ONE OF the last refuges of climate-change sceptics is looking as sturdy as a bivouac in a hurricane. While most scientists believe that global warming is a man-made phenomenon, a minority have clung to the belief that the fluctuating energy output of the Sun is to blame. Indeed, Tim Hames aired the possibility on these pages that evidence for this intuitively pleasing idea may be uncovered by the Stereo probes, a Nasa mission to document flaming ejections from the solar surface.

Now it appears that the Sun has played only a minor role in frying the planet. Scientists have examined various proxies of solar energy output over the past 1,000 years and have found no evidence that they are correlated with today’s rising temperatures. Satellite observations over the past 30 years have also turned up nothing. “The solar contribution to warming . . . is negligible,” the researchers wrote in the journal Nature.

The 11-year sunspot cycle also appears not to be linked to global warming. Production of beryllium 10, an isotope resulting from the interaction of cosmic rays and the upper atmosphere, should fall during periods of high solar activity; no such overall decrease was found in Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets over the past millennium.

The researchers also discredit the idea that the Sun is implicated in past variations in climate. Yes, the Thames froze over in the 17th century, but the freeze was confined to Western Europe; a dimming Sun, they argue, would have had a global effect. The researchers, led by Dr Peter Foukal, of Heliophysics Inc, a private research company in Massachusetts, point out that previous Ice Ages appear to be more strongly related to the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.

“Our results imply that over the past century climate change due to human influences must far outweigh the effects of changes in the Sun’s brightness,” said Tom Wigley, of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, who co-authored the study.

• CHILDREN who were separated from siblings and other relatives during the Holocaust now stand a chance of being reunited, thanks to the DNA Shoah project (www.dnashoah.info/).

  The project is building a genetic database of survivors and their descendants; when bones from mass graves are uncovered (such graves are still being found today), the DNA recovered can be tested for a match. The effort was set up by Syd Mandelbaum, the son of two Holocaust survivors, and Dr Michael Hammer, a geneticist at the University of Arizona.

• PRAISE the lard! Sociologists have found that religions do more than just nourish the soul: they also expand the waistline. Ken Ferraro, of Purdue University in Indiana, questioned 2,500 people about their religious practices and measured their body mass index (BMI).

  Women who watched religious television programmes and read religious texts were more likely to be obese than women who did not (although frequent religious attendance was also associated with lower rates of obesity). Men did not show a similar pattern.

  Even allowing for their Southern roots, Baptists were the largest all-round congregation, with 30 per cent being obese. Next, with an obesity rate of 22 per cent, was Fundamentalist Protestant (including Church of Christ and Pentecostal). Third, at 19 per cent, was Pietistic Protestant, which embraces the Methodists, among others.

  Some 17 per cent of Roman Catholics are obese. Among non-believers, the rate was 7 per cent. Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons came in at 3 per cent, and Jews at 1 per cent. Taken together, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists had an obesity rate of 0.7 per cent.

  Professor Ferraro suggests that Baptists may fare badly because alcohol and cigarettes are frowned upon, leaving food the only legitimate vice. He also notes that the lowest obesity indices were found among religions, such as Buddhism and Judaism, featuring strict dietary codes.

  In addition, the study noted that Baptists and those immersed in fundamentalist religions tended to be less well educated than other followers; lack of education is known to be a risk factor for obesity.

  Professor Ferraro published his results in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. The findings are worth chewing over before sending your kids to sundae school.

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