Magnetic Fields

A team of researchers from the United States and Switzerland reported Wednesday that they have been able to trigger seizures in two epilepsy patients by exposing the patients' heads to a weak magnetic field.Team members, speaking at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Baltimore, say they will try to determine whether these fields switch on seizures by twisting, pushing or pulling fine particles of magnetite, a highly magnetic iron ore recently discovered in the human brain.Eventually, they said, they hope their work will lead to a better understanding of the cause of epileptic seizures -- essentially electrical storms in the brain -- and improve treatment of the debilitating illness.

Merriweather Post Pavilion has announced its first summer concert of 2012. It'll be the indie band Foster the People. The band, out with debut album "Torches," will play June 10. The album has already been certified Gold by the RIAA, which is probably why they're getting to play a stage as big as this one with only one album to their name. Tickets, at $45, are already on sale. O.A.R., which played Merriweather in August, is playing it low key with its first pair of shows next year.

WASHINGTON -- An U.S. spacecraft that went into orbit around Mars last week has found the first conclusive evidence the red planet has a magnetic field, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said yesterday.The Mars Global Surveyor detected the magnetic field Monday as its instruments began gathering data. The field is no more than 1/800th as strong as Earth's.But scientists said even that is stronger than expected and suggests that Mars might once have had a more robust field, perhaps generated by the same sort of internal geologic mechanisms as Earth's.

JUANITA SMALLWOOD OSBORNE, 88 Early kidney transplant donor Juanita Smallwood Osborne, who became one of the first living organ donors when she gave a kidney to her ailing son in the mid-1960s, died Thursday in Ashland, Ky., of complications from aspiration pneumonia, said her son, Burl Osborne, a former managing editor and chairman of the Associated Press and publisher emeritus of The Dallas Morning News. Mrs. Osborne donated her kidney in 1966, when most successful organ transplants had been performed primarily between identical twins, her son said.

As electric blankets come under fire, users have to wonder whether it's time to pull the plug.Ever so cautiously, the Environmental Protection Agency has raised a disturbing possibility: Magnetic fields of the kind given off by some electric blankets might pose a slight cancer risk.In a recent draft report, the EPA acknowledged that some scientific studies have found an association between exposure to magnetic fields and increased risk of some kinds of cancer, notably leukemia.The findings are "controversial and uncertain," the agency says, and each study that detected a risk can be balanced by one that didn't.

In a report to be presented today, Swedish researchers say they found nearly a fourfold increase in leukemia cases among children exposed to the magnetic fields generated by electrical power lines.Two studies of over 500,000 people, the first to look directly at the impact of high-tension lines on an entire population, provide the strongest evidence yet of a potential danger that has caused growing public concern: the possibility that electrical wiring both inside the home and office and in outside transmission lines could cause various forms of cancer, especially leukemia.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Magnetic fields from household wiring and appliances such as hair dryers, black and white televisions, and electric blankets may increase risk of childhood leukemia, according to a partial report revealed by a utility-supported research agency.The report seems certain to intensify public confusion and worry over magnetic fields that arise from everyday electric currents in power lines, transformers, motors in appliances, televisions and computer video display terminals.Among the conclusions:* Certain kinds of wiring systems used in and around homes, especially if high-voltage power lines and transformers are nearby, seem to increase childhood leukemia risk.

JUANITA SMALLWOOD OSBORNE, 88 Early kidney transplant donor Juanita Smallwood Osborne, who became one of the first living organ donors when she gave a kidney to her ailing son in the mid-1960s, died Thursday in Ashland, Ky., of complications from aspiration pneumonia, said her son, Burl Osborne, a former managing editor and chairman of the Associated Press and publisher emeritus of The Dallas Morning News. Mrs. Osborne donated her kidney in 1966, when most successful organ transplants had been performed primarily between identical twins, her son said.

Tests at Hammond Elementary and Hammond Middle schools have found that the magnetic fields from nearby power lines pose little threat to students' health, according to Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., which conducted the tests.The tests found that magnetic field readings near the schools registered less than 0.5 milligauss, far less than those in the average house, according to BG&E.The lines are owned by Potomac Electric Power Co., but BG&E uses them to supply power to the schools and most of the homes in the area.

ROBERT PARK, a physicist at the University of Maryland, makes the "point" (Other Voices, Sept. 12) that 60-hertz magnetic fields are no more dangerous than artichokes or shoe polish.Clearly revealing why he is a professor of physics and not of biochemistry, epidemiology or medicine, Park advances increasingly tenuous analogies ultimately reaching the conclusion that dioxin, cyclamates and asbestos are not particularly harmful either.In a long and very detailed 1990 report, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that electromagnetic radiation posed a "probable" cancer risk.

