Could the sun be your lucky — or unlucky — star? In an unusual study published Wednesday, Norwegian scientists said people born during periods of solar calm may live longer, as much as five years on average, than those who enter the world when the sun is feisty.
The team overlaid demographic data of Norwegians born between 1676 and 1878 with observations of the Sun.
The lifespan of those born in periods of solar maximum — interludes marked by powerful flares and geomagnetic storms — was “5.2 years shorter” on average than those born during a solar minimum, they found.
Photo: Reuters/Jim Young
“Solar activity at birth decreased the probability of survival to adulthood,” thus truncating average lifespan, according to the paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
There was a stronger effect on girls than boys, it said.
The sun has cycles that last 11 years, give or take, from one period of greatest activity or solar maximum, to the next. Solar maxima are marked by an increase in sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections that can disrupt radio communications and electrical power on Earth, damage satellites and disturb navigational equipment.
Solar activity is also linked to levels of ultraviolet radiation — an environmental stressor known to affect survival and reproductive performance, possibly by causing cell and DNA damage, according to the study authors.
FERTILITY REDUCED
The team, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, based their study on demographic data from church records of some 8,600 individuals from two different mid-Norwegian populations, one poor and one wealthy.
This was matched to maps of historical solar cycles.
On top of lifespan, being born in a solar maximum period also “significantly reduced” fertility for women born into the poor category, but not for wealthier women or for men, said the authors.
“We show for the first time that not only infant survival and thus lifespan but also fertility is statistically associated with solar activity at birth,” they wrote.
It was not clear whether the same would necessarily hold true for people born in the modern era.
One explanation could be ultraviolet-induced degradation of the B vitamin folate, a shortage of which before birth has been linked to higher rates of illness and death, the team theorized.
“Our findings suggest that maternal exposure to solar activity during gestation can affect the fitness of female children,” the authors wrote.
“The effect of socio-economic status on the relationship between solar activity and fertility suggests that high-status pregnant women were better able to avoid the adverse effects of high solar activity” — possibly by staying out of the sun or because a healthier diet curbed the harm.
The team did not have data about how early or late into a solar maximum event the children were born — a limitation of the study. And they could not fully distinguish between pre-natal or post-natal exposure to ultraviolet light.
Further investigation is needed, they said, to test whether the results were repeated in people of different skin colors and those living at different latitudes.
“This study is the first to emphasize the importance of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) in early life,” the authors said. “UVR is a global stressor with potential ecological impacts and the future levels of UVR are expected to increase due to climate change and variation in atmospheric ozone.”
Benjamin Chen (陳昱安) didn’t know how intense a hackathon could be. “You literally work non-stop. You don’t eat breakfast, you don’t eat lunch because you really need to finish the product,” the 10th-grader from Taipei American School says. “You feel the adrenaline rushing… It’s refreshing, I was like a new person.” Chen became fascinated by these round-the-clock competitions to create technology or software products, and participated in 10 more before he decided to start one that focused on his twin passions of economics and technology. He says there are many hackathons that delve into social and environmental issues, but few have
The town of Baolai (寶來) is located along the Southern Cross-Island Highway in the upper reaches of Kaohsiung City. After suffering a devastating setback at the hands of Typhoon Morakot, the town’s tourism industry is finally showing signs of recovery. While the town itself has many commercial hot spring offerings for tourists, the adjacent Baolai River also has at least five different wild hot springs available to those with a more adventurous spirit. SHIDONG AND WUKENG Just before entering the town of Baolai, make two right turns to reach the bridge across the Baolai River. Immediately after crossing this bridge, there is
Jan. 25 to Jan. 30 It was the beginning of the end when Dutch sergeant Hans Jurgen Radis walked out of Fort Zeelandia and surrendered to the besieging army of Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功, also known as Koxinga). The Dutch had already been trapped in the fort for nine months, and they were sick, hungry and in despair. After one defection during the early days of the siege, Dutch commander Frederick Coyett set up checkpoints around the fort’s perimeter, in what is today’s Tainan. Radis told his bunkmate he was going hunting, but by the time they realized where
In October of 2002 the James Ossuary exploded into the public consciousness. The artifact, a burial box in which bones were interred, was announced at a press conference in Washington prior to undergoing any form of scholarly authentication. It had an inscription that read in Aramaic: Ya’akov bar Yosef akhui di Yeshua (“James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”). Its promoters presented the thing as the first real concrete link to the historical Jesus. It was an obvious fake, and at that time I was administrating two enormous discussion groups devoted to early Christian history, which hosted numerous scholars in
RSS