Slovak doctor says solar flares could raise strokes

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Human beings may be at higher risk of strokes in years when the explosions on the sun peak, according to a neurologist who studied the records of 6,100 patients in Slovakia.

Dr. Michal Kovac said he found a spike in strokes and brain hemorrhages in the town of Nove Zamky in southern Slovakia in years when solar flares -- bursts of energy stronger than a million nuclear bombs combined -- are most abundant.

Kovac says his work, recently published in the Bratislava Medical Journal, builds on studies that show parts of the human body respond to fluctuations in the earth's geomagnetic field caused by sun storms. He also found patients suffered fewer strokes when the moon was farthest from earth.

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Despite skepticism from astronomers, Kovac and colleagues in the U.S. and Japan think fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field caused by the ejections may disturb the electro-chemical reactions that make human bodies work.

They looked at 200 people who had been hospitalized with a stroke or a mini-stroke (transient ischemic attack) and learned that 30 per cent had been experienced an episode of anger or other strongly negative emotion in the few hours before the event. Other triggering factors seemed to be a sudden noise, shock or change in body position. It's not clear why being startled or being gripped by emotion can start off a stroke. It may be some change in the blood circulation or perhaps impact on the nervous system is enough to start forming a blood clot in the brain.

BOULDER, Colo., March 6 (UPI) -- Government scientists say the next sunspot cycle will be 30-percent to 50-percent stronger than the last one, and begin as much as a year late.

The unprecedented forecast was made using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Scientists predict the next cycle, known as Cycle 24, will produce sunspots across an area slightly larger than 2.5 percent of the visible surface of the sun. The cycle is projected to reach its peak about 2012, one year later than indicated by alternative forecasting methods that rely on statistics.