The best way to start your day? The science backs naked cartwheels in the sun

Exposing your skin to sunlight helps your body to produce vitamin D, which supports healthy bones. Credit: Leopoldo Smith Murillo/Getty In Defense of Sunlight: The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure Rowan Jacobsen Scribner (2026) From childhood, science writer Rowan Jacobsen learnt that sunlight is bad news and the main cause of skin cancer , and that its hazardous rays should be avoided. Yet, that’s a one-sided view, as he explains in his provocative book, In Defense of Sunlight . Regular doses of solar energy might benefit our lives, not imperil them. As easily absorbed as sunlight itself, this vigorous text covers optics, biology, physiology and anthropology. Anyone interested in these fields should applaud its readability, although couch potatoes might find the contents dismaying. Jacobsen fumes at modern indoor lifestyles with the zeal of a “light evangelist”. The surprising science behind red-light therapy — and how it really works How did we become afraid of sunlight? Well, apparently it wasn’t always so. Roman author Pliny the Elder considered sunshine “the most powerful of all remedies”, and the eleventh-century Arabic Canon of Medicin e declared that it “invigorates the brain”. By 1870, California was promoting itself as The Sanatorium of the World as a second influx of ‘gold rushers’ came to the state, this time to hunt for photons. …