Monday - July 16, 2007

What is Red Bull?

I admit, I never drink the stuff, but I know a lot of folks who do.

Wired has gone and done the analysis for us so you know what you’re pouring down your gullet.

Enjoy.

What’s Inside: Red Bull

Glucose
Like most popular soft drinks, Red Bull is largely sugar water. But don’t count on its glucose to “give you wings,” as the ad says. Multiple studies have debunked the so-called sugar high.

Taurine
Also known as 2-aminoethanesulfonic acid, taurine was originally isolated from bull bile in 1827. Now made synthetically, it is the magical elixir said to bring out the kitesurfing extremophile in any Web-surfing nerd. Taurine’s actual effects, while not as drastic as the hype, are pretty wide-ranging, even from the amount found in a single can: Not only is it an inhibitory neurotransmitter (in some cases acting as a mild sedative) and an age-defying antioxidant, it even has the potential to steady irregular heartbeats.

Glucuronolactone
Internet rumors claimed this was a Vietnam-era experimental drug that causes brain tumors. Luckily, that’s not true. But don’t crumple up your tinfoil hat yet — hardly anyone has looked into exactly what this stuff does. So little research has been done on glucuronolactone (and most of it 50 years ago) that almost all information about it is mere rumor. Users generally believe it fights fatigue and increases well-being, but that could turn out to be bull, too.

There’s more, but I can’t imagine anything more satisfying already, can you? 

Posted by Drew458     on 07/16/2007 at 07:05 AM   
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining • Science-Technology •  
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   Thursday - July 05, 2007

Didja Ever Wonder?

Why is your ATM PIN number code four digits?

From the man who invented it:

One by-product of inventing the first cash machine was the concept of the Pin number.

Mr Shepherd-Barron came up with the idea when he realised that he could remember his six-figure army number. But he decided to check that with his wife, Caroline.

“Over the kitchen table, she said she could only remember four figures, so because of her, four figures became the world standard,” he laughs.

(reader grayjohn rightly points out that “PIN Number” is redundant.  I get all bent when people say VIN Number, so I should have caught that one.  Thanks)

Posted by Drew458     on 07/05/2007 at 09:32 AM   
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   Tuesday - July 03, 2007

Opulance on the Waves

Extreme Sailing: The Biggest Boat in the World

WIRED

Tom Perkins had done it all. He’d made a fortune, conquered Silicon Valley, even been Danielle Steel’s fifth husband for a time. His venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, was an early backer of Genentech, Netscape, and Google. But when he turned 70 a few years ago, Perkins decided to do something even grander and a bit crazier: He would build the biggest, riskiest, fastest, most technologically advanced, single-hulled sailing mega yacht in the world. The 289-foot Maltese Falcon, launched in spring 2006, is that engineering dream come to life.

There’s no official definition of a megayacht, but every one agrees they’re longer than 250 feet and tend to be triumphs of excess, with opulent staterooms, stainless steel and leather galore, plasma TVs — even their own speedboats and jet skis. To accommodate these toys, all mega yachts used to be powerboats, for the simple reason that sailboats must be reasonably svelte. But Perkins insisted on sail power — and refused to compromise on speed or lavish appointments. The solution was to go long, since (other things being equal) the longer the hull, the faster a sailboat can go. The result is the perfect blend of ego and utility, a $130 million wonder that represents the most daring advance in sailing technology in 150 years.

If the 1,367-ton Falcon were anchored in New York Harbor, its masts would nearly reach the tablet in the arm of the Statue of Liberty. The exterior has teak decks, a varnished cap rail, and exquisitely finished surfaces — all attributes of a classic ship — yet the overall look is sleek, metallic, and ultramodern, almost foreboding. When Darth Vader builds his own intergalactic yacht, it will look like this.

Check the link for more of the technology involved in this sailing wonder as well as some pictures.

I loved this quote from Perkins:

Heh.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/03/2007 at 10:49 AM   
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   Friday - June 08, 2007

Beam Me Some Juice Scotty

This seems to defy a couple laws of physics.

The end of the plug? Scientists invent wireless device that beams electricity through your home

Scientists have sounded the death knell for the plug and power lead.

In a breakthrough that sounds like something out of Star Trek, they have discovered a way of ‘beaming’ power across a room into a light bulb, mobile phone or laptop computer without wires or cables.

In the first successful trial of its kind, the team was able to illuminate a 60-watt light bulb 7ft away.

This would really re-define the way homes are configured.  I can’t tell you how many “wire hider” things I’ve tried.  This is huge.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/08/2007 at 10:08 AM   
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   Tuesday - May 29, 2007

Battleship Envy

I saw this little posting on Tam’s site this morning:

Obsession.

The capacity for the human mind to focus upon a goal and pursue it with single-minded determination is amazing. Given free reign, it is this tendency towards obsession that makes great things happen: Everest is climbed. The South Pole is reached. The Atlantic is flown solo. Diseases are conquered and devices are invented. And sometimes the same obsession goes a bit wonky and model battleships thirty feet long are built.

Wow

Posted by Drew458     on 05/29/2007 at 05:49 AM   
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   Monday - May 14, 2007

Cure For Cancer

Okla. Professors Develop Cancer Protein
NORMAN, Okla. - May 14, 2007, 5:04 PM EDT

Two professors at the University of Oklahoma say they’ve developed a protein that can stop the spread of certain cancer cells without damaging normal cells. Thomas Pento and Roger Harrison helped develop a fusion protein that keeps some types of cancer cells from ingesting a vital protein called methionine. The fusion protein doesn’t affect normal cells because, unlike cancer cells, they can be healthy without that protein.

Chemotherapy and radiation therapies kill normal cells along with cancer cells, which often cause sickness and hair loss. “Roger has created a mechanism that delivers these compounds specifically to the surface of cancer cells so normal cells won’t be affected but only the cancer cells will be damaged,” Pento said.

“So you can see it would cause a lot less toxicity and it should really be a lot more effective.” Pento is a Noble Foundation presidential professor of pharmacy at the OU Health Sciences Center; Harrison is an associate professor of chemical, biological and materials engineering on the Norman campus. They worked with other OU scientists, including Xiao-Ping Zang, Naveen Palwai, Megan Lerner and Dan Brackett, research director at the Health Sciences Center’s surgery department.

Pento said the research started with breast cancer and expanded to include other types of solid tumors. They found the fusion protein to be just as helpful in fighting lung, prostate and pancreatic cancers. “It could be applicable to many types of cancer,” Pento said, “but we’ve found that it’s effective for those four types of cancer for sure.”

Despite successful testing to this point, Harrison said the fusion protein will need another round of animal tests before moving on to years of human clinical testing. Three phases of clinical tests could take two years each. “So it could be in the order of 10 years,” he said. “It sounds so far away, but realistically, given the FDA and all the phases of testing, it could be done rapidly.”

The two professors have applied for patents on their technology and plan to conduct animal testing themselves before launching their own company or licensing with a large pharmaceutical company to do it. “If you don’t patent it and get that protection, then no pharmaceutical company is going to spend the half to three-quarter billion dollars that it takes to do the clinical testing and to get this drug on the market,” Pento said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/14/2007 at 05:25 PM   
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   Sunday - May 13, 2007

Sunday Science

Since it’s Sunday, let’s delve into some cosmic science and have a little fun for a change. Now ... “creationists” will tell you that things happened the way they happened because that’s the way God intended them to happen and therefore he made them happen. So-called “evolutionists” will tell you that “s**t just happens” and we’re all just a 15 billion year long series of accidents.

I tend to agree with the former because the life spark in this hairless monkey body I currently occupy likes to think of itself as somewhat more than the product of an accidental collision between two protozoa a few billion years ago. No, something bigger had to have a hand in there somewhere and I would really like to ask that “something bigger” why He (or She) left me with an appendix at the end of things. But I digress. I’ll take that up with Him (or Her) later.

For now, let’s just suppose for a moment that about 65 million years ago our Solar System looked somewhat different than it does today and in between Earth and Jupiter there was another massive gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn and it had two moons, one of which was destined to become Mars and the other consigned to be smashed into asteroids ...

Both of these planetary changes occurred about 65 million years ago, when suddenly one fine Thursday morning the finger of God reached out and touched the hypothetical Planet V which they revolved around, smashing it to oblivion and starting a chain of events that caused a certain creature to appear on Earth about 3.2 million years ago, as that planet suddenly ended a period of extremely hot global warming and cooled down enough to became a veritable Garden Of Eden.

