Is Heliobiology a pseudoscience?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Tiffany1994@lemmy.cafe⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

A few days ago, I watched this short documentary, part of it covered Heliobiology, which the documentary said is an emerging field of science that began in Russia.

The Heliobiologists claimed that magnetic storms caused by solar flares cause all kinds of health problems in humans. Literally every health problem is named, from suicides, to heart attacks, to even terrorist attacks.

After Googling this and looking at some papers, I noticed a few things.

The papers find correlations between magnetic storms and some kind of negative health effect, and go on to heavily imply or say that negative health effect is caused by the magnetic storms.
Most of the papers I read on this mention “Schumann resonances”, and sometimes “pineal gland” crystals. Magnetism is always blamed, but the papers don’t go into detail. I saw one saying that since blood is magnetic, magnetic storms can cause heart attacks by disrupting blood flow.
Most of the papers are brand new, within the last few years.

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gofsckyourself@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Think of it this way: if solar-flare magnetic aberrations could be strong enough to make an effect on humans, then they would also affect other things that are far more sensitive to magnetic fields.

For example, a VHS tape, audio cassette tape, or an HDD computer hard drive (they store data on spinning magnetic plates) would be erased or at least damaged when exposed to a normal household magnet.

Additionally, if you consider the argument that somehow humans are even more sensitive, then a normal household magnet would cause similar symptoms as the claims of Heliobiology and we would see much worse with stronger sources of magnetic fields like an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) which could even pull a metal chair across the room.

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- overload@sopuli.xyz ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I wish I could upvote this twice. This argument works to dispel a lot of pseudosciences as well, especially 5G.
  
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- LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  But what if the magnets reprogram your brain to just not notice thee differences? Ever think of that? Obviously you can only question the infernal power of the heliomagnetism while wearing a tinfoil hat.
  
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  - gofsckyourself@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    We should be more concerned with the cascade resonance event at the Black Mesa laboratories.
    
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medgremlin@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
It is absolutely nonsense. People are subjected to stronger, more direct magnetic fields all the time in MRI’s, and MRI’s are substantially safer than most other imaging modalities in medicine (besides ultrasound). The amount of radiation from non-atmospheric sources vastly outweighs the cosmic (non-UV) radiation humans are subjected to, to the point that it’s not really even worth considering outside of maybe astronauts or people who take long-haul high altitude flights extremely frequently.

The amount of ferrous material in blood is negligible at best, and there’s an estimated 3 to 4 grams of iron in the entire human body. The pressure from your heart pumping and the relatively high percentage of blood’s mass that is not iron (about 5kg) means that the effect of the iron if it was responsive to magnetic fields is slim to none.

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blackris@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Oh, you have done good to question this. It is a pseudoscience. I quickly slapped together an uncomplete list how to spot bullshit. Just from your description, I would say at least three boxes are checked here.

Overgeneralization: A single phenomenon is claimed to explain a wide range of unrelated issues.

One-size-fits-all solutions: A single treatment or method is said to cure multiple, diverse ailments.

Lack of specificity: Claims are vague and lack detailed mechanisms or explanations.

Appeal to tradition: Claims are based on historical practices rather than scientific evidence.

Extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence: Bold assertions are made without sufficient proof.

Emphasis on personal testimonials: Reliance on individual stories rather than systematic research.

Use of jargon: Complex terminology is used to sound credible without substantive backing.

Avoidance of peer scrutiny: Claims are not subjected to rigorous testing or peer review.

Dichotomous thinking: Issues are framed in black-and-white terms, ignoring nuances and complexities.
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BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It is an absolute crock of shit.

There is plenty of research on magnetism and humans and it doesnt need a new title and niche “research” from a frankly failed state like Russia.

We use high Tesla fields routinely every day worldwide in hospitals in Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Safety of this technology has been and is continuously investigated. There has also been extensive investigation of magnetic fields related to power lines and other use cases.

There does remain some uncertainty and controversy around potential effects of long term exposure to low T electromagnetic fields but its long established that short term exposure is safe.

This “research” is more on the realm of autism vaccine science. A lot of money can be made in niche fake sciences both in the industry of research itself and then the crap they can sell to ignorant people as a result.

Russia as a state has been systematically destroyed over the past few decades and most of its institutions have a terrible reputation now. While there are undoubtedly still good scientists in the country, they are working in a gangster state and many of the best minds have long fled for better opportunities abroad.

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grue@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Based on the post title I was expecting to say “no,” but that’s because I was also expecting “heliobiology” to be about sentient plasma eddies or something, not woo-woo magnetic bullshit somehow affecting humans.

