Another Reason to Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup

It's contaminated with mercury.

[M]any foods sweetened with HFCS contain mercury, left as a residue in the production of caustic soda, a key ingredient in HFCS. And worst of all, the FDA and the industry have known about this potential toxin and has continued serving it up since at least 2005.

[]

A second study [] tested products directly from the supermarket. One in three tested positive for mercury residue. These included products like Smucker's Strawberry Jelly, Hunt's Tomato Ketchup, Hershey's Chocolate Syrup, Nutra Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars, Pop-Tarts Frosted Blueberry and Coca-Cola Classic.

Bush to Country: Choke on My Exhaust Fumes

Haze obscures a view in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park. (By David A. Fahrenthold -- The Washington Post)

More environmental madness from The Worst President Ever. Hopefully President Obama can roll back this cock-eyed plan quickly.

WaPo: EPA Moves to Ease Air Rules for Parks
Regional Administrators Decry Decision

The Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing new air-quality rules that would make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas, even though half of the EPA's 10 regional administrators formally dissented from the decision and four others criticized the move in writing.

Documents obtained by The Washington Post show that the administration's push to weaken Clean Air Act protections for "Class 1 areas" nationwide has sparked fierce resistance from senior agency officials. All but two of the regional administrators objecting to the proposed rule are political appointees.

[]

"The administration's staunch commitment to coal is so deep that they're willing to sacrifice our national parks on the way out the door," [Mark Wentzler of the National Parks Conservation Association] said.

If the EPA adopts the rule change, Wenzler added, his group plans to file a petition for reconsideration with the agency, which would allow the incoming Obama administration to reverse the policy. If the new rule is enacted, the association estimates it would ease the way for the construction of at least two dozen coal-fired utilities within 186 miles of 10 national parks.

Hitting the Ground Running

WaPo: Obama Positioned to Quickly Reverse Bush Actions
Stem Cell, Climate Rules Among Targets of President-Elect's Team

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

John McCain Doesn't Know What Kind of Car He Drives!

I'd have a hard time forgetting if I drove one of these.

And the hits just keep on coming.

dailykos: Ok, Now McCain does not know what car he drives!

In our news interview, he was asked what kind of car he drove, he could simply not answer. As with Politico’s question about home ownership, he didn’t know and had to ask a nearby aide. "A Cadillac CTS," she told him.

What the hell is his carbon footprint, anyway? The guy has to be generating 100 times more carbon into the atmosphere than me, with all his (I mean hers) houses, and cars, and private planes.

Private Plane McCain, planet killer. Who doesn't know how many houses he owns, what car he drives, or the difference between Sunni and Shia.

Just For Laughs

Arizona Tea

I think we'll have to start calling McCain "Jed" or "Jethro" when he talks about drilling.

hat tip to Climate Progress.

Another Plastic Bag Ban: Los Angeles

PlanetSave

LATimes: L.A. City Council votes for ban on plastic shopping bags

The council plans to ban plastic carryout bags in the city's stores by 2010, unless the state imposes a 25-cent fee on those who request them.

LA is the latest American city to adopt a ban on plastic grocery bags. Such bans have been adopted around the world and have been extremely successful in decreasing pollution. It makes a lot of sense. When we were in Germany two years ago, we learned very quickly to bring our own bags to the market, or we got charged a euro for a new cloth bag.

Big Oil/Republican Lie of the Day: "Not A Drop of Oil Was Spilled"

National Geographic:
Near New Orleans a small oil-slickened dog was seen wandering in Chalmette, Louisiana, as cleanup crews recovered oil from a ruptured refinery tank on September 6, 2005. Tens of thousands of barrels of oil had spilled and mixed with receding floodwater from Hurricane Katrina.

Republicans and Big Oil, who want to open up the oceans, the wildlife sanctuaries -- basically the world -- to drilling, are putting out this zombie lie: Not a drop of oil was spilled during Hurricane Katrina.

The truth:

Actually, there were at least 146 reported spills in Federal waters after Katrina and Rita, totaling over 700,000 gallons, the equivalent of seven "MAJOR" spills. Here are 43 satellite pictures of giant oil slicks in the Gulf of Mexico after Katrina, stretching for scores of miles.

Worse, EIGHT MILLION gallons spilled out of Louisiana oil facilities after the storms. (The famous Exxon Valdez spill totaled 11 million.)

How is this not causing "a single oil spill"?

Watch the video below to see the zombie lie spread on cable TV, and pictures of the oil-slicked devastation left after the hurricane.

