New Scientist brings up the odd notion that our planet might be using invisible forces against us, with the recent discovery that geomagnetism triggers suicides:
Surprisingly, he also found that the geomagnetism peaks matched up with peaks in the number of suicides in the northern Russian city of Kirovsk over the same period.
Shumilov acknowledges that a correlation like this does not necessarily mean there is a causal link, but he points out that there have been several other studies suggesting a link between human health and geomagnetism.
For example, a 2006 review of research on cardiovascular health and disturbances in the geomagnetic field in the journal Surveys in Geophysics (DOI: 10.1007/s10712-006-9010-7) concluded that a link was possible and that the effects seemed to be more pronounced at high latitudes.
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Geomagnetic storms – periods of high geomagnetic activity caused by large solar flares – have also been linked to clinical depression.
There’s been a fair amount of research lately about transcranial magnetic stimulation and emotional states, and the planet itself is a very large magnet, so this research isn’t as far out as it might at first seem.