This is not an attempt to be sacrilegious, I assure you. It is but a feeble attempt to understand the old saying that “God works in mysterious ways” or as Albert Einstein said, “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”

I’ll leave it to you to figure out how snakes and apples came into all this. For now though, just wrap your head around this theory and let’s discuss the possibilities. After all, what else are brains for? They’re utterly useless without ideas ....

In this study, we wish to focus our attention on hypothetical original Planet V, which occupied the position in the solar system now held by Mars; and on its original twin-moon companions, Mars and Body C. The evidence that Mars was a moon of an exploded planet is extensive. The existence of a “twin” is required by fission theory if the parent body was liquid or gaseous, and by evidence suggestive of a second explosion affecting Mars. This twin is the body most likely to have held life, as suggested by findings of water and organic molecules and evidence for weathering in meteorites dated close to Body C’s indicated explosion date of 3.2 million years ago.

Of those two moons of Planet V, Mars was apparently closer to Planet V than Body C was. This is because Body C most likely took less damage than Mars did when Planet V exploded 65 million years ago. Had it been the other way around, life of any kind might not have survived or evolved to an advanced stage on Body C. However, we tried developing the dynamical tests in this article assuming the opposite order (Body C as the innermost moon) and found no solutions compatible with the applicable theories and available evidence, Of course, both moons would have been badly damaged by the Planet V explosion. But both managed to survive for the next 62 million years in mutual orbit around each other, which indicates that damage done by the Planet V explosion was not the sole cause of the much later Body C explosion, or of its timing.

-- “The Violent History Of Mars”, Tom Van Flandern, MetaResearch

Postulate I: Correlation Earth, 65 Million Years Ago

During the End-Cretaceous (K-T) extinction (65 million years ago) eighty-five percent of all species disappeared, making it the second largest mass extinction event in geological history. This mass extinction event has generated considerable public interest, primarily because of its role in the demise of the dinosaurs.

-- “The End-Cretaceous (K-T) Extinction”, Steven M. Stanley, “Extinction”

Postulate II: Correlation Earth, 3.2 Million Years Ago

The Pliocene epoch itself contains episodic climate fluctuations prior to the late Pliocene cooling, and our focus for study is a warm period in the middle Pliocene between 3.15 and 2.85 million years before present and, as such, spanned the period of time during which the Earth transitioned from relatively warm climates to the generally cooler climates of the Pleistocene. This transition included the emergence of the direct ancestors of humankind and contains the beginnings of cyclic Northern Hemisphere glaciation.

-- “The Climate of the Pliocene: Simulating Earth’s Last Great Warm Period”, Mark A. Chandler, NASA GISS

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/13/2007 at 01:27 PM   
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   Wednesday - May 02, 2007

Senator Snubbed

Meanwhile, out here in the Gateway City of the Midwest our new Senator is having problems with the church. It seems her liberal views on abortion and embryonic stem cell research do not please all of us out here. To heck with her liberal views. I just can’t stand to look at the woman. She makes Nancy Pelosi look like a centerfold. Where do Democrats find these hags?

I know, I know. That was tacky but I can’t help it. I worked hard to get Republican Jim Talent re-elected and was sorely disappointed when he lost the 2004 election by a whisker ... a whisker no doubt helped along with some rather devious activities by the liberal Democrats who control the city of St. Louis.

Here in Missouri we had ballot initiatives on stem cell research in the last election and the topic has not gone away. Midwesterners seem to be about evenly spilt, according to the polls. Abortion is also a hot button issue out here. McCaskill’s supporters are pretty much all in the liberal havens of downtown St. Louis and the University of Missouri at Columbia. The rest of our state is pretty much a red state.

McCaskill puzzles me the same way other Catholic liberals (John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi) puzzle me. The Catholic church has made a clear stand against abortion and embryonic stem cell research yet these Left wing-nuts openly defy their church with their positions. McCaskill even sends her daughter to a Catholic girls school and now her daughter is being placed in the embarrassing position of having to explain to her classmates why mommy won’t be showing up to inspire them with a graduation speech.

It seems to me that when it comes down to a choice between following their beliefs or following their base, there is really no decision to make. Getting elected trumps getting saved every time. How do you separate the politician from the religion? Should you? Too many questions - not enough answers ....

Senator Asked Not to Speak at Graduation
ST. LOUIS (AP) - May 2, 2007, 12:28 PM EDT

An invitation to Sen. Claire McCaskill to speak at her daughter’s graduation from a Roman Catholic high school was withdrawn because of her positions on abortion and stem cell research.

