So, there's still the ongoing debate about whether the radiation from mobile phones affects your health or not. But now, according to the British Medical Journal, lightning strikes can seriously injure or kill you if you just happen to be talking on your mobile.

The article states that people are generally likely to survive a lightning strike because of an effect known as a 'flashover' where...

The high resistance of human skin results in lightning being conducted over the skin without entering the body."

This phenomenon has a low mortality. Conductive materials in direct contact with skin such as liquids or metallic objects disrupt the flashover and result in internal injury.

A 15 year old girl was struck in a park in London and a year later, is now in a wheelchair with "complex physical, cognitive, and emotional problems." Other cases that took place where victims have died occured in China, Korea and Malaysia.

Poor girl but... There's not many lightning storms up here in Scotland apart from the last one that happened.

It lasted for 4 hours which was unusual because when one does happen, it passes over in less than 20 minutes or so. I just sat there watching the whole thing flashing in the sky with the lights turned out. Friends who were still on campus working said they could feel the static in the air when they walked outside. Man, I should have peeked outside and checked it out too :P

Related Links: British Medical Journal, BBC News