Replay video | Share video | Watch more videos

hat tip to First Draft, which I saw on Newsfare

Beware Dow Chemical Herbicide Aminopyralid

Mass spraying of pesticides on farms, pictured here in Florida, is putting gardens at risk. Photograph: David R. Frazier/Alamy

Beware of manure fertilizers. If they come from factory farms sprayed with the Dow Chemical herbicide/pesticide aminopyralid (found in products Cleanwave, Milestone vm, Forefront r&p, and Milestone, among others) they will be contaminated. Gardeners in Britain are finding that manure from fields sprayed a year ago still contains the toxic chemical.

Dow,, the company with the lying ad tagline, we bring good things to life. In my head I always add "and we kill them." From the people who brought you Agent Orange, another toxic nightmare.

firedoglake:
Persistent Herbicide In Compost Destroys UK Gardens - Can It Happen Here?

In today's Observer, Caroline Davies describes how this year British gardeners find their fruits and veggies are stunted, deformed, and dying. The culprit: Dow Chemical's persistent herbicide aminopyralid sprayed on grazing land or fodder. The herbicide stayed in the plants the cattle ate, stayed in the cattle (and horse) poop, stayed in the compost produced from the poop, and came out the other end of the process all ready to kill food crops and home gardens.

Problems with the herbicide emerged late last year, when some commercial potato growers reported damaged crops.

[snip]

[T]he herbicide has now entered the food chain. Those affected are demanding an investigation and a ban on the product. They say they have been given no definitive answer as to whether other produce on their gardens and allotments is safe to eat.

It appears that the contamination came from grass treated 12 months ago. Experts say the grass was probably made into silage, then fed to cattle during the winter months. The herbicide remained present in the silage, passed through the animal and into manure that was later sold. Horses fed on hay that had been treated could also be a channel.

It can't happen here?

Well, the EPA has licensed aminopyralid in several products used in the US: Cleanwave, Milestone vm, Forefront r&p, and Milestone.

Observer (uk): Home-grown veg ruined by toxic fertiliser

Gardeners across Britain are reaping a bitter harvest of rotten potatoes, withered salads and deformed tomatoes after an industrial herbicide tainted their soil. Caroline Davies reports on how the food chain became contaminated and talks to the angry allotment owners whose plots have been destroyed

Exxon-Valdez -- What Really Happened

Under the Supreme Court's other big decision yesterday, he has every right to buy that gun and carry it around in DC. The actual shooting is still barred by law, I think -- you never know how far the 2nd Amendment goes anymore, do you? Is the Exxon-Valdez oil spill the equivalent of a home invasion?

This article about what really happened in the Exxon-Valdez case is important. I saw this all the time in our asbestos practice -- before the asbestos companies took advantage of the bankruptcy laws and screwed all the workers they had poisoned for decades. Lawyers for companies would say right out, this is the most you are ever going to get. You may win at trial, but we'll appeal and you know how conservative the appeals courts are. We'll win on your appeal and your clients will get pennies on the dollar. And that was happening before Bush spent seven years packing the federal courts with even more rightwing nutjobs.

Read the rest of the article to see all the promises the oil companies made to the Alaskan natives to get the use of the Valdez Port, and how all those promises were cynically broken.

GregPalast.com: Court Rewards Exxon for Valdez Oil Spill

Twenty years after Exxon Valdez slimed over one thousand miles of Alaskan beaches, the company has yet to pay the $5 billion in punitive damages awarded by the jury. And now they won't have to. The Supreme Court today cut Exxon's liability by 90% to half a billion. It's so cheap, it's like a permit to spill.

Exxon knew this would happen. Right after the spill, I was brought to Alaska by the Natives whose Prince William Sound islands, livelihoods, and their food source was contaminated by Exxon crude. My assignment: to investigate oil company frauds that led to to the disaster. There were plenty.

But before we brought charges, the Natives hoped to settle with the oil company, to receive just enough compensation to buy some boats and rebuild their island villages to withstand what would be a decade of trying to survive in a polluted ecological death zone.

In San Diego, I met with Exxon's US production chief, Otto Harrison, who said, "Admit it; the oil spill's the best thing to happen" to the Natives.

His company offered the Natives pennies on the dollar. The oil men added a cruel threat: take it or leave it -- and wait twenty years to get even the pennies. Exxon is immortal - but Natives die.

And they did. A third of the Native fishermen and seal hunters I worked with are dead. Now their families will collect one tenth of their award, two decades too late.