Students at all-girls St. Joseph’s Academy in the St. Louis suburb of Frontenac wanted to have McCaskill speak at their commencement this month, McCaskill spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh said Tuesday.

But the offer was rescinded last week. The president of St. Joseph’s, Sister Michaela Zahner, said she reluctantly made the decision after receiving a call from the St. Louis Archdiocese.

McCaskill narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Sen. Jim Talent last November in a race in which embryonic stem cell research was a key issue. A McCaskill ad featuring actor Michael J. Fox—swaying noticeably from the effects of Parkinson’s disease—drew nationwide attention.

Marsh said the senator, a Catholic, understands that her positions supporting abortion rights and stem cell research are different from those held by the church. The senator was told by the school that the decision came from Archbishop Raymond Burke, Marsh said.

“I’m disappointed that the archbishop has made this decision,” McCaskill said in a statement. “It does not diminish my respect and admiration for St. Joseph’s Academy, their faculty, and students.”

A spokeswoman for the archdiocese, Anne Steffens, said the decision was not made by the archbishop. But Zahner said an archdiocese policy forbidding a public forum for speakers who diverge from church teaching clearly reflects Burke’s position.

While St. Joseph’s is a private, rather than an archdiocesan school, it receives its right to be identified as a Catholic institution through the archdiocese, Zahner said, adding that rescinding the invitation “was a very hard decision.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/02/2007 at 11:02 PM   
Filed Under: • Abortion • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Science-Technology •  
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   Sunday - April 29, 2007

Travelers, You Have Been Tagged

I may have waited too late ... or I may be one of the last to get one of the old passports. I just checked my passport and the darned thing expires in May 6, 2007 so I better hurry and mail that sucker off for renewal or else I’ll get tagged too (and have to pay extra for a new passport, instead of a small renewal fee). According to the NY Times and the Department Of State (via Gizmodo, which calls the new design “high-tech, patriotic and ugly), the new passports are already being issued in large cities like San Francisco - where the usual whining liberals are complaining and singing the same old unpatriotic sung (see last sentence below).

And before you ask, the RFID chip is not in the little rectangle and circle on the front - that is just a symbol to easily identify one of the new electronically secure passports. The actual RFID chip is embedded in the last page according to Dept. Of State. My only question is will this sucker set off alarm bells when I leave Wal-Mart one day? We shall see. I figure the least they should have done was change the cover and put a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag and a few assault weapons below the Great Seal. Just a friendly warning to all those idiots at French customs. Mheh-heh-he-he ...

Stars and Stripes, Wrapped in the Same Old Blue
(NY TIMES) - Published: April 29, 2007

When I went to collect my newly minted American passport, I discovered that it came with a radically altered design that included sheaves of wheat, the rather large head of a bald eagle plus the flag wrapped around my picture. And that was just one page. But the design overhaul wasn’t much noticed by people emerging from what they called the purgatory-length waits to obtain their new passports.

“Don’t you want to kill this guy right now?” Sharon Marks exclaimed to a fellow sufferer outside the Passport Agency in San Francisco. “What are you talking about, design? It’s such a tangled mess in there that we haven’t even looked at the thing.”

When Americans do open their new passports, they’ll see a document strikingly different from the old booklet. By July, all applicants will get the new design, with the State Department expecting to issue a record 17 million passports this year, up from last year’s record of 12 million.

The new passport, in the works for about six years, incorporates the first complete redesign since 1993. Given new international standards for post-9/11 high-tech security features, which transform the document into an “E-passport,” the State Department decided it was time for something completely different.

The new passport comes with its own name: “American Icon.” It’s hard to think of one that was left out. The inside cover sports an engraving of the battle scene that inspired “The Star Spangled Banner.” A couple of lines of the anthem, starting with, “O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,” are scrawled in what the State Department says is Francis Scott Key’s own cursive.

The short, 28-page version of the passport comes with 13 inspirational quotes, including six from United States presidents and one from a Mohawk Thanksgiving speech. The pages, done in a pink-grey-blue palate, are rife with portraits of Americana ranging from a clipper ship to Mount Rushmore to a long-horn cattle drive.

New passport bearers in San Francisco seemed divided. “It’s very patriotic,” said Cynthia Yacur of Folsom, Calif., relieved to receive one just days before leaving for Greece. “Cool pictures. An eagle. A bison. Nice. Every page is different. I like it.”

