a long way from speaking with one voice on anything, and climate change is no exception. We'll know for sure next week, when environment and energy ministers from around the world meet on the Indonesian island of Bali, for the UN's climate change conference. The summit has been held nearly every year since 1992, when the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) — the document that has since guided international work on global warming — was hammered out. It was at the 1997 conference, held in Japan, that the Kyoto Protocol was passed, but since then, there's been little progress, thanks in no small part to President George W. Bush's determined foot dragging on climate change.

But with the Kyoto set to go into effect in 2008, this year's talks in Bali will be the most important international environmental negotiations in over a decade. The Kyoto Protocol — which requires developed nations who have ratified the deal to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of about 5% below 1990 levels by 2012 — expires in just five years. Given how long international treaties take to be developed and ratified, the world needs to begin immediately at Bali the process of preparing a successor to Kyoto to be ready by the end of 2012 — otherwise, we'll be faced with a global vacuum at the very moment when greenhouse emissions must begin falling in order to avoid dangerous climate change. "It's really critical to get negotiations formally started," says David Doniger, the policy director of the Natural Resource Defense Council's climate center. "We're almost at the point of no return. If we don't turn these emission trends down soon, we're cooked."

MORE

[waltky]

Granny says we all gonna be like dat frog in hot water...

Global warming outpacing evolution
Dec. 20, 2007 -- U.S. and international researchers say global warming is outpacing the ability of humans, plants and animals to adapt.

Research presented earlier this year at a conference sponsored by the UCLA Institute of the Environment, published in an upcoming special edition of Molecular Ecology, said human-caused ecological changes have resulted in greater threats of disease, reduced diversity in plant and animal communities, and an overall loss of natural heritage.

"Evolutionary change caused by human activities touches every ecosystem on the planet, yet our understanding of the processes and the long-term consequences remain poorly understood," Thomas Smith, acting director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment, and Louis Bernatchez of Universite Laval in Quebec said in the preface to the special edition.

They called for additional research and better collaboration with policy makers to incorporate evolution in planning and to develop strategies to maximize adaptability, the journal said Thursday in a release. More than 300 scientists and policymakers from 20 countries attended the UCLA summit.

Source

[waltky]

Honey's good for ya...

Honey making a medical comeback
Dec. 26, 2007 - Potent type used as antibiotic amid fears of drug-resistant superbugs

Amid growing concern over drug-resistant superbugs and nonhealing wounds that endanger diabetes patients, nature's original antibiotic — honey — is making a comeback.

More than 4,000 years after Egyptians began applying honey to wounds, Derma Sciences Inc., a New Jersey company that makes medicated and other advanced wound care products, began selling the first honey-based dressing this fall after it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Called Medihoney, it is made from a highly absorbent seaweed-based material, saturated with manuka honey, a particularly potent type that experts say kills germs and speeds healing. Also called Leptospermum honey, manuka honey comes from hives of bees that collect nectar from manuka and jelly bushes in Australia and New Zealand.

Antibiotics becoming ineffective