Protostars emit more x-rays, hard and soft, than young sunlike stars i
n more advanced stages of formation. The x-ray emission becomes harder
and stronger during flares. The excess x-rays may arise as a result o
f the time-dependent interaction of an accretion disk with the magneto
sphere of the central star. Flares produced by such fluctuations have
important implications for the x-wind model of protostellar jets, for
the flash-heating of the chondrules found in chondritic meteorites, an
d for the production of short-lived radioactivities through the bombar
dment of primitive rocks by solar cosmic rays.