Another Californian, Candace Serona, was less convinced. “It seems to represent an idealized version of a country that is far from ideal right now,” she said, adding that the most positive thing was that at least the images embedded over her photograph hid some wrinkles.

- US Department Of State, “The New Electronic Passport”

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/29/2007 at 02:48 PM   
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Paranoia Alert

Don’t look now but ... somebody is watching you at this very moment. No matter where you go in Britain, you’re under surveillance 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But before the rest of us here in America and in quite a few countries around the world get all smug and start chuckling about our Brit friends’ loss of privacy, you better look over your shoulder. There is probably a camera close by even if you’re in Washington, New York, Los Angeles or even Bumphuk, Iowa.

Face it, in an era where terrorists are all around us we have surrendered any pretense of privacy in order to be safe. Then again, this started long before Osama got uppity and started blowing up buildings. No, dear friends, our government started installing cameras ages ago to catch speeding violators, Wal-mart started installing cameras to catch shoplifters, toll booths were equipped with cameras to catch people trying to sneak through, banks, liquor stores and every convenience store on the planet installed cameras to record robbery attempts and employee theft.

Heck, even libraries have cameras nowadays to catch book thieves. You can’t make a phone call any more without hearing the message “This call may be recorded for quality purposes la-dee-da-dee-dah”. Turn on your computer and connect to the internet and Microsoft wants to know what you’re doing. Your internet service provider is keeping track of where you surf. At work, your phone calls are subject to being monitored and your e-mails are kept on backup tapes forever in the event you decide to flirt with that secretary on the 2nd floor and she wants to sue for harassment ... ten years from now.

Do you have a cell phone? If so, Sprint and Verizon know exactly where you are at all times. The FBI, CIA, KGB and MI6 can’t keep track of all the ways they now have at their disposal in order to monitor your every move. Stakeouts are a thing of the past. Who needs ‘em with cameras everywhere? We’re only one step away from “1984” ... and that is a two-way television that watches you while you watch it, as Orwell predicted. He was only off by about 20-30 years.

No, I’m not kidding. Do you see that little cable TV box next to your TV? I bet you think it’s just passing signals through to your TV for your entertainment? You may even have convinced yourself that it’s not capturing viewing information that can be used to manage programming in your area and/or sold to advertising agencies for targeted marketing campaigns. If so, you are incredibly stupid.

Cell phones with cameras are all over the place. It’s not just government or merchants spying on us ... we’re spying on each other 24/7. Everybody knows what everybody is doing and it’s all being recorded somewhere to be used against you when the opportunity arises. So go on about your business today and pay no attention to those camera lenses, GPS devices and microphones all around you. They’re just looking out for you.

Now adjust your tinfoil hat and try to have a nice day ... and welcome to a brave new world.

Britain Becoming A Big Brother Society, Says Data Watchdog
(THE INDEPENDENT-UK) - 29 April 2007

Britain is in danger of “committing slow social suicide” as such Big Brother techniques as surveillance cameras and recording equipment spread into every aspect of our lives, the nation’s information watchdog will warn this week.

A new report from Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, will say that the public needs to be made more aware of the “creeping encroachment” on civil liberties created by email monitoring, CCTV and computer tracking of our buying habits.

It is understood that one of the concerns in Mr Thomas’s report is the use of special listening devices which can be placed in lamp posts, street furniture and offices. These are already widely used in the Netherlands to combat crime and anti-social behaviour.

More than 300 of the cameras with built-in microphones have been fitted in benefit offices and city centres. The equipment can pick up aggressive tones on the basis of decibel level, pitch and speed at which words are spoken.

Westminster council has already started piloting the listening devices, but experts say the use of these microphones raises questions about how surveillance can be used to intrude into the private lives of citizens.

He will also call for greater regulation of companies that supply surveillance technology which provides “convenience or safety for the more affluent majority”, but not for the vulnerable such as children, immigrants and the elderly.

His warning comes as MPs launch their first inquiry into the impact of surveillance in Britain. The Home Affairs Select Committee will investigate the use of video cameras to monitor high streets and residential areas as well as the holding of personal information on both government and commercial databases.

On Tuesday, Mr Thomas, who last year warned that Britain was “sleepwalking into a surveillance society”, will tell the committee at its first hearing that new safeguards must be introduced to protect the public from the increasing intrusion of surveillance into their daily lives.

