Harnessing Thor's Hammer: Experimentally induced lightning trauma to human bone by high impulse current.

Lightning fatality identification relies primarily on soft tissue traumatic pattern recognition, prohibiting cause of death identification in cases of full skeletonisation. This study explores the effects of high impulse currents on human bone, simulating lightning-level intensities and characterising electrically induced micro-trauma through conventional thin-section histology and micro-focus X-ray computed tomography (µXCT). An experimental system for high impulse current application was applied to bone extracted from donated cadaveric lower limbs (n = 22). µXCT was undertaken prior to and after current application. Histological sections were subsequently undertaken. µXCT poorly resolved micro-trauma compared to conventional histology which allowed for identification and classification of lightning-specific patterns of micro-trauma. Statistical analyses demonstrated correlation between current intensity, extent and damage typology suggesting a multifaceted mechanism of trauma propagation - a combination of electrically, thermally and pressure induced alterations. This study gives an overview of high impulse current trauma to human bone, providing expanded definitions of associated micro-trauma.

Dataset of photographed lightning events attaching to and around the Brixton tower, Johannesburg, South Africa for the 2015-2016 thunderstorm season.

This data article describes a dataset of videos of lightning flashes to and around a tall tower (the Brixton tower) in Johannesburg, South Africa. The videos were collected during the 2015-2016 South African thunderstorm season and a total of 3623 .mp4 videos are available in the dataset. Three different cameras were used, two in a similar location and the third at a different location giving a 90 degree perspective. Each video is timestamped and labelled depending on the type of event seen (attachment to the tower, nearby the tower, far from the tower, intracloud etc.). This dataset provides ground-truth, timestamped evidence of lightning events a known location and of differing types and can benefit atmospheric research scientists as well as lightning detection operators, particularly with regards to evaluating detection networks operating in the area. As the dataset contains a significant number of labelled videos, it also of use to pattern or image recognition supervised machine learning techniques and researchers.