An Ill Wind

When I first wrote about wind turbine syndrome last year, I was pretty dubious of it. Since then, I've periodically returned to the subject to explore the wider implications of its premise. To refresh: Some people who live near wind farms say the noise from the whirring blades is making them sick. There is no good evidence for this, but several recent studies suggest that the adverse symptoms (such as headaches and vertigo) are a psychosomatic response to the fear-mongering of anti-wind activists and newspapers. This week in Slate I discuss the new research on wind turbine syndrome and how the condition apparently spreads. What is interesting to me, which I talk about in the piece, are the commonalities between wind turbine syndrome and the great electromagnetic field scare. Have a read. Another new piece in Slate that I highly recommend reading is by science writer George Johnson (and a fellow Discover blogger), who takes a cold-eyed look at supposed cancer clusters.