Some aspects of the biological effects of space weather

Space weather hazards have been well-studied during the past few decades, mainly in connection with effects on technical systems. The biological effects of solar and geomagnetic activity have been largely ignored because the amplitudes of the electromagnetic fields (EMF) are small, typically one to several hundreds of nanoteslas. This is much weaker than electromagnetic noise of anthropogenic origin and about 10 orders of magnitude less than the characteristic energies of biochemical reactions. During the past 20 years, however, more careful consideration has been given to possible nonthermal mechanisms of interaction of biological systems with weak (< 1 mT) low-frequency EMF, which are unavoidably present in the environment, and some progress has been made towards understanding how an interaction can occur. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.