TY - JOUR
T1 - Circasemiannual chronomics
T2 - Half-yearly biospheric changes in their own right and as a circannual waveform
AU - Cornelissen-Guillaume, Germaine G
AU - Halberg, Franz
AU - Pöllmann, Ludwig
AU - Pöllmann, Brigitte
AU - Katinas, George S.
AU - Minne, Hélène
AU - Breus, Tamara
AU - Sothern, Robert B.
AU - Watanabe, Yoshihiko
AU - Tarquini, Roberto
AU - Perfetto, Federico
AU - Maggioni, Cristina
AU - Wilson, Douglas
AU - Gubin, Denis
AU - Otsuka, Kuniaki
AU - Bakken, Earl E.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by US Public Health Service (GM-13981), University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute.
PY - 2003/10
Y1 - 2003/10
N2 - Geomagnetic activity has a strong half-yearly but no precise yearly component in its spectrum, as Armin Grafe suggested nearly half a century ago. We have postulated elsewhere that non-photic cycles such as those in geomagnetics may have signatures in the biosphere and vice versa that biological rhythms have likely counterparts in the physical environment. Accordingly, we document phenomena characterized by a prominent about half-yearly variation, re-analyzed to constitute the start of a transdisciplinary chronomic (time structural) map, aligning these conditions with a half-yearly cycle in the geomagnetic index Kp. At least some biospheric phenomena fitted concomitantly with 1- and 0.5-year cosine curves exhibit an amplitude (A) ratio of A0.5-year/A1-year larger than unity. Methodologically, it is pertinent that even if data were read off published graphs, the resulting analyses were practically the same as those in the original data received subsequently. The main point is a circasemiannual pattern in status epilepticus, in several morbid oral conditions, in the cell density of vasopressin-containing neurons in the human suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN), in circulating melatonin at middle latitudes at night during years of minimal solar activity or around noon at high latitudes, and in an unusual circasemiannual aspect of a birth-month-dependence of human longevity. Others have asked whether annual rhythms in human reproduction are biological, sociological or both. We show some other possibilities herein, involving the physical environment, hardly to be neglected in the case of open systems. As to almost certainly multifactorial circasemiannual rhythms, geomagnetics may also be a signal, a proxy or a putative, at least partial mechanism. Geomagnetic activity is related in its turn to solar and galactic activity, and may be a marker for other cyclic events that affect the biosphere. The similarity of cycle lengths in itself can only be a hint prompting the search for causal relations.
AB - Geomagnetic activity has a strong half-yearly but no precise yearly component in its spectrum, as Armin Grafe suggested nearly half a century ago. We have postulated elsewhere that non-photic cycles such as those in geomagnetics may have signatures in the biosphere and vice versa that biological rhythms have likely counterparts in the physical environment. Accordingly, we document phenomena characterized by a prominent about half-yearly variation, re-analyzed to constitute the start of a transdisciplinary chronomic (time structural) map, aligning these conditions with a half-yearly cycle in the geomagnetic index Kp. At least some biospheric phenomena fitted concomitantly with 1- and 0.5-year cosine curves exhibit an amplitude (A) ratio of A0.5-year/A1-year larger than unity. Methodologically, it is pertinent that even if data were read off published graphs, the resulting analyses were practically the same as those in the original data received subsequently. The main point is a circasemiannual pattern in status epilepticus, in several morbid oral conditions, in the cell density of vasopressin-containing neurons in the human suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN), in circulating melatonin at middle latitudes at night during years of minimal solar activity or around noon at high latitudes, and in an unusual circasemiannual aspect of a birth-month-dependence of human longevity. Others have asked whether annual rhythms in human reproduction are biological, sociological or both. We show some other possibilities herein, involving the physical environment, hardly to be neglected in the case of open systems. As to almost certainly multifactorial circasemiannual rhythms, geomagnetics may also be a signal, a proxy or a putative, at least partial mechanism. Geomagnetic activity is related in its turn to solar and galactic activity, and may be a marker for other cyclic events that affect the biosphere. The similarity of cycle lengths in itself can only be a hint prompting the search for causal relations.
KW - Biospheric changes
KW - Circasemiannual chronomics
KW - Geomagnetics
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0142245448&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.biopha.2003.08.007
DO - 10.1016/j.biopha.2003.08.007
M3 - Article
C2 - 14572677
AN - SCOPUS:0142245448
SN - 0753-3322
VL - 57
SP - 45
EP - 54
JO - Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy
JF - Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy
IS - SUPPL. 1
ER -