Gine Roll Skjaervoe at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) ( http://www.ntnu.edu ) Department of Biology has studied church records from the period 1750-1900 and looked at life history variables: how old were women when they had their first child, and their last? How many years passed between the birth of each child, and how many of these children survived? How many of these children were in turn married and had children?
On average, the lifespan of children born in years that had a great deal of solar activity was 5.2 years shorter than other children. The largest difference was in the probability of dying during the first two years of life.
Children who were born in years with lots of sunshine and who survived were also more likely to have fewer children, who in turn gave birth to fewer children than others. This finding shows that increased UV radiation during years of high solar activity had an effect across generations.
Skjaervoe used information on the number of sunspots as an indication of the amount of UV radiation in a given year. The number of sunspots reaches a maximum every 11 years on average, which results in more UV radiation on Earth during years with high sunspot and solar activity.
UV radiation can have positive effects on human vitamin D levels, but it can also result in a reduction of vitamin B9 (folate). It is known that low folate levels during pregnancy are linked to higher child mortality.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-01/nuos-msm010915.php
Also covered by: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150109045540.htm
[Paper]: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1801/20142032
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Sunday January 11 2015, @03:42PM
I've got something I can laugh about: I feel good in a special way, I'm in love and it's a sunny day.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Sunday January 11 2015, @03:55PM
This is a really good study correlating sun/UV activity to human longevity (and long term fertility).
What it is NOT is a scientific paper on the effects of UV radiation on humans. The vitamin mechanism described is a massive leap from the data. The actual cause could be as simple as crops growing better during the high activity years.
Sorry, but I hate "scientific" studies that form their hypothesis after they've done the "experiment" like this. We've found a correlation. We can think of one possible mechanism that explains it. Therefore, the correlation proves our mechanism is responsible!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 11 2015, @03:58PM
I showed porn videos to this very limited amount of people from some universities and they supported reduced sentences for rapists. Therefore, porn makes people callous towards women.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Sunday January 11 2015, @07:22PM
I agree. Causation does not follow correlation. Especially from historical data. Mortality was so dreadful only 100 years ago, that it is hard to apply modern understandings of health and welfare. Especially since wihtout modern medicine the only ones left to provide children are the ones that didn't die in the first 15 years of life -still the predominant biological event margin.
There a modern correlation of some power cut 50 years ago in America (I think) that had more births 9 months later. But that is much easier to support as there are before-during-after records.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Sunday January 11 2015, @07:25PM
Oh and an obvious point, more sun might mean more food....
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Sunday February 01 2015, @02:17AM
In which case, this is circumstantial evidence in favour of the Metabolic Theory Of Ecology [wikipedia.org] previously discussed here [soylentnews.org]. If it is true, the second generation effect could be an artifact of breeding age and sun cycle duration.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday January 11 2015, @09:26PM
This is a really good study correlating sun/UV activity to human longevity (and long term fertility).
Agreed, and it also kind of depends on just how good the sun activity records were back in 1750. Or any time thereafter till people stated keeping records. Even weather reports for those times are sketchy and local at best.
There are far too many other, and more influential factors, from wars, diseases, volcanos, crop failures, pestilence, etc. Even local economy variations are ignored. Birth rates usually drop significantly [time.com] during economic down turns.
Finding correlations is fun, but have't we learned the folly of this over the years?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Sunday January 11 2015, @04:01PM
There might be a statistical connection but it almost certainly isn't anything obvious. Total irradiation doesn't actually change during the solar cycle unless you have very sensitive instruments to detect the slight change. The Warmists are right on that point. Some of the UV does vary a bit more but again, we are talking about infant mortality here, even in olden times infants didn't exactly live outdoors.
So that leaves the more subtle solar cycle influenced things some of us Deniers (i.e. science) have been looking to for some mechanism to tie the solar cycle to global climate cycles to explain things like the 'little ice age' that the Warmists tried to edit out of the historical record because it didn't fit their faith. The bottom line is that if the solar cycle actually is (this one study certainly ain't going to convince me) having an impact great enough to be visible in human birth/death rates then there is SOME mechanism that is going to be big enough to impact global climate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 11 2015, @09:24PM
What to do when you can't go outside to do choirs because it's stormy, stay in bed and reproduce!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday January 11 2015, @10:45PM
Maybe you should have first read the summary. Because then you might have saved yourself the embarrassment to be found posting an "explanation" which doesn't fit even remotely what they examined.
When you call BS, make sure it's not you who is producing it!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday January 11 2015, @11:57PM
Oh, come on now! Who has the energy to do a whole choir?
I could probably do the odd soprano, but a whole choir?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 12 2015, @12:21AM
Damn autospeeeeell
(Score: 1) by cellocgw on Monday January 12 2015, @04:15PM
Well, most of us do our singing from the gallery.
(choir != chore)
Physicist, cellist, former OTTer (1190) resume: https://app.box.com/witthoftresume