Does cosmic weather affect infant mortality rate?
In this article, the author proposes to consider a link between infant mortality rate (IMR) and galactic cosmic radiation (CR) density. The periodical increase in solar activity increases the effect of the magnetic field of the sun, and therefore weakens galactic cosmic rays hitting the Earth's surface. As a result, embryos in their early stages of development may be less exposed to high-energy ionizing cosmic rays when the solar activity peaks. In the study discussed here, cosmic ray density data were correlated with the U.S. infant mortality rate in the following year. Statistical analysis shows that in the past 30 years, Pearson correlation between the change in galactic CR flux and IMR decrease in the following year was -0.36 (p < .05).
Shamir
Lior
L
Laboratory of Genetics, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Baltimore, MD 21224, USA. shamirl@mail.nih.gov
D003359:Cosmic Radiation / Q000009:adverse effects*; D006801:Humans; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D019445:Solar Activity; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology