Are Cell Phones Killing Bees? How the False Meme Spread
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How it spread
And that’s when things went bad. The meme left the hive, as it were, and flew off and started pollinating other websites.
Many of us who write for the web get our leads by what we read on other blogs. Going back to original sources takes time and effort, and a lot of us aren’t paid very much. We’ve gotta just grab the stories and run with them.
So, Inhabitat, which credits the Daily Mail with the story:
It’s Official – Cell Phones are Killing Bees
Scientists may have found the cause of the world’s sudden dwindling population of bees – and cell phones are to blame. Research conducted in Lausanne, Switzerland has shown that the signal from cell phones not only confuses bees, but also leads to their death. Over 83 experiments have yielded the same results… The calls act as an instinctive warning to leave the hive, but the frequency confuses the bees, causing them to fly erratically, and then suddenly die!
Cell Phones Are Killing The Bees: Study
New experiments find that cell phone signals don’t just confuse bees, they off them. What does this mean for our food supply? …phone signals confuse honeybees so much that they become disoriented before finally dropping dead…
and Gizmodo:
Study: Mobile Phones Cause Bees To Swarm To Their Death
…Disoriented by the noise, the colony fled their hive, flew erratically and suddenly died….
and another 54,000 or so websites picked up on the story over the past 24 hours.
Or the Portland Mercury:
Cell phones=death to bees=DOOM
Followed by this exchange in the comments:
it could be anything that’s messing up the bees, including cell phones. – Posted by jami | April 16, 2007 1:18 PM
You mean I might have been blowing the whole thing out of proportion? – Posted by [author] Matt Davis | April 16, 2007 1:39 PM
possibly yes. – Posted by jami | April 16, 2007 3:58 PM
Nooooooooooo. – Posted by [author] Matt Davis | April 16, 2007 4:18 PM
Oh, wait! That’s from FOUR YEARS AGO. I guess this isn’t a new phenomenon, either…
Continue the discussion over at the Green Options network...
More on Colony Collapse Disorder:
- UK Bee Failure Both Environmental and Political
- Could Britain Save the World’s Bees?
- White Nose Syndrome Spreads Through US Bat Population
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(Bee Movie image © Dreamworks Animation; via RegHardware)
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