The speculation of where - and more importantly why - the world's bee population is disappearing has generated another theory. According to scientists from Landau University, the cell phones permanently attached to our hands may have something to do with it.

The limited study found that bees would not return to their hives if a cell phone was place nearby. The likely cause of this is the radiation produced by mobile devices could be disturbing the navigation systems of bees, thus preventing them from returning to hives.

The rapid and widespread disappearance of bees - starting in the  U.S. and spreading to continental Europe - has caused significant concern among experts, as a lack of pollination could cause a global food supply shortage, and in a worst-case scenario, the starvation of humans. The phenomenon is known as Colony Collapse Disorder, which describes the occurence of a beehive's popoulation suddenly disappearing, minus queens and imature worker bees. The bees have yet to be found, and are believed to die far from the hives in which they previously resided.

Over half of the states in the U.S. have experienced the problem, losing an estimated 60 per cent of the bee population on the west coast and about 70 per cent on the east coast. Since affecting the U.S., CCD has spread to Germany, Italy and Spain and is now believed to be impacting Britain as well. Some of the other possibilities scientists have come up with for the mass vanishing is global warming and pesticides.

» The Independent