"Oh, nothin'. Whut're you doin'?"

[bec_87rb]

Ah, great. Apparently, a study at Landau University has concluded that cell phones are killing honey bees. The radiation near their nests keeps foraging bees from returning to the hive, so it is eventually abandoned and the queen dies

Comments

[ieatbigboogers]

I for one, continue to live cell-phone free. I'm not worried about tumors or protecting our crops, I just hate the damn things. I hate telephones in general actually. I understand their practical uses so I have a land line, but to invite people to call me anytime, anywhere by getting a mobile phone seems masochistic. It baffles me how many people of my generation seem to be incapable of going an hour without calling someone. And when they don't have those damn phones against their heads they've got the iPods going. Talking to the person next to you on the bus is apparently obsolete.

[bec_87rb]

But going on a date and talking to someone on the phone is now okay. I have seen couples both talking on phones at dinner. Why did they bother to go out together I wondered.

[ieatbigboogers]

Yah, when did face to face conversation become second priority? A cell phone can interrupt any conversation and I'm not allowed to express my frustration, but be damned if anyone will let you interrupt their phone call!

Made yourself a foil hat yet?

[ieatbigboogers]

Oh and FWIW, according to www.emfpollution.com, all electronics are bad for us. Every new technology comes with a new expert predicting that it will be the downfall of civilization.

Re: My foil hat is a beauty

[bec_87rb]

I know that I'm a luddite at heart, and my irk at the cell phone is that it went from a safety & convenience extra to a way for people whose conversation has zero content to talk loudly in my headspace. My favorite Metro sign is some guy with his mouth open really loud and a cell up to his ear. The caption says, "Yes, yes, we're all really interested in what you're having for dinner."

"It baffles me how many people of my generation seem to be incapable of going an hour without calling someone"

I blame the extroverts. No, seriously, I have no idea why anyone would want that amount of contact with their fellow man, that amount of stimulation continuously. It makes me wiggy. But I had that problem with my ex-husband - he didn't exist outside of human interaction, it was like an itch for him. Wore me out. :) I hope he's with a total extrovert now.

Re: My foil hat is a beauty

[ieatbigboogers]

It can't be an extrovert thing, though, this chronic cell phone use. Extroverts ought to be able to make conversation with the company their in, not have to check in with the same damn people all the time. To me it seems a form of introversion, of security. People can't deal with the world so they hole themselves up in an imaginary cell-phone bubble and pretend we can't hear them and they can't hear us. It strikes me as a particularly anti-social behaviour.

Re: My foil hat is a beauty

[bec_87rb]

People can't deal with the world so they hole themselves up in an imaginary cell-phone bubble and pretend we can't hear them and they can't hear us. It strikes me as a particularly anti-social behaviour.

people put their cell phone in the center of the table when they meet with you, to remind you that they have other options

That's true, I hadn't thought of it in that way - in the past, a person excused themselves to go answer the land-line, and it was considered the height of rudeness to then hold a long meaningless conversation on the telephone when a person was standing in front of you. For politeness, you got your caller off the line asap, perhaps even telling them you would call back because you had guests.

For some reason, this form of politeness does not apply if the telephone isn't plugged into the wall? After all, if you took the trouble to be standing before me, you made more effort than the caller.

[ieatbigboogers]

Yah, my hope is that in the near future society will come up with a code of etiquette for the devices. Without one, they can be rather obnoxious.

[bec_87rb]

Perhaps if someone takes a call, we'll find out that something interesting is going on down the street and end up having a better time?

If they need to take the call, they could excuse themselves and take it elsewhere. I bothered to show in person; I get dibs on their attention.

How do you see this code of etiquette coming into being?

Hm. Successive approximation of the desired behavior via judicious use of brutal positive punishment? If I were emperor, of course. Sometimes you have to hit the puppy with a rolled up newspaper so he'll learn.

[dayle_]

You have to use a cell phone a lot for it to cause problems, right? Because, I do not use mine often and I've never been in favor of developing tumors or assisting in an agricultural downfall. Also, I like honey (but not so much bees themselves).

[bec_87rb]

I haven't found the original bee-cell article or a summary in some hard science mag like Nature or Science, but I figure either the article or a review of it will appear at some point.

With that caveat, I think it's the cell towers that are of particular harm, because of their power, but anything that broadcasts in the microwave confuses the bees. Bees see in the same light as we do, but also at the shorter wavelength ultraviolet (so they can navigate on cloudy days, because UV penetrates clouds) and apparently they also have some detection on the wavelengths longer than "visible" light, which is microwaves.

In short, since I haven't found the article, I can't say if your cell phone is killing bees, but it should be easier to locate epidemiological data on the cancer risk to your head, because the science is older, so there will probably be more articles posted in conservative staid science review areas. I'll take a look.

Maybe it only works on Swedish Brains

[bec_87rb]

Tumour risk associated with use of cellular telephones or cordless desktop telephones.
World J Surg Oncol. 2006 Oct 11;4:74. Hardell L, Mild KH, Carlberg M, Soderqvist F. Department of Oncology, University Hospital, SE-701 85 Orebro and Department of Natural Sciences, Orebro University, SE-701 82 Orebro, Sweden. lennart.hardell@orebroll.se.

[snip] ...CONCLUSION: We found for all studied phone types an increased risk for brain tumours, mainly acoustic neuroma and malignant brain tumours. OR increased with latency period, especially for astrocytoma grade III-IV. No consistent pattern of an increased risk was found for salivary gland tumours, NHL, or testicular cancer.

Conversely:
1: Cell phones don't cause tumors. From the United Kingdom Institute of Cancer Research. Tabrah F. Hawaii Med J. 2006 Jan;65(1):8.

2: Mixed signals on cell phones and cancer. Savitz DA. Epidemiology. 2004 Nov;15(6):651-2.

3: Mobile phones and cancer? Janssens JP. Eur J Cancer Prev. 2005 Apr;14(2):81-2

I love a good hijacking as much as the next guy

[bec_87rb]

No problemo. :) I've had fun, and I love it when threads grow sort of organically.