One Fish, Two Fish

Red fish, blue fish. The classic Dr. Seuss book for children. Simple! Unfortunately, it's complicated buying fish these days. Today Dr. Seuss would have to add "good fish, bad fish" to his rhymes.

salon.com: Drop that salmon!
With the days of indiscriminate fish consumption long gone, food writer Taras Grescoe explains how to eat seafood ethically. (Hint: Order mussels; skip shrimp.) (You have to watch an ad to read; questions are in bold)

OK, so we can eat sardines, anchovies ...

Oysters, pollock -- it's got a terrible name, but that's the stuff that goes into [McDonald's] Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. It's very abundant. There's trout, which isn't a bad fish. Sablefish and Arctic char are currently quite abundant. I love herring, and there's herring off the Pacific Coast as well. Try to the best of your ability to buy things locally.

And which big fish are we supposed to stay away from?

Avoid big predator fish -- shark, swordfish, Chilean sea bass, tuna, with the exception of skipjack, which is pretty abundant light tuna. Avoid farmed carnivorous species like shrimp, salmon and bluefin tuna. Avoid imported farmed seafood because domestic standards are a lot higher. The exception to that is [domestically farmed] salmon, which is terrible.

Can you explain what's so bad about salmon farms?

Salmon from these farms tends to be full of persistent organic pollutants, [some of which] are highly carcinogenic. Salmon farmers grind up smaller fish like anchovies, sardines and anchoveta to make the pellets -- all of which should be going to feed humans, not making deluxe fish, especially in the context of food riots -- and salmon farms have been proven to spread disease and parasites like sea lice to wild fish populations, among them sea trout in Ireland and wild salmon in British Columbia.

Some farmed fish aren't so bad: trout and Arctic char, which are raised inland so there's no risk of spreading parasites to wild fish; tilapia and carp, which are herbivorous species; and of course oysters and mussels, which actually help clean the oceans of their excess plankton.

So is there a way we can safely enjoy salmon?

If you want to make a canned salmon sandwich or something like that, look for any can that has Alaska stamped on it. They should be all over. It's fantastic for you, and it's really clean protein. Don't buy Atlantic salmon. That's definitely farmed, because Atlantic salmon is commercially extinct right now. Those that appear in streams and rivers are actually escaped fish from salmon farms. Chinook and certain runs of salmon in California and Oregon are doing really badly this year. Nobody's quite sure what's going on -- it could be dams, fertilizer, ocean conditions. In British Columbia, they're not doing as well either, but Alaskan stocks are pretty good. And there's organic farmed salmon. I want to give those guys some credit. If you go to a restaurant and the menu says "organic farmed salmon," then the fish was raised under higher standards and it's probably better for you. The question is whether the fish are still spreading parasites to other fish. You can eat that in sort of "half-conscience." It's important to realize that right now about 45 percent of the seafood we get is farmed. And this is having a huge impact on the livelihood and well-being of people in other cultures. In the book I talk about how salmon farms affect native people in British Columbia and people who are affected by shrimp farms in India.

Break Your Oil Habit

Excellent series from the LA Times outlining practical steps you can take to lessen your reliance on products made from oil.

LATimes: The Oil Habit

THE KITCHEN
Changing habits to cut oil use -- one step at a time

THE GARAGE
Garage presents the worst oil picture

THE BATHROOM
Flush with ideas to cut down on oil use

OTHER ROOMS
A power switch and paper trims

'I try to use things as long as I possibly can'
Q & A with actor and environmentalist Ed Begley Jr.

It's Now or Never

A heavy haze could be seen in Beijing in August 2007. Two recent reports call for a heightened global effort to reduce carbon emissions. (By Greg Baker -- Associated Press)

WaPo: Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say

Using advanced computer models to factor in deep-sea warming and other aspects of the carbon cycle that naturally creates and removes carbon dioxide (CO2), the scientists, from countries including the United States, Canada and Germany, are delivering a simple message: The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further.

[]

Schmittner, lead author of a Feb. 14 article in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, said his modeling indicates that if global emissions continue on a "business as usual" path for the rest of the century, the Earth will warm by 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. If emissions do not drop to zero until 2300, he calculated, the temperature rise at that point would be more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

20 Years Before the Shit Hits the Fan

wikipedia: The Scream, Edvard Munch (1893)
This is a depressing view from climate scientist (and doomsdayer) James Lovelock:

The Guardian (uk):
'Enjoy life while you can'
Climate science maverick James Lovelock believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. So what would he do?

Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland Europe, so instead of wasting our time on wind turbines we need to start planning how to survive. To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more.

Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know. Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it. You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100. Prophets have been foretelling Armageddon since time began, he says. "But this is the real thing."

[]

What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "There have been seven disasters since humans came on the earth, very similar to the one that's just about to happen. I think these events keep separating the wheat from the chaff. And eventually we'll have a human on the planet that really does understand it and can live with it properly. That's the source of my optimism."

What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan."

Chief Justice Roberts Ready To Rule For Exxon

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Victim
Alaska. Dead Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) dead in the snow died of toxic pollution from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Not only have 20% of the people who sued Exxon for the Valdez oil spill 19 years ago died in the meantime, it looks like our Rethug-dominated Supreme Court will rule against the Alaskans. Because what can what one of the richest corporations in the world do to prevent oil spills? (Double-hulled ships, anyone?) The lawyer who argued the case before the Court had some ideas, but they didn't go over well:

Chief Justice John Roberts was pained.

Exxon Mobil, the giant oil corporation appearing before the Supreme Court yesterday, had earned a profit of nearly $40 billion in 2006, the largest ever reported by a U.S. company -- but that's not what bothered Roberts. What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth of profits -- for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.

"So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" Roberts asked in court.

The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. "Well," he said, "it can hire fit and competent people."

The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.

Moral of this story: Not only do we need more Democrats, we need better Democrats. Here are the 22 supposed "Democrats" who voted to put the archconservative Roberts on the Court for the rest of my life:

* Max Baucus (D - MT)
* Jeff Bingaman (D - NM)
* Robert Byrd (D - WV)
* Thomas Carper (D - DE)
* Kent Conrad (D - ND)
* Christopher Dodd (D - CT)
* Byron Dorgan (D - ND)
* Russell Feingold (D - WI)
* Tim Johnson (D - SD)
* Herb Kohl (D - WI)
* Mary Landrieu (D - LA)
* Patrick Leahy (D - VT)
* Carl Levin (D - MI)
* Joseph Lieberman (D - CT)
* Blanche Lincoln (D - AR)
* Patty Murray (D - WA)
* Bill Nelson (D - FL)
* Ben Nelson (D - NE)
* Mark Pryor (D - AR)
* Jay Rockefeller (D - WV)
* Ken Salazar (D - CO)
* Ron Wyden (D - OR)

Thanks a lot, DINOs. I'll give money to any progressive who challenges any of you.

Take Your Own Grocery Bag, Save a Whale

Sickening sight: Wildlife experts examine the dead whale which washed ashore on the Isle of Mull
DailyMail (uk): Banish the bags: This whale washed up on a British beach. In its stomach....the remains of 23 plastic bags

Oceans in Peril

National Geographic: No Pristine Oceans Left, New Map Shows
Telegraph (uk): Man's effect on world's oceans revealed

Almost half of the world's oceans have been seriously affected by over-fishing, pollution and climate change, according to a major study of man's impact on marine life.

LATimes: Dead zones off Oregon and Washington likely tied to global warming, study says

Although scientists continue to amass data and tease out the details, all signs in the search for a cause point to stronger winds associated with a warming planet.

Next Time They Hand You a Plastic Bag

Independent (uk): A scavenger in a dugout canoe paddles through a sea of garbage along a Manila waterway

Think of the plastic soup, the huge floating plastic garbagebergs in the Pacific Ocean that are twice the size of the United States.

Independent (uk): The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan

A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.

The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world's largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "trash vortex", believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam, has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for more than 15 years and compares the trash vortex to a living entity: "It moves around like a big animal without a leash." When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. "The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic," he added.

Independent (uk): Steve Connor: Why plastic is the scourge of sea life

Daily Mail (uk): Rubbish dump found floating in Pacific Ocean is twice the size of America

Daily News & Analysis (India): Pacific Ocean could turn into a 'Plastic Ocean'

A Little Sushi with Your Mercury, Sir?

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Tuna sushi is a popular item in New York but may be risky.

Mercury is a neurotoxin. Children should never eat any fish that may contain high levels of mercury as they are most at risk for brain damage.

NYTimes: High Mercury Levels Are Found in Tuna Sushi

Recent laboratory tests found so much mercury in tuna sushi from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants that at most of them, a regular diet of six pieces a week would exceed the levels considered acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sushi from 5 of the 20 places had mercury levels so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market. The sushi was bought by The New York Times in October.

“No one should eat a meal of tuna with mercury levels like those found in the restaurant samples more than about once every three weeks," said Dr. Michael Gochfeld, professor of environmental and occupational medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, N.J.

