WATCHING a solar eclipse may be so stressful that it is bad for your health, say British researchers. So there might be a grain of truth in myths surrounding eclipses after all.

Omar Mian at Manchester University and Rubina Mian and Doug Thake at Coventry University were mocking tales of eclipses making people sick, or even causing deformities in unborn children. "Then I pointed out there was no evidence either way," says Rubina Mian.

Mian took her graduate students to a field in Briey, France, to watch the 1999 summer eclipse. By analysing their blood samples with a luminometer, the researchers found that leukocyte activity increased by 8.7 per cent during the eclipse. These white blood cells usually help our immune system, but if overstimulated they can damage DNA by releasing free radicals. Experiments after the eclipse showed that darkness, silence and temperature had no effect on leukocyte activity. But in other studies being prepared for publication Mian has found that stress can have a big effect.

"I know I was stressed," says Mian about the eclipse. "It was really quite overwhelming." And if it's stressful for her, Mian says it must be worse for those who don't understand what an eclipse is, or who believe legends about the phenomenon. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns224970