No, seriously, even life inside stars is less implausible than the nonsense you’re asking about: sciencealert.com/physicists-argue-that-life-based…

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captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
This post is the first I’ve heard of this, and I’m confident in declaring it pseudoscientific bullshit.

I present to you: The Carrington Event. In 1859, the Earth was directly hit by a coronal mass ejection from the Sun. This caused the strongest geomagnetic storm in recorded history. Miners in the American rocky mountains woke up in the middle of the night because the Aurora Borealis was so bright they thought it was morning. Currents induced in telegraph wires caused sparks and fires. A telegraph line from Boston Massachusetts to Portland, Maine was able to operate for hours with no power connected at all; the geomagnetic storm induced enough current in the telegraph lines that the operators were able to pass traffic for hours without any batteries connected to the circuit at all.

There is no mention of people dying from unexplained heart attacks at the time. If solar or geomagnetic storms could magnetically disrupt blood flow, you’d think the largest geomagnetic storm we know of would have been associated with an uptick in recorded cases. But it isn’t.

THAT SAID. I do believe that solar flares, CMEs or other such events can and do have an effect on the health of organisms on Earth including humans. I spent most of my time in aviation meteorology class studying the troposphere so my understanding of the high atmosphere isn’t as strong, but…bombard the high atmosphere with particles from the sun, some chemistry can happen which disrupts the ozone layer, more UV light makes it to the surface, and we get more sun burns and skin cancers. However, as far as I can tell, Thomas Midgley Jr. had more of an effect on the ozone layer than any recorded solar flare has.

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Spacehooks@reddthat.com ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Yeah seems like someone read necron back story and thought they could profit on this. The sun does damage your skin. Wear sun screen. As for magnetic energy, put it to you this way… if it was a problem way more things would be effected than human health.

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FistingEnthusiast@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
It’s idiocy

All these things have their little moment in the sun. This is just about example

Blood is most certainly not magnetic. An MRI would shred you if it was

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- Yermaw@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  blood is not magnetic
  
  I thought it had iron in it? I mean you’re right about the MRI, I never thought about it until this thread.
  
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  - FistingEnthusiast@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    The iron is obviously vital, but it’s not in anywhere near the concentration that people imagine
    
    It’s also iron the ion (it rhymes!) not elemental iron in an appreciably ferromagnetic form
    
    Iron isn’t the only thing that’s affected by magnetism anyway
    
    Not that it applies to biological systems, but liquid oxygen is affected by magnets. It’s pretty cool (well, extremely cold, but ya know… 🥁)
    
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yesman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
monocausal explanations are always bullshit.

Knowing that pharmaceutical companies have undue influence on public policy and public health is useful for understanding the world. Thinking that Big Pharma controls everything makes you RFKjr.

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edgemaster72@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Sounds like 21st century snake oil or other miracle cures. Often when someone is proposing a single answer to many different complex questions or issues, it’s because they want to gain from selling you the answer or cure, etc.

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Zenith@lemm.ee ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
If you’re into magnets you should study how a unipolar magnet is technically possible in our universe, maybe you can discover the meaning of life

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Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

Magnetism is always blamed as the factor causing these negative health effects

Better get rid of all loudspeakers then.
Even a stupid lightbulb has a magnetic field that influence you more than a solar flare.

Most of the papers I read on this mention “Schumann resonances”, and sometimes “pineal gland” crystals.

Probably to dupe the gullible and uninformed with technical terms.
These people are probably either con-men or mentally ill.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances

Schumann resonances are the principal background in the part of the electromagnetic spectrum[2] from 3 Hz through 60 Hz

These frequenceies are very close to many other everyday phenomena, occurring in music (loudspeakers) and light-bulbs as previously mentioned.

my.clevelandclinic.org/…/23334-pineal-gland

secretes the hormone melatonin. Your pineal gland’s main job is to help control the circadian cycle of sleep and wakefulness by secreting melatonin.

So why is the main function of the gland unaffected? Also there is very little reason to believe these alleged “crystals” would be magnetic.

It consists of small crystals that are less than 20 µm in length

20 µm is very small.
From the above link about Schumann resonance:

These correspond to wavelengths of 38000, 21000, 14000, 11000 and 9000 km.

There is NO WAY these 2 can resonate together, simply NADA possibility. There is a factor of 1 billion distance between them being able to resonate!

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Vespair@lemm.ee ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I tried to look into this, but I couldn’t figure out how any of it works.

Also my name is Violent J

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BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Bullshit

100%

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db2@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Sounds as goofy as homeopathic woo.

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