A connection between Solar Cosmic Rays and Cancer Rates?

Interesting. This is not a proven connection yet, but look interesting. [Link]

The study looked at available cancer death data from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand for the past 100-140 years. These data were compared with the amount of cosmic rays coming from the Sun during the same period, taken from analysis of ice core samples from Greenland and Antarctica.

Dr. Juckett showed that as the amount of cosmic ray activity increased, the number of people who died from cancer was also higher. There are two peaks in cosmic ray activity during this point, around 1800 and 1900, and a low point around 1860. The total deaths due to cancer were highest, though, around 1830 and 1930, and lowest in the 1890's.

There is a 28-year lag between the increased presence of cosmic rays and the increase in cancer deaths. It's not so simple as a person being exposed to cosmic rays and then developing cancer immediately afterwards. What is called the "grandmother effect" comes into play; the cosmic rays actually damage the germ cells of one's parent while that parent is still in the grandmother's womb.

"The grandmother would have to be exposed to radiation - which she is all the time - while she is pregnant with the mother of the affected individual. What this is basically implying is that, during a sensitive time in pregnancy, the constant background radiation may cause a chemical change in just the right cell and DNA stretch to lead to future cancer. The background radiation is causing very low level damage all the time to random cells in the body, but anything significant happening to germ cells would lead to a whole organism eventually carrying that damage (or predisposition)." said Dr. Juckett.

So, the parent is exposed to cosmic rays while still developing as a fetus, and this damage then emerges as cancer in the parent's children, but is not passed down further.