Bees and cell phones

There have been many reports recently describing Colony Collapse Disorder in honeybees. What causes the dramatic collapse of honeybee colonies isn't clear. There is a report this morning from the Universität Koblenz-Landau that “bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried ... out [the study], said this could provide a ‘hint’ to a possible cause” (source).

It's possible, I suppose, but count me as skeptical. A summary of ideas behind the research sounds like gibberish to me. Maybe it's just because I don't know anything about insect physiology or the physiology of learning, but you be the judge.

Since the development of Cybernetics in the 1960s there has been an interdisciplinary view on the concept of "information". The research in mathematical information theory led to several applications in non-mathematical contexts.

In this paper we develop a model of effect based on the learning theory of super-signs, which deals with the well known phenomenon of chunking.

Our model describes to what extend high-frequency electromagnetic fields could influence the learning process of human beings. Furthermore we identify honey bees as a bioindicator, since their brain-structure concerning learning processes is similar to that of human beings. Because of their size, honey bees could be resonantly stimulated by the frequency of GSM mobile phones. As a consequence it is possible to study non-thermal effects on the learning process of these insects. Therefore the influence of non-thermal effects on the brain of human beings could also be identified.

So our experimental experience shows that honey bees are suitable for studying the influence of thermal and non-thermal effects on the learning process caused by high-frequency electromagnetic fields. In this context it should be a central task of Educational Informatics to apply an extended theory of super-signs. (source)