Science

Lights Out: Coronal Mass Ejections and EMPs

Blasts of electromagnetic energy can disable electronics.

Electricity and magnetism go hand in hand – you can’t have a moving electrical charge without a magnetic field. This also means to make a change to the one affects the other. For example, run an electrical current near a compass and it will affect the magnetism of the compass and move the needle. This also works the other way around. Increase the magnetism near an electronic device and it can interfere with or damage the device.

Our electrical grids and our electronic devices are subject to interference by magnetic fields. The sun is the greatest magnetic force in our solar system and thankfully for our electronics it’s far away … for the most part.

Solar Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections

Solar flares are bursts of electromagnetic radiation from the sun – all energy, no matter. When they burst from the sun they can travel near the speed of light across space, picking up solar wind protons along the way. Like a tidal wave of radiation, when a solar flare bursts facing Earth it can hit in about 8 minutes. Most solar flares are harmless to life on Earth but more intense flares can disrupt GPS, endanger astronauts in space, and disrupt radio signals. One benefit of solar flares though is that they can serve as early warning signs of potential coronal mass ejections.

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are also bursts from the sun but, unlike solar flares, they are ejections of actual matter (plasma) as well as radiation. CMEs contain millions to billions of tons of charged particles that are sent from the sun into space. CMEs move at a more leisurely pace than solar flares which, if sent towards Earth, take a day or more to reach us.

Hitting the Earth with so many charged particles a CME can push Earth’s magnetosphere to the limit and create a geomagnetic storm. A geomagnetic storm can last for hours during which time a higher than normal amount of the sun’s magnetic energy reaches the surface of the planet. The greatest threat CMEs pose is to very long conductors of electricity such as the power grid. CMEs can hit power grids with more magnetic energy than they’re designed for causing blackouts and overload anything plugged into them.

Man-made EMPs

The sun isn’t the only potential source of widespread electronic disturbance. Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons are man-made devices that can replicate solar CMEs but with more precision based on the kinds of electronics you want to disable.

Nuclear and non-nuclear EMP weapons can emit different kinds of frequency pulses targeting anything/everything from large electric conductors such as the power grid down to small conductors such as cars, phones, and personal electronics. EMP weapons can damage/disable your opponents infrastructure without destroying human life or buildings.

So, should I do something?

Should you begin prepping for for an end of days stone age electronics-free scenario? probably not. CMEs are natural occurrences that occur every few days. Big CMEs hit Earth about every 25 years. Energy companies know this and take steps to protect the grid from the effects of CMEs and to keep the power on. That said mega CME storms like the Carrington Event in 1859 occur every few centuries, and if one comes along there’s not much you can do about it.

As for EMP weapons, it depends on how likely you think where you live will be attacked. Prepper websites will scare you into thinking you need to safeguard against these potential attacks. If you want to start putting electronics into faraday bags or lining your home with tinfoil, feel free.

Added info: one benefit from Solar Flares and CMEs are more intense aurora light shows.

A great video about the effects on Earth of solar flares and CMEs.

Learn more about EMPs and the power grid.

Wiper Blades to the Sky

Raising your car’s windshield wiper blades before a snow storm doesn’t make much of a difference.

Before the arrival of a snow storm it’s not uncommon to see people lift their car’s windshield wiper blades up. It can make people who do not do this question if it is worth doing and the answer is a resounding: maybe.

If the arriving storm will have lots of ice then lifting your wiper blades up helps prevent them from freezing to the glass. Attempting to move blades that have frozen to the glass can damage the rubber of the blades or even the motor of the wipers. That said if the blades are frozen with ice so is the rest of your car. You will most likely be letting the car’s heat & defrost run for a while which will free your blades and fix this problem.

There seems to be no consensus as to which way is better. Any potential benefit seems negligible. If you want to lift your car’s windshield wiper blades before a big snow storm, go for it. If not, that works too.

Added info: one thing you should definitely do all winter is keep enough gas in your car’s gas tank.

Bog Bodies of Ireland

Peatlands are beneficial watery environments (… with the occasional human body hidden away).

Around Ireland you find peatlands – wetlands where, over thousands of years, Sphagnum moss and other plant matter have accumulated and degraded. These areas have watery, acidic, and anaerobic conditions so the organic material within peat lands break down but never fully degrades. This long drawn out layered accumulation & compression of vegetation means peatlands are a carbon sink. Despite covering only 3% of the Earth’s surface peatlands store more carbon than all the world’s forests combined.

Peatlands and peat harvesting — Peatlands have been a source of fuel in Ireland for centuries.

Beyond the environmental benefit, peat (aka “turf” in Ireland) can be a building material as well as a fuel source. Peat has been harvested for centuries in Ireland where it is cut from the ground into long rectangular briquettes, dried (it’s 80% moisture when fresh), and then burned. A special shovel called a sleán is used when cutting by hand, but tractors and other industrial machinery can do the job faster. That said by the 1970s most people in Ireland were running their homes with coal, electric, or oil heating, no longer relying on turf.

It’s during the cutting of the turf, digging out sections of peat, that people occasionally find human bodies.

Bog bodies

Bog bodies are naturally mummified human remains found in peatlands. Because of the ground conditions the bodies are remarkably well preserved (considering their age). Tollund Man, who was found in Denmark in 1950, looks as if he is sleeping he is so well preserved (despite having died around 405–384 BCE).

Ireland has numerous bog bodies, most of whom are men having died between the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Some examples include:

Cashel Man, died circa 2000 BCE Early Bronze Age, found in 2011
Gallagh Man, 400-200 BCE Early Iron Age, found in 1821
Clonycavan Man, 392-201 BCE Early Iron Age, found in 2003
Old Croughan Man, 362-175 BCE Early Iron Age, found in 2003
Ballymacombs More Woman, 343-1 BCE Early Iron Age, found in 2023
Baronstown West Man, 200-400 CE Early Iron Age, found in 1953

Many Irish bog bodies share another characteristic – they suffered violent deaths. Old Croghan Man was stabbed in the chest and later decapitated as well as cut in half. Clonycavan Man’s skull was split open and then disembowelled. The consistent pattern of violence & mutilation leads researchers to believe that these people were ritualistically killed as human sacrifices.

Celtic bog bodies discovered in the peatlands of Ireland — Celtic bog bodies, and some objects, discovered in the peatlands of Ireland.

Looking for clues

The ancient Celts did not keep written records so it is uncertain exactly why these bodies were placed out in the peatlands, or why they died as they did, but there are clues. From the 2nd century BCE onward cremation was the standard burial practice, so non-cremated remains of people who met violent ends is unusual and purposeful.

The next clue is where these bodies were placed. The distribution of bodies is frequently at the boundaries of territorial lands. Some of these bodies were deposited alongside objects of ritual significance (weapons, jewelry, clothing, feasting equipment, horse harnesses, food, etc).

Human sacrifice & Kingship

When an ancient Celtic man became king he was thought to symbolically marry the earth goddess, the goddess who looked after the fertility of the land. If the king was good then the land & people would flourish. Conversely if the king was bad this would also be reflected in the land & people. Famine, storms, war, poor harvests, etc. could all be signs that the king was an unjust ruler and perhaps in need of replacement.

It’s possible some of these Irish bog men were kings or perhaps rejected candidates for kingship. Several of them show no signs of manual labor (for example Old Croghan Man had manicured nails) and most were well fed. An additional clue as to their potential kingship is that several had their nipples mutilated.

In ancient Celtic society you would plead fealty to the king by sucking his nipples – Saint Patrick has a story involving this practice, as he gained passage on a boat. To remove or damage a man’s nipples would deny him kingship. Old Croghan Man was found with deep cuts under each nipple while Clonycavan Man was found with no nipples at all. Its possible decomposition played a role in both, but ritualistic mutilation is a leading theory.

Kings in the Bogs

Male Irish bog bodies seem to be kings who fortune turned against and were ritualistically sacrificed to appease a higher power. In killing a king the people hoped the goddess would be happier with the new king and improve their living conditions. As this practice seems to have gone on sporadically across thousands of years it’s unknown just how many bodies may still be hidden away in the peatlands.

Added info: Ireland has largely turned away from peat as a fuel source. Burning peat is not sustainable as it was being consumed faster than it could replenish itself. Further, the burning of peat releases the very carbon it was beneficially holding onto, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. In 2021 the government owned company Bord na Móna ceased peat harvesting and in 2022 the selling of peat as fuel was largely outlawed.

Besides holding carbon and ritualistic burials, peatlands also hold bog butter. For thousands of years people would bury wooden containers of butter or cheese in the peatlands. Whether to hide it from thieves, age it in the ground, or to keep it fresh, peatlands act as (essentially) natural refrigerators.

Peatland and the cutting of the turf.

Some science explaining peatlands.

QI discusses Richard Harris as well as the nipples of Celtic Kings.

Radio Waves

From wireless telegraphs to 5G data, the modern world runs on radio waves.

In the electromagnetic spectrum, radio waves are the lowest frequency & longest wave length waves available. The name “radio” doesn’t mean the waves are just for radios, it comes from the idea to “radiate energy” and the waves are used for lots of things. Wireless telegraphs, TV broadcasts, walkie talkies, radar, GPS, wireless routers, RFID tags, bib chips in timed sports events, bluetooth, your mobile phone data – it’s all radio waves.

The existence of radio waves were proposed in 1867 by James Maxwell, but it took twenty years until 1887 for Heinrich Hertz to first demonstrate them (and because of this the hertz unit of measurement was named for him). The potential of radio waves was first realized by Guglielmo Marconi who used them to create wireless telegraphs. Marconi’s invention allowed people to send messages wirelessly through the air (which won him the 1909 Nobel Prize in physics). His invention is also one half of the very good Erik Larson book Thunderstruck.

Radio waves sit on the far end of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The Wave

We can send & receive data through the air thanks to transmitters & receivers. A transmitter antenna will send out a radio wave, modifying the wave form as need be. Then a receiver antenna will take the wave and process it as information. In the modern world most of that information is converted into binary ones & zeros as data.

Rather than sending out a consistent steady wave (which wouldn’t be very useful), transmitters modulate waves in various ways. You can modulate a wave’s amplitude as well as its frequency (which, incidentally, is why we have AM and FM radio – amplitude modulation and frequency modulation). You can also change where you begin & end a wave’s phase. This can create thousands of combinations, each of which can mean combinations of binary data. Using this complicated system of changing wave types we can have lots of devices sending & receiving information in relatively close proximity to one another. This is perhaps best demonstrated in the prolific use of mobile phones.

Cellular data (and the 5G boogeyman)

Mobile phones interact with antennas to send & receive data using radio waves. Each antenna covers a certain territory (a cell), but they are all working together (a network) – hence “cellular network”. Early mobile car phones had very few antenna to interact with so, once you left one’s area, you lost service. As mobile phones became popular in the 1990s more complex cellular networks with many towers were created.

5G is the fifth generation of the technology that runs these cellular networks. The challenge for 5G is to give even more devices even faster information. Part of how it does this is through an increase in the number of antennas. It also uses a wider range of wave frequencies. 5G uses radio waves but it also uses higher frequency microwaves (millimeter waves) to send more information, faster, across short distances. To do this the millimeter waves use smaller network cells, with more antennas, closer to the ground than the typical radio waves use.

As 5G was arrived out so too did the conspiracy theories.

The rollout of 5G began in 2019 and with it came the conspiracy theories. Some people claimed 5G weakens our immune systems leaving us vulnerable to viruses (such as COVID-19). Others claimed Covid was caused by 5G waves or that the Covid vaccines contained secret microchips that would be controlled by 5G. There are also conspiracy theories that 5G causes cancer and specifically because of the millimeter microwaves. None of this is true.

The waves used in 5G are non-ionizing waves (meaning they do not remove electrons from atoms or damage human cells). Ionizing radiation is found on the other end of the electromagnetic spectrum beyond visible light. Ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays will damage your cells, radio waves and microwaves do not. The waves used in 5G can’t penetrate your skin and no credible study has found them to be dangerous to humans. Alcoholic drinks and processed meats have higher likelihoods of causing cancer than 5G.

A really great explanation of how modern cellular networks operate.

A crash-course on 5G data.

Honey & Allergies

Eating local honey doesn’t help with your seasonal allergies (but it tastes good at least).

Broadly speaking, trees and other plants use one of two methods for reproduction. One method is to rely on bees, animals, or other creatures to interact with the plant and then spread the pollen to other plants. The second method is to release pollen into the wind and hope for the best. It’s this second category, scattering pollen to the wind, that people are allergic to when they have seasonal allergies.

Delicious but unhelpful

There is an idea that eating local honey can help you deal with seasonal allergies because local honey is made from the local pollen you’re allergic to – that through exposure to small amounts of what triggers your allergic reaction you can teach your immune system to not react (ie. immunotherapy). Unfortunately this doesn’t work for a few reasons.

To start, when you consume local honey you don’t know what sort of pollen it contains or in what amount. So while it may theoretically contain the pollen that triggers your allergic reaction you can’t be sure and every batch of honey is different.

Further, local honey is made with the “wrong” kind of pollen. Honey is made with the pollen bees collect through physical contact with plants, but the pollen of your seasonal allergies is the kind that’s spread on the wind. As such there isn’t going to be much (if any) of the pollen that triggers your allergies in honey. Therefor eating local honey won’t help with your seasonal allergies.

Slippery Rail Season

The annual autumnal slow-down of regional rail is due to crushed leaves releasing oil on the tracks.

After the leaves change into their autumnal colors they fall to the ground. The ones that fall on rail lines are responsible for slower trains. As trains roll on down the line they crush any leaves on the rails, releasing pectin which acts as a low-friction grease making it harder to control the train. This is even worse when it rains. It becomes harder to slow down a train but also harder to accelerate again, resulting in delays. This is slippery rail season.

Transit organizations try and deal with leaves in a variety of ways. Trains & cars equipped with pressure-washing machines spray the tracks to remove the residue and uncrushed leaves (NJ Transit calls the train that does this the “Aqua Train”). Some organizations will also apply a mixture of gel & sand to increase traction.

Added info: another place you want traction is Pamplona, Spain during the Festival of San Fermín and the running of the bulls. Every morning, before humans and bulls run down the tight cobble stone streets of Pamplona, crews clean all trash from the streets as well as coat several sections of the route with a chemical anti-slip substance.

How SEPTA deals with leaves in the Philadelphia area.

An extended explanation from the MBCR on how they clean slippery rails in New England.

Behind the Auroras

The Aurora Borealis & Aurora Australis are both beautiful light shows as well as visual signs that the Earth’s magnetosphere is still protecting us from a constant barrage of destructive particles from the Sun.

The lights

In mythology & folklore the Northern Lights have been seen as both good and ill omens. This tended to depend on your degree of latitude which dictated how frequently you saw them. Northern people more accustomed to the lights such as those of Sweden, Norway, and Finland saw the lights as the energies of the departed and worthy of respect. Similarly, different peoples of Alaska saw the lights as the dancing spirits of humans or animals. Further south in ancient Rome, where the lights were seen less frequently, they were seen as a harbinger of war or famine.

Scientifically, the aurora are the result of charged particles from the sun (protons & electrons) interacting with oxygen & nitrogen in the Earth’s atmosphere. The different colors are the result of which gases the particles encounter at which altitudes. The most common color is yellow-green which is the sun’s particles interacting with oxygen at around 60 miles above the Earth. Nitrogen produces blue light below 60 miles in altitude but produces purple light above that. Red is also produced by oxygen but at altitudes above 150 miles. The light produced in these exchanges lasts only a second or less but the steady stream of particles from the sun can create long lasting light shows.

The aurora are the reaction of protons & electrons from the sun interacting with gases in our atmosphere.

Special Delivery

The sun is constantly emitting these charged particles. The solar wind regularly delivers a steady stream of particles to Earth but they are also unleashed in larger more powerful bursts through solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). When any of these charged particles approach Earth their path is directed by the Earth’s magnetosphere which is essentially a magnetic force-field generated by the Earth. The magnetosphere deflects most of these particles around & away from the Earth, however some particles are pulled down towards the magnetic northern and southern poles. It’s these particles pulled towards the poles that create the dazzling auroras.

Earth’s magnetosphere directs the sun’s particles towards the poles. It’s also what keeps us alive.

The Earth’s magnetosphere acts a shield, deflecting & directing particles from the sun.

So where is the danger?

The key to the aurora light shows, and our survival, is the magnetosphere. Without it, Earth would be subjected to the full brunt of the emissions from the sun. If left completely exposed these charged particles would gradually strip the Earth of its atmosphere. No atmosphere, no life. It has been theorized that Mars once had a magnetosphere but lost it approximately 4 billion years ago. As a result the atmosphere was carried off into space by the solar wind. With no atmosphere the water of Mars boiled off leaving Mars a barren wasteland.

So the light shows of the auroras are the direct result of the constant defensive protection of the Earth’s magnetosphere. This shield protects all life on Earth from the never-ending stream of charged particles that would otherwise end life on Earth as we know it.

Rock Columns

As lava/magma cools & contracts it can form polygon stone columns.

Columnar jointing is a rock formation where fractures (joints) occur in cooling volcanic rock. As the lava/magma cools from the outside inward it shrinks towards center points. This shrinking then continues from the top down forming columns of rock. These stone columns are frequently hexagonal with six sides (a shape very common in nature) but other numbers of sides occur as well.

These rock formations can be straight vertical columns (the Giant’s Causeway, Devil’s Tower, Svartifoss, etc.) but can also form with sideways irregularities due to how the molten rock moved and cooled (such as Alcantara Gorge where the lava cooled diagonally).

Rock Folktales

Because they look carved and intentionally organized they don’t seem natural. Cultures around the world have come up with a variety of explanations for these rock formations. Devil’s Tower in Wyoming is a striking example of columnar jointing which features the tallest columns in the world. Its name varies by different Native American groups but it tends to be versions of “Bear’s Home”. According to tradition, as children were fleeing a great bear (or bears) the animal’s claws dragged down the rock face, carving the columns we see today.

The Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland is perhaps the most famous example of columnar jointing. As the legend goes the causeway was formed by Irish giant (or just regular sized superhero) Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool). He built a series of stepping stones to connect Ireland to Scotland. Longer story short, the Scottish giant Benandonner smashed the causeway during his retreat from Ireland back to Scotland. Today the remnants of this “causeway” are the rocks at the Giant’s Causeway and a similar rock formation on the Isle of Staffa (the most famous part of Staffa is Fingal’s Cave, named after Fionn, which was a very popular source of inspiration for the arts in the 19th century).

Iceland’s Svartifoss falls has served as the inspiration for Hallgrímskirkja church among other places.

In Iceland, a volcanic hotspot in the past as well as today, there are several examples of rock columns. The rock formations along the black sand beach of Reynisfjara are said to be two trolls who were dragging a three-masted ship to land. As they fought over the ship they lost track of time and dawn came, turning the trolls into the rock columns. The rock columns at Svartifoss were the inspiration for Hallgrímskirkja church in the center of Reykjavik. The hexagonal shapes of Svartifoss also influenced the design of the Harpa concert hall.

Added info: Columnar joint formations are not limited to Earth. The volcanism involved in the formation of Mars also created stone columns in much the same way we have them here.

Nick on the Rocks explains columnar jointing.

New England Vampires and Tuberculosis

The effects of tuberculosis led some 19th century New Englanders to believe that vampires were preying on the living.

In the late 18th and much of the 19th century there was a vampire panic in New England. People across New England feared that vampire-like creatures, using some kind of sympathetic magic, were slowly killing their friends & family from inside the grave (as opposed to traditional vampires who rise from the grave to attack). People would exhume their family members, look for the one who might be a vampire, and take various precautions to stop them. New Englanders might remove & burn the heart of a suspected vampire, they may turn the skeleton over facedown, decapitate the head, put a brick in their mouth, or use a wooden stake to pin their relative to the ground among other methods.

This panic was more than just a few isolated incidents. Henry David Thoreau mentions attending an exhumation in his journal on September 26, 1859. In February of 1793 over 500 people attended the ceremonial burning of the heart, liver, and lungs of supposed vampire Rachel Harris in Manchester, Vermont. After Nancy Young died in 1827 Rhode Island, her father thought that she might be preying on her still alive little sister Almira. The family exhumed Nancy’s coffin, burned it on a pyre, and stood in the smoke to breath in the vapors thinking it would free/cure them of this affliction – it did not work and Almira and two more of her siblings later died. Digesting the cremated remains of a suspected vampire, or breathing in the smoke of the cremation pyre, were not uncommon last resort treatments after traditional medicine had failed.

The 1892 exhuming of suspected vampire Mercy Brown in Exeter, Rhode Island became an international story – Bram Stoker based part of the Lucy character in Dracula on Mercy Brown. With 18 confirmed vampire cases, Rhode Island even become known as the “Vampire Capital of America.” The reason all of this happened was twofold: tuberculosis and decomposition.

The story of Mercy Brown influenced Bram Stoker’s *Dracula*.

Wasting away

Tuberculosis is an airborne disease that attacks the lungs (among other areas). Active tuberculosis kills about half of those infected and in 2018 it was the ninth leading cause of death worldwide (killing more people than Malaria or HIV/AIDS). In 19th century New England tuberculosis was the leading cause of death, killing an estimated 25% of the population.

Tuberculosis can develop over months or even years, slowly eating away at someone. A person with active TB develops a chronic cough as their lung tissue breaks down, their mucus starts to contain blood, they develop fevers, night sweats, and lose weight. Because of the weight loss the disease has been historically known as “consumption.” As the infected person wastes away they also develop ashen skin, giving them an overall sickly drained appearance.

Vampires, or, a lack of scientific understanding

The effect of tuberculosis (the slow draining of life) combined with some of the infected saying their deceased relatives were visiting them (as Almira Young claimed), was enough for some New Englanders to suspect there were vampires at work. Bodies of suspected vampires were exhumed to looks for signs of vampirism. Some of the corpses seemed have grown longer finger nails and longer hair, some were bloated, some had blood in their organs, while others seemed to have not decayed at all. These were surefire signs of a vampire … or were just normal aspects of body decomposition.

As bodies decay they become dehydrated causing the skin to recede and shrink. This gives the illusion of longer fingernails & hair as the base of the nails and hair that was once under the skin is now exposed. The bodies that seemed to have not decayed at all were the ones of people who died in the cold winters of New England (as was Mercy Brown’s case who had died in January) where the cold slows the decomposition process. These unremarkable signs of decomposition were mistaken as proof of life after death to the untrained eyes of 19th century New England.

The dawn of a new era

The Mercy Brown story brought unwanted attention to New England. It was embarrassing that, while the light bulb was being invented and Henry Ford was building his first car, people were worried about folklorish undead monsters. The vampire panic rose and fell with the tuberculosis endemic of New England. Over time with advancements in science, and the dissemination of knowledge, belief in vampires faded away.

Added info: porphyria is another disease whose symptoms can be similar to vampire activity. It’s a liver disease that, for some, can cause sensitivity to sunlight (leading some to only come out at night) as well as sensitivity to garlic.

“Ask a Mortician” goes through the history of the New England vampire panic and the realities of tuberculosis in 19th century New England.

A crash course on tuberculosis.

Brain Freeze

The short headache triggered by cold food and/or drinks touching the inside of your mouth.

To start, brain freeze (aka “ice cream headache” or “cold-stimulus headache”) only affects about 30-50% of the population. Most people can eat ice cream and drink extra cold drinks without any fear of reprisal from their nervous system.

Brain freeze occurs when the roof of your mouth or the back of your throat suddenly come into contact with cold food, cold drinks, or even cold air. The trigeminal nerve in your head reacts to the cold by telling the arteries connected to the meninges (the membranes surrounding your brain) to contract to conserve warmth (much like how our bodies react to the cold in general). Then the body sends more warm blood up to the head telling those same arteries to expand. This quick succession of vasoconstriction and vasodilation of blood vessels triggers pain receptors along the trigeminal nerve which creates the pain you feel behind the eyes or forehead during a brain freeze.

A lot of nerve

While we all have a trigeminal nerve its varying sensitivity may explain why not everyone gets brain freeze. For example 37% of Americans may get brain freeze but only around 15% of Danish adults do. Further, 93% of people who get migraines are also susceptible to brain freeze.