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Weather fluctuations can have subtle and dangerous effects on your health, including a small increased risk of stroke, cancer or mental illness.

After looking at 3,289 first-time stroke sufferers in Dijon, France, researchers found there were fewer strokes in warmer months and more strokes overall when there was a drop in temperature five days beforehand. French neurologist Dominique Minier says the underlying mechanisms are not clear, but theorizes that temperature drops may affect the way that blood clots, increasing stroke risk.

Mental health may be effected by the weather too. Too little sun during winter months can lead to depression in some people. Now we know that our brains can be influenced by weather before we even leave the womb.
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Space-based missile defenses systems could produce dangerous space debris that would make low-Earth orbits permanently unusable, according to Joel Primack of the University of California at Santa Cruz. The orbiting anti-missile battle stations proposed by the U.S. could result in so much space junk that other satellites wouldn?t have room to operate.

Most critics of the U.S. military’s missile defense program focus on the imperfect trial results of their ground-based interceptors, which have destroyed dummy warheads in four out of six trials. But in tests, neither the target or the interceptor reach orbital velocity, so most of the debris they produce falls to the ground.
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When Earth is next hit by an asteroid, the impact may well be doubled, since a new study estimates that 16 percent of asteroids in the region of space shared by Earth’s orbit are actually double asteroids, called binaries. Evidence shows that impacts on Earth sometimes involve a pair of craters. Researchers say these pairs may have been created by the effect of Earth’s gravity, which tears asteroids apart when they come too close.

Astronomers say binary asteroids larger than 219 yards appear to be formed extremely close to Earth. Five such systems have been spotted by radar telescopes. Asteroids this close to the planet are called Near Earth Asteroids, or NEAs, and are watched closely by astronomers who fear they may one day hit Earth.
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As parts of Antarctica are fall into the sea, new satellite data shows that these dramatic changes are affecting the growth of small organisms important to the local food chain. Icebergs that have broken off from the Ross Ice Shelf have caused a 40 percent reduction in the size of the 2000-2001 plankton bloom in one of Antarctica’s most biologically productive areas. The icebergs decrease the amount of open water, which the plants need in order to reproduce.
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