With the spring term just around the corner, Professor George Plitnik is looking forward to donning his wizard outfit again. "I wear it to pass out the syllabus - that really makes an impression," said the Frostburg State University physics instructor, who teaches a class on the science of Harry Potter. Later on in the semester he may masquerade as Severus Snape, using dry ice to create classroom smoke.

Duncan disputes Ehrlich funding Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan accused Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. yesterday of failing to do his part to launch a $75 million mass transit project in Silver Spring. He charged that the governor withheld the state's final $6 million payment from his budget. Duncan, a candidate for the Democratic nomination to oppose Ehrlich this fall, joined other elected officials at a news conference to announce $24 million in additional federal funding for the Silver Spring Transit Center.

The most detailed pictures ever made of the surface of the sun have revealed unexpected "mountains" of glowing gas. The discovery is forcing theorists to reconsider how the sun's surface features contribute to climate shifts on Earth, 93 million miles away. Images from the new 1-meter-diameter Swedish solar telescope in the Canary Islands show shifting ranges of mountain-like features 125 miles to 280 miles high, and vast fields of flat-topped "mesas" the size of Texas. They're formed near dark sunspots by the upwelling of hot gas from the sun's interior, and shaped by magnetic fields.

The Earth's core has inexplicably stopped spinning, causing a breakdown of the global magnetic field that has sheltered life from deadly solar and cosmic radiation for billions of years. Flocks of birds fly into buildings. Pacemaker wearers drop dead in the streets. Super-charged lightning batters the planet. The government mounts a desperate mission to tunnel more than 1,800 miles into the Earth to jump-start the stalled core and restore the planet's magnetic shield before all life is extinguished.

WASHINGTON -- NASA scientists have discovered strong evidence that ancient Mars had a magnetic field and a churning molten interior, features that on Earth might have been critical to the development of life.The findings, made using the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, are consistent with an emerging view of the early Mars as Earthlike, with oceans and rivers, volcanoes spewing gas and lava, and perhaps a significant atmosphere.Those dynamic geologic forces must have shut down on the 4.5 billion-year-old planet, leaving the surface frigid, arid and barren, with an atmosphere far thinner than on Earth's highest peaks.

WASHINGTON -- An U.S. spacecraft that went into orbit around Mars last week has found the first conclusive evidence the red planet has a magnetic field, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said yesterday.The Mars Global Surveyor detected the magnetic field Monday as its instruments began gathering data. The field is no more than 1/800th as strong as Earth's.But scientists said even that is stronger than expected and suggests that Mars might once have had a more robust field, perhaps generated by the same sort of internal geologic mechanisms as Earth's.

Duncan disputes Ehrlich funding Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan accused Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. yesterday of failing to do his part to launch a $75 million mass transit project in Silver Spring. He charged that the governor withheld the state's final $6 million payment from his budget. Duncan, a candidate for the Democratic nomination to oppose Ehrlich this fall, joined other elected officials at a news conference to announce $24 million in additional federal funding for the Silver Spring Transit Center.

From doctors to pets,bills paid by phoneQuestion: What do Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. and Bob's Lawn Service have in common?Answer: Both are listed as "payees" by customers of Maryland National Bank's home banking service, ScreenPhone.The service, which allows customers to pay their bills by phone, debuted in June. Bank officials had expected customers to use ScreenPhone to pay five or six bills a month, tops -- the mortgage, utilities and maybe a credit card company or two.But nobody ever expected customers to use the ScreenPhone to pay for lawn care, pet services or doctor's bills.

NEW YORK -- Scientists have reported finding strong evidence that Earth's inner core is spinning freely and slightly faster than the rest of Earth, making it virtually a planet within a planet.The scientists, at Columbia University, said the inner core was moving fast enough to lap the surface once every 400 years or so.Such inner freedom has never been reported before for any rocky body or planet in the cosmos.The discovery is expected to advance knowledge of how heat flows through Earth, how its interior evolved over the ages, and how its magnetic field forms and periodically reverses.

Tests at Hammond Elementary and Hammond Middle schools have found that the magnetic fields from nearby power lines pose little threat to students' health, according to Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., which conducted the tests.The tests found that magnetic field readings near the schools registered less than 0.5 milligauss, far less than those in the average house, according to BG&E.The lines are owned by Potomac Electric Power Co., but BG&E uses them to supply power to the schools and most of the homes in the area.