http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/06/if-cell-phones-are-behind-the-bee-decline-what-are-they-doing-to-humans/58994/
For
years, scientists have been trying to explain why the bee population has
been
drastically declining. A new study may
hold the answer, CNN reports, and it
could have an impact on humans, too. First, the study:
In a study
at Panjab University in Chandigarh, northern India, researchers fitted cell
phones to a hive and powered them up for two fifteen-minute periods each
day.
After three months, they found the bees stopped producing honey, egg
production by the queen bee halved, and the size of the hive dramatically
reduced.
Andrew Goldsworthy, a biologist from Imperial College, London, told
CNN that the reason may have to do with radiation from cell phones and cell
towers disturbing the molecules of the chemical cryptochrome, which bees and
other animals use for navigation. The "other animals" part there is key: it
includes humans.
Cryptochrome apparently also plays a role in controlling circadian
rhythms. If cell phone and tower radiation disturbs cryptochrome molecules, it
could have serious consequences for our circadian rhythms, Goldsworthy wrote in
a briefing for an independent, British
radiation research group last year. Circadian rhythms follow a roughly 24-hour cycle and play
a key role in physically, mentally and behaviorally regulating our bodies. Mess
with your circadian rhythms and you screw with, among other things, your ability
to be well-rested and the associated health benefits. Goldsworthy argues that
the link between phone radiation and cryptochrome could then explain the
sometimes-found link between cell phones and cancer:
[A]ny weakening
of the amplitude of these rhythms means that at no time will any process
controlled by them ever function at maximum power. In particular, the immune
system may never be able to summon up the overwhelming power that is sometimes
needed to overcome pathogens or to destroy developing cancer cells before they
get out of control.
Of course, the ostensible link between cell phones and
cancer is itself up for debate, but if
the evidence starts supporting that connection, then cryptochrome might be at
the heart of it all.
This article available online
at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/06/if-cell-phones-are-behind-the-bee-decline-what-are-they-doing-to-humans/58994/
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© 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.
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