That really doesn't explain Desmond's situation at all. A wormhole doesn't explain how his mind is time traveling, but his physical body isn't.
The claim that the writers "did their homework" in regard to electromagnetic radiation isn't very convincing either. Wow, it takes a lot of energy to rip a hole in the fabric of space-time? They must have a doctorate in physics if they could come up with that!

Ghostwine, did you read the actual article on Popular Mechanics? They answered that in the article:

"Maybe like a huge source of electromagnetic energy that needs to be discharged every 108 minutes to keep from ripping a giant, gaping hole in the time-space continuum? Like the one that Desmond got an extreme closeup with in the Season 2 finale?"

Yeah, I did read the "actual" article. I also engaged in it critically. The scientific theories the article references doesn't explain why Desmond's mind goes through time. A wormhole would displace objects (ie. his body) temporally. However, we can tell this doesn't happen because characters react as if Desmond's gone catatonic for the duration of the displacement. The article barely ties into Lost at all, and the quotes from the book don't even explain anything about time travel in depth (unless you count the bit about time travel requiring energy, which is kind of common sense anyway since ANY type of displacement, temporal or spacial, requires energy).

What's cool about the popular Mechanics series is that they speak to the fans who are not science majors in college. The fans who only want to go toe-deep into the science of the show. Sure, they'll occasionally be out-argued by our beloved science geeks, but for many viewers, the toe-deep observations are interesting and informative.

Desmonds consciousness was already flashing through time, "unstuck" in time, before they left on the helicopter, as evidenced by his visions of Charlies death, and his ability to go back and almost change his past, when he met M. Hawking. His condition, obviously started by the hatch explosion/implosion, was further agitated and progressed by their passing out through whatever phenomenon surrounds the island, as well perhaps, by flying through the highly charged energy they did when they flew "directly into the thunderhead."

HOW DO YOU DO…
TIME TRAVEL

21st century boring you?
Want a way to walk with dinosaurs that isn’t sitting really close to the TV to watch an unrealistic 3D diplodocus eat leaves?
You need a holiday in time, or dinoworld

Tick, tick, tick… tick

1.5 million years since fire was lit, 35,000 years after the birth of art, 16,000 years from the first mappings of stars and 600 years since the blueprints of the helicopter were drawn. We sit here thinking, “Y’know the 21st century could have been a bit more, well, silvery.” Aside from those metal toasters that’ll burn a farmyard animal into your bread and those credit cards with one of the corners cut off a bit. The 21st century has had:

No proper Robots. My house isn’t doing stuff for me when I go to work so when I get back it’s like a new house and the kitchens in the bathroom. Cars and skateboards don’t hover. We can’t holiday in space and the so called information super highway is still not bypassing my brain with an LCD screen in my eye and USB ports in my tippy toes.

AHHhhhh, yet as a time traveller you can go to the future where these things should have occurred with a few other things that you probably didn’t think about; like a chocolate bar called waffpinuts. A wafer, pineapple and nuts bar wrapped in Kevlar.

Then, go back in time to tell all those people on Tomorrows World that hoodwinked our innocent child eyes, “Hey hey, perm-head, that ain't going to happen you pre-foetus futurist fuck.”
And they’d have to believe your aggressive preaching cos you’d bring an almanac from 2008 with all the sports results and next weeks Eastenders from UK-GOLD, so there.

...continues at lifestyleguides.blogspot.com