> Some emerging research suggests Earth’s magnetism matters, as well. Being barefoot on the ground versus 30 stories high in a downtown skyscraper puts you in a completely different magnetic environment.
Really? My instinctive reaction to this statement is that it's quackery. Would be very interested to see headlines appear about this if it's true.
It's definitely quackery. There's way more "natural" magnetic variation between two different cities than between a ground floor apartment and a 30th floor apartment (see magnetic declination maps), and that's even before you get into the way-more-powerful magnetic fields generated or present in a home.
This is called "grounding" or "earthing" and Wikipedia doesn't pull punches in dismissing it [0]. You can buy grounding wires for your mattress or copper rivets for your shoes.
From my tissue engineering class in undergrad my 2 cents is this is maybe 95% supplements quackery and 5% genuine mystery. You can find papers that claim EM fields have cellular interactions [1]. I don't think serious scientists will touch conventional earthing, though.
People already live in different altitudes, ie with vastly different amounts of rock between themselves and the bits of the earth that produce her magnetic field.
So colour me skeptical of this claim as well.
And while I like going barefoot for other reasons, I don't think it makes much of a difference to the magnetic fields.
> People already live in different altitudes, ie with vastly different amounts of rock between themselves and the bits of the earth that produce her magnetic field.
It's not really the same thing. Construction and especially the high content of charged metal (whether it's power conduits or plain old frame) may make a considerable difference.
Do many people sleep in such tall buildings? Obviously they exist, but I can't think of any over-20 story residential building I've ever been in. Office space, sure, but not residential.
I would not jump to such conclusions, I would assume is not fully known and needs to be further understood.
on the other side, do you know we have polarized and non-polarized cells? do you know they can be affected by electromagnetism?
this two things already establish the existence of a relationship and effects between them. If we then consider that cells mechanism work based on differential of electrical or chemical potentials, and that they continuously use that for their functions, reactions or environmental compensations well...
I just think they are related and we need to understand better.
Fascinating, but polarization is a red herring. Magnetism is famously the wildly-unreactive half of electromagnetism; copper is REALLY sensitive to electricity and REALLY insensitive to magnetism.
Really? My instinctive reaction to this statement is that it's quackery. Would be very interested to see headlines appear about this if it's true.