NOTES AND QUOTES: WOOLLY SCIENCE

A lot of weird stuff in the papers lately. I thought this might be of interest to our readers, from the Bath Chronicle, March 27, 2015. Thanks to the ever-informative Angry People in Local Papers website. In the final paragraph Dr Robert Salmon from the University of Durham seems to have nailed it. 

Solar eclipse killed my sheep, says Gloucestershire farmer
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A farmer from Gloucestershire reckons two of his sheep were killed by the solar eclipse.

Rob Taylor found two of his flock of around 250 ewes dead in one of his fields, which he believes is down to electromagnetic radiation blasting from the phenomenon.

Mr Taylor believes his sheep died on Wednesday - five days after the eclipse - due to a lack of calcium in their blood.

The farmer, who operates 200 acres at his farm in south Gloucestershire, said: "I was walking through my field and saw that two of my sheep were dead.

"I tested them and my results show they died from acute hypo-calcification of the blood. It was brought about by electromagnetic radiation flooding back down to Earth immediately after the eclipse. I thought the eclipse would, of course, change mineral levels in livestock, but I did not think that it would be fatal."

Mr Taylor has spent the last 27 years studying supposed effects of radiation from the Sun on livestock.

During the BSE crisis in the 1990s, Mr Taylor had a number of his herd diagnosed with 'mad cow disease'.



A POSSIBLE TEST SUBJECT FOR DOCTOR SALMON

Mr Taylor runs 'Earthing Therapy' - an alternative website based on unreported effects of minerals on livestock. His website states that he researches "the inherent deficiencies in the trace minerals copper and selenium, that affect the pastures." Mr Taylor also reckons mineral toxicology can be rapid and irreversible.

He said: "The specific relationship between anti-oxidants, derived from these minerals, free radicals and the operation of the natural detoxification systems within mammals, are so critical for both their physiological and psychological well-being. "It is this through investigating this particularly complex, dynamic and confusing area of research, that I have come to study the way in which the body adapts to environmental change and the nature of intolerance syndromes, such as chemical and electrical sensitivities."

But since Mr Taylor does not have accurate calcium level readings in the sheep that died before and after the eclipse, actual scientists would struggle to back up his theory.

Biologist Dr Robert Salmon, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Durham, said: "Without much more empirical scientific research and a large amount of data, this does not seem likely, otherwise scores of sheep across the country may have died.

"The circadian rhythm of the sheep could have been disturbed by the eclipse, but that could be tested by putting a bag on its head during the day and seeing if its calcium levels dropped."

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