When religious motivation prevails, homicide abstains (religio reget, homicidium subsidet): homicide and religious motivation are in antiphase along the scale of an ~10.5-year Schwabe cycle. Chronomics aims to increase life expectancy and life quality, as it strives for the stars by a timed and timely chronoastrobiology [1–37]; by information thus obtained, it also aims at improving everyday life on earth by prehabilitation, to minimize the need for rehabilitation. Chronomic detection of elevated illness-risks aims at the prevention of diseases of individuals, such as myocardial infarctions and strokes, and, equally important, chronomics resolves illnesses of societies, such as crime and war, all exhibiting mapped cycles, which are indispensable for the study of underlying mechanisms.

In the past century, reports of possible health and other hazards of natural, solar variability-driven temporal variations in the earth’s magnetic field have remained largely controversial, in part because of the lack of rigorous studies based on prospectively collected data, which, in turn, were interpreted mostly by visual inspection rather than by inferential statistics. More recent studies [1–17, 23, 35–57] have provided new information, as reviewed herein, but do not fully account for some discrepant results, which rejected associations between geomagnetic storms and myocardial infarction or stroke based on ample data, analyzed by rigorous methods [33]. A reconciliation of inconsistencies may perhaps be reached by a further scrutiny of possibly contributing factors, such as the solar cycle stage and geographic location of the different studies. Toward this goal, a planetary study on any influence of geomagnetic disturbances on human HRV was started, with focus on the auroral oval, where magnetic storms are most pronounced. The magnetic field variations exhibit complex spectra and include the frequency band between 0.001 and 10 Hz, which is regarded as “ultralow frequency” by physicists. Since the “ultralow-frequency” range, like other endpoints used in cardiology, refers to much higher frequencies than about-yearly and other changes playing a role in environmental-organismic interactions also in relation to HRV, the current designations used in cardiology are all placed in quotation marks to indicate the need for possible revision of nomenclature. Whether or not this suggestion has an immediate response, we point to a need for the development of instrumentation and software that renders the assessment of circadian, infradian, and even infra-annual (truly low frequency) modulations routinely feasible.

Associations between geomagnetic storms and myocardial infarction or stroke are of particular interest and constitute active areas of current research. In Minnesota, mortality from myocardial infarction is increased by 5 % at times of maximal solar activity, when geomagnetic disturbances occur more frequently [6]. Susceptible individuals may then be at an increased cardiovascular disease risk. Although there is mounting evidence for such associations, they are far from being fully understood and have remained partly controversial [10]. HRV is known as a powerful predictor of vascular disease risk in apparently healthy people, as evidenced in an elderly cohort, as well as in patients suffering from coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, and congestive heart failure [3, 4, 8, 14, 24, 28, 31, 34, 37, 40, 43, 52, 53]. During the past several years, we focused on any effect of geomagnetic variations on HRV.

Nearly continuous, 7-day beat-to-beat ECG records were obtained between December 10, 1998, and November 2, 2000, on clinically healthy men (N = 15) and women (N = 4) from Finnmark College in Alta, Norway. Their age ranged from 21 to 59 years. Alta is located at a latitude of 69° 56 min north, a longitude of 23° 22 min east, and an altitude of 3 m above sea level. Mean atmospheric pressure in Alta was 1007.7 hPa. The yearly mean outside temperature was 2.3°C, and the lowest recorded temperature was −30.8°C, with temperatures below 0°C for almost half of the year. Because of the high latitude, the sun was not visible above the horizon for 52 days in winter (from November 26 to January 17) and did not set for 72 days in summer (from May 17 to July 27). During the remaining 241 days (8 months), there was an alternation between light and darkness (day-night) (Fig. 14.1). A geomagnetic record of the following variables was obtained at 1-min intervals from the Auroral Observatory of the University of Tromsø, in Tromsø, Norway (latitude 69° 39 min north, longitude 18° 56 min east) (Fig. 14.2): total intensity (F in nT), declination (D, angle between geographic and magnetic north, in degrees), inclination (I, angle between horizontal plane and magnetic direction, in degrees), horizontal intensity (H in nT), and vertical intensity (Z in nT).

One of the 19 subjects was excluded from this analysis, because all 7 days of the monitoring session were geomagnetically active. HRV was compared in the other 18 subjects between the two geomagnetic conditions (presence vs. absence of geomagnetic storm). Abbreviations and designations in frequency terms are shown in Table 14.1. HRV was suppressed during a geomagnetically disturbed day (Fig.14.3). Alterations of HRV associated with geomagnetic activity are summarized in Fig. 14.4. An increase in the 24-hour average of heart rate (HR) (P = 0.020) and a decrease in HRV (P = 0.002) were documented on days of high geomagnetic disturbance, findings fully corroborated as additional profiles were collected. The decrease in spectral power was found primarily at frequencies lower than 0.04 Hz and was not statistically significant around one cycle in the HF component (3.6 sec) (Fig. 14.4). The physiological mechanism involved may be other than the parasympathetic, usually identified with spectral power centered around one cycle in 3.6 s, a spectral region wherein no statistically significant differences were found either in this or in an earlier study. The decrease in HRV was more pronounced in the circaminutan (“VLF”) (21.9 % decrease, p < 0.00001) than in the “ULF” (15.5 % decrease, p = 0.00865) region of the spectrum.

In this table, we propose, whenever possible, the use of midpoints of frequency ranges, whether we deal with the purely physical or the biological spectra. From a biological viewpoint, it is important that one should not call “low/very low/ultralow” frequencies that complete one cycle in seconds or minutes when there are also components with frequencies that complete one cycle in about 10 years [2, 3].

Because of earlier work [1], but only for the purpose of this table, the midpoint was computed as the period corresponding to the middle of the frequency range (midpoint = ((Fmin + Fmax)/2) − 1), using a linear rather than a log frequency scale, which latter is more desirable generally in physics as in biology [4] when wide frequency ranges may have to be dealt with.

Another investigation of 7-day ECG records from five clinically healthy young men living above the arctic circle compared HRV measures assessed over separate 24-hour spans among days of low, middle, and high geomagnetic activity, defined as days with values of the geomagnetic index ap <7, 7–20, and 20–45, respectively. A graded response was demonstrated, the extent of HRV decrease depending on the degree of geomagnetic activity (Fig. 14.5). Specifically, “TF” was decreased by 18.1 % and 31.6 %, “ULF” by 18.1 % and 27.5 %, and “VLF” by 12.9 % and 28.6 %, on days when 7 < ap < 20 and 20 < ap < 45 (vs. days when ap < 7), respectively (Table 14.2). A graded response in HRV to geomagnetic activity suggests the existence of human magnetoreceptors. Phillips and Borland [46] proposed a light-dependent magnetoreception mechanism and established a link between magnetic field sensitivity and the visual system in eastern red-spotted newts. The results observed in this study suggest the operation of a light-darkness-alternation-influenced, if not light-dependent magnetoreception mechanism in humans.