Switzerland: 5th Global Science Film Festival - Bern - 28-29 October 2023

5th Global Science Film Festival
Bern Edition, 28. – 29.10.2023

The film "Electric Malady" will be screening at the 5th Global Science Film Festival in Bern, Switzerland on Saturday 28th October for its Swiss premiere! 

(Cinema Rex Bern: Schwanengasse 9 - 3011 Bern)

In collaboration with the Swiss Science Film Academy, the mLAB presents the 5th Global Science Film Festival. World politics and science meet on the big screen. The festival will show international feature films, documentaries and short films that link social developments with current scientific debates. Following the film screenings, the topics will be explored in depth in moderated discussions between the audience, filmmakers and researchers.

Electric Malady - 28 October at 17h

In Swedish with English sub-titles

Under a cloak made of fabric laced with copper wires, William is encountered in a remote cabin in Sweden. For ten years he has been fighting an illness that eludes scientific evidence: hyperelectrosensitivity. People who experience symptoms caused by electronic radiation that make it impossible for them to continue living in digitalized everyday life. The visually stunning film describes the experiences of a young man and his emotional world in dealing with the illness, the support of a worried family, but also the inadequacies of a health system in dealing with an invisible illness, the symptoms of which are nevertheless a stark reality for those affected.

Americans Are Buying Gene-Edited Food That's Not Labeled GMO

"... corn injected with outside DNA is classified a genetically modified organism, but canola that can tolerate herbicide because scientists removed a gene is not."

Americans Are Buying Gene-Edited Food That's Not Labeled GMO
by Craig Giammona and Jack Kaskey, bloomberg.com, 

14 July 2016

- USDA passes on oversight of cooking oil new to store shelves
- Monsanto, DuPont, Dow developing crops with the new technology

Products made possible through gene-editing have landed on grocery shelves. Whether they’ll stay there is up to shoppers wary of technological tinkering.

Food companies are now required to label GMOs in Vermont, and debate is raging over a federal standard. But so far, regulators at the U.S. Department of Agriculture have taken a pass on overseeing gene-edited crops. They say cutting DNA from a plant is not the same as adding genes from another organism. So corn injected with outside DNA is classified a genetically modified organism, but canola that can tolerate herbicide because scientists removed a gene is not.

Cultivation of Strawberries

REPOSTED 31 May 2013:  

Image:  Dragonfly Earth Medicine

Imported strawberries are still appearing in supermarkets in Switzerland from February.  It's not certain that working conditions in Spain have improved all that much since this article was written in April 2011.  There is certainly a very serious environmental crisis:  the strawberry fields are sucking dry the area of Spain where most of the "red gold" fruit is cultivated.  Switzerland imports most of its out-of-season strawberries from Spain. This fruit is cultivated in vitro in central Spain then transported south for planting in soil sterilized by a chemical substance which Saddam Hussein used to kill populations in Kurdistan. The plants are grown on plastic which is dispersed into the environment or burned after harvest. The cultivation of strawberries requires enormous amounts of pesticides which contaminate drinking water and fresh water in a natural reserve for migratory birds. Most of the strawberry field workers are women who are poorly paid and live in unsanitary conditions. Many suffer from respiratory diseases and skin infections caused by exposure to the pesticides used to cultivate the strawberries.

Electrosmog and Colony Collapse Disorder

Governments and the scientific community are “too quick to dismiss a link between colony collapse disorder (CCD) and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from mobile phones and other sources.” The following article from the Alliance for Natural Health calls for readers to write to their MEPs (Members of the European Parliament), urging them to table questions in the European Parliament, asking why no research is being funded into links between EMRs and CCD. 


Electrosmog and Colony Collapse Disorder
by Adam Smith, Science and Communications Officer, Alliance for Natural Health, 24 October 2012
(Thank you to In These New Times for posting this article.)

Pesticides are a major contributor to bee colony collapse disorder (CCD), according to governments and the scientific community. But are they too quick to dismiss a link between CCD and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from mobile phones and other sources?

CCD and the threat to our food supply

Bee populations worldwide face an ongoing threat from CCD. Because human agriculture relies so heavily on bees for pollination, the world’s food supply looks increasingly insecure. Finding the cause and remedy for CCD is, therefore, an urgent priority.