Civil liberty campaigners have already warned that Britain is becoming a Big Brother society where its citizens are increasingly being watched. There are more than four million CCTV cameras in this country, one for every 14 people, and the national DNA database which was set up by police to combat crime now holds 3.5 million profiles.

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/29/2007 at 01:30 AM   
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   Wednesday - April 25, 2007

Through The Looking Glass

“Darth Vader”

The U.S. F-35 fighter-bomber will be the first fighter in a long time to lack a HUD (head-up display). The HUD will still be present, but as part of the Helmet Mounted Display System (HMDS). In other words, the HUD information will be displayed on the inside of the pilots visor, while still enabling the pilot to see through the visor. This type of helmet visor has been around for over a decade, but concentrated on allowing the pilot to control weapons by just looking at targets, and pressing the “fire” button at the right time. Now, the display technology inside the helmet has reached the point where it can handle the HUD stuff as well. The weight of these HMDS systems has come down as well, making it easier to wear them for long periods of time.

-- BattleFront, “HUD Begins to Fade Away”

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/25/2007 at 05:56 PM   
Filed Under: • Military • Science-Technology •  
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   Monday - April 23, 2007

Totally Freakin’ Awesome!

View the Sun in 3D? It doesn’t get any cooler than that. Now if I could just remember where I put those 3D glasses I had from 1955 ... ? (Link: NASA)

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/23/2007 at 11:44 PM   
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   Friday - April 20, 2007

Brain Tumor Alert!

I have high voltage powerlines just like those in the picture below running behind my apartment and over my head. REALLY. Lately I’ve noticed that my hair has started thinning out and my typing is starting jhsdfn dhfasduf sdfuifh to get confused vnfawufhkwef at times. Who do I sue? Hmmmm ...

Power Lines Link To Cancer In New Alert
LONDON (Evening Standard) - 20.04.07

A secret report has raised fresh fears of a link between power lines and cancer. The confidential study, obtained by the Evening Standard, urges ministers to consider banning the building of homes and schools close to overhead high-voltage power cables because of possible health risks.

It says a ban is the best way to reduce significantly exposure to electromagnetic fields from the electricity grid system. The report was drawn up by scientists, electricity company bosses, the National Grid, government officials and campaigners over two years after the Health Protection Agency accepted there was a weak statistical “association” between prolonged exposure to power fields and childhood leukaemia.

Some members of the panel took the view - adopted by the Government’s health advisers and the World Health Organisat ion - that childhood leukaemia is the only adverse health effect where evidence is strong enough for precautionary measures to be considered.

According to this view, if there is a link, the building ban would cut just one case of childhood leukaemia every year or two and the costs would outweigh the benefits by a factor of at least 20.

The second group generally backed views highlighted by the California Department of Health Services which suggested electromagnetic fields are “possibly carcinogenic” in terms of childhood leukaemia and placed four other health effects in this risk category. They were adult leukaemia, adult brain tumours, miscarriages and a form of motor neurone disease, although some scientists believe there are links with more diseases.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/20/2007 at 11:31 AM   
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   Sunday - April 15, 2007

Can you .. BZZZ .. Hear Me Now?

It is now official ... we are destroying our planet and killing off species right and left. With cell phones. No, really. Scientific authorities have already determined that cell phones cause cancer, brain tumors, early senility, reduced sperm count (YIKES!) and sore thumbs ... not to mention countless automobile accidents as idiots drive along at 70 mph while arguing with their spouse on their cell phones.

Now, the final “evidence” is in. Because of cell phones, we’re all going to starve to death. Yep, Verizon and Sprint are killing off bees ... and without bees, no crops get pollinated. Cell phones are probably responsible for whales and dolphins beaching themselves as well. Who knows?

And who’s to say that cell phones aren’t causing half the people around us to go stark, raving mad and blurt out obvious insanities like “WTC 7”, “Bush lied”, “Vote for Hillary”, “CIA spy Valerie Plame”, “I will go to Syria”, “Kill all the Jews”, and “Insh’Allah “. Have any of you read Stephen King’s “Cell”? You better.

First the whales, then the bees and finally ... us! We’re all going to die! Put down that cell phone NOW! BZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz ....

Are Mobile Phones Wiping Out Our bees?
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious ‘colony collapse’ of bees
_{(INDEPENDENT-UK) - 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”.

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.

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/15/2007 at 05:16 AM   
Filed Under: • Science-Technology •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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