EPA: Health Effects of Mercury

Depleted Uranium the Scourge of Colonie, New York: And Iraq and Afghanistan

The Observer (uk): 'Safe' uranium that left a town contaminated
They were told depleted uranium was not hazardous. Now, 23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers and residents have cancer - and experts say their suffering shows the use of such weapons may be a war crime

[] In a paper to be published in the next issue of the scientific journal Science of the Total Environment, a team led by Professor Randall Parrish of Leicester University reports the results of a three-year study of Colonie, funded by Britain's Ministry of Defence.

Parrish's team has found that DU contamination, which remains radioactive for millions of years, is in effect impossible to eradicate, not only from the environment but also from the bodies of humans. Twenty-three years after production ceased they tested the urine of five former workers. All are still contaminated with DU. So were 20 per cent of people tested who had spent at least 10 years living near the factory when it was still working, including Ciarfello.

The small sample size precludes the drawing of statistical conclusions, the journal paper says. But to find DU at all after so long a period is 'significant, since no previous study has documented evidence of DU exposure more than 20 years prior... [this] indicates that the body burden of uranium must still be significant, whether retained in lungs, lymphatic system, kidneys or bone'. The team is now testing more individuals.

[]

[I]nside the body DU travels around the bloodstream, accumulating not only in the lungs but also in other soft tissues such as the brain and bone marrow. There, each mote becomes an alpha particle hotspot, bombarding its locality and damaging cell DNA. Research has shown that DU has the potential to cause a wide range of cancers, kidney and thyroid problems, birth defects and disorders of the immune system.

When DU 'penetrators' - armour-piercing shells that form the standard armament of some of Britain's and America's most commonly deployed military aircraft and vehicles - strike their targets, 10 per cent or more of the heavy DU metal burns at high temperatures, producing oxide particles very similar to those at Colonie.

TV footage shot in Baghdad in 2003 shows children playing in the remains of tanks coated with thick, black DU oxide, while there have long been claims that the DU shells that destroyed Saddam Hussein's tanks in the 1991 Gulf war were responsible for high rates of cancer in places such as Basra.

As a side note, the plant in Colonie was owned by National Lead (now reconstituted as NL Industries), the same execrable company that brought you lead poisoning and brain damage from lead paint. And the feds have insulated them from paying for the depleted uranium cleanup. The article doesn't say so, but I bet they were insulated from paying the claims of the injured, too. Corporate welfare at its finest.

In 1984, having bought the factory from NL for $10 in a deal that meant the firm was exempted from having to pay for its clean-up, the federal government began a massive decommissioning project, supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Bee Colony Collapse

wikipedia: bees
What's causing the collapse of the honeybee colonies? The theories include genetically-engineered corn, predators, cellphones, and the stress of being corporately farmed. When I read that genetically-modified corn contains a neurotoxin (brain cell killer) that kills honeybees, I thought 'bingo'. Monsanto has killed the honeybees. It all makes sense now. They'll probably manufacture some new chemical to sell us to replace the honeybees.

Brendan Calling: Bees: Closer to Home
The disappearance of the bees hits New Jersey

Quotes from a Newark Star-Ledger article:

[Beekeeper] Tassot and his wife believe they know why their bees have disappeared.

“We have suspicions about pesticides,” he said. “We noticed most of the dead hives are close to cornfields. … And when we asked other beekeepers what was the principle crop near their hives, they said corn, corn, corn.”

Simone, of Morris Township, agrees. “When I spoke with other beekeepers they say all their hives with heavy losses are near cornfields.”

Many farmers in the United States and around the world rely on genetically engineered corn to survive the assault of crop-killing insects. The seeds are coated with a systemic pesticide that is essentially built into the corn as it grows.

One of the chief chemicals used is a neurotoxin called imidacloprid, which is manufactured by the German company Bayer CropScience. Imidacloprid works by blocking a pathway in insect brains that results in an accumulation of a neurotransmitter which, in insects, leads to paralysis and death.

At sublethal doses, however, imidacloprid is toxic to honeybees. In a 2001 article in the Journal of Pesticide Reform, German scientist Eric Zeisstoff wrote that his research “indicated that bees affected by imidacloprid suffer problems with orientation. Bees with a particular level of imidacloprid contamination at 500 meters from the colony did not return to the hive at all.”

der Spiegel(Germany): Are GM Crops Killing Bees?

Independent (uk): Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees

High Country News: The Silence of the Bees

wikipedia: Colony Collapse Disorder