午夜福利1000集合

IN The Wolf Man, Larry Talbot knows he鈥檚 just impossible at certain
times of the month. In one famous scene from this 1941 Hollywood classic, he
catches sight of his palms and howls in horror. They鈥檙e hairy鈥攁 sure sign
there鈥檚 a full Moon and he鈥檚 turning into a werewolf.

OK, so it鈥檚 just a silly movie. All the same, lots of people harbour a
sneaking suspicion that the Moon really can influence how we behave鈥攖hough
probably not to the extent of turning us into wolves. Numerous studies have
looked for a relationship between the Moon and behaviour and many have found
one. Crime, violence and accidents seem to be more common when the Moon is full.
Women appear more likely to give birth, especially if they鈥檙e having twins.

Mundane behaviours such as eating and drinking have also been linked to the
phases of the Moon. Late last year researchers at British Telecom even found
that its customers were more likely to surf the Internet during a full Moon.
Lunacy, it seems, is an idea that just won鈥檛 go away. So is there anything in
it?

Belief in the Moon鈥檚 power to unsettle and even disrupt human behaviour
stretches back to antiquity鈥攖he word lunacy derives from Luna, the Roman
goddess of the Moon鈥攁nd persisted well into Victorian times, when 鈥渓unacy
acts鈥� regulated the treatment of the insane. In the 1830s, inmates of London鈥檚
notorious lunatic asylum Bedlam were bound, chained and flogged as the full Moon
approached, as a precautionary measure against 鈥渋ncreased turbulence鈥�.

The rise of modern science made lunacy theories unfashionable, yet in recent
years they have made a comeback. With the rise of chronobiology鈥攖he study
of the biological clocks ticking away in virtually every organism鈥攈as come
a new-found interest in periodic changes in behaviour, some of which might just
be linked to the Moon鈥檚 29.5-day cycle.

Over the past 20 years, researchers looking for lunar rhythms among people
have found them all over the place. Calls to crisis centres, absenteeism, heart
attacks and mental hospital admissions have all been linked to phases of the
Moon. Rape, robbery, assault, theft, domestic violence, suicide attempts,
poisonings, drunkenness and disorderly conduct also appear to become more
prevalent in the two or three days around a full Moon. A study in 1995 by
psychologists at Georgia State University in Atlanta found that people ate more
food but drank less alcohol when the Moon was full. In another study from 1998,
a trio of Italian mathematicians looked at the timing of births. They reported
鈥渟ignificant clustering鈥� of deliveries in the first or second day after the full
Moon. The effect was particularly strong in mothers who had already had at least
one child, or who gave birth to twins or triplets.

What鈥檚 more, survey after survey has revealed an entrenched belief among
healthcare workers鈥攖he people who mop up after madness descends鈥攊n
the power of the Moon. In the US, four out of five mental-health professionals
and two-thirds of emergency doctors believe that human behaviour is influenced
by the Moon.

The latest piece of evidence suggests that the lunar cycle even influences
our use of technology. Last year, researchers at British Telecom noticed a
29-day cycle of peaks and troughs in network traffic. 鈥淛ust out of curiosity,鈥�
says Stewart Davies of BT, 鈥渨e matched the cycle against the phases of the
Moon.鈥� The cycles coincided. In the seven days before a full Moon, people spent
more time talking on the phone or surfing the Internet than at other times of
the month. If this apparent link stands up to scrutiny, says Davies, BT could
soon be managing its network according to the phases of the Moon.

Feeling phased

If a sober, blue-chip company like BT is thinking about changing its business
practices to account for lunacy, surely there must be something in it? Not
necessarily. There are plenty of reasons to believe that the whole idea is pure
moonshine.

For every study that finds a correlation, there鈥檚 another that doesn鈥檛.
Researchers have repeatedly looked for a link between the phases of the Moon and
the onset of mania and depression. Nobody has found one. What鈥檚 more, positive
correlations are often unrepeatable. Car accidents, emergency room admissions,
alcohol intake, drug overdoses and the timing of births, for example, have all
been shown to be unrelated to the phases of Moon鈥攆latly contradicting
earlier studies. Add to this the fact that few researchers bother to publish
negative results, and the lunacy theory starts to look flimsy. In all
likelihood, positive results are freak events.

And anyway, how might the Moon exert an influence over the way we behave? No
one knows, and the ideas that have been put forward are barely plausible.

Take the 鈥渂iological tides鈥� theory. The idea is that since our bodies are 80
per cent water, the Moon must 鈥減ull鈥� on our bodily fluids just as it does on the
oceans. Sounds dubious, and it is. In 1995, Daniel Myers of the University of
Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine launched a scathing attack on this idea in
The Journal of Emergency Medicine. He points out that the gravitational pull of
the Moon has little to do with whether it鈥檚 full or not. Peaks happen twice a
day regardless of the Moon鈥檚 phase. Lunar gravity is minuscule compared with the
gravitational effects we experience in daily life. 鈥淭he acceleration due to
walking would create gravitational effects of far greater magnitude than those
caused by the Moon and Sun combined,鈥� he says.

Another idea is that the Moon influences the weather, which in turn makes us
act strangely. There is some support for this鈥攁 US National Weather
Service study in the 1970s found there was 10 per cent more rain in the days
after a new or full Moon. And wet weather makes people gloomy. 鈥淚t could be a
case of rainy days and Mondays always getting me down,鈥� says George Masterton, a
psychiatrist at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, who has found that people are
slightly more likely to attempt suicide during full or new Moons.

But if there is an effect, it鈥檚 an indirect one. According to Britain鈥檚
meteorological office in Bracknell, Berkshire, there鈥檚 no direct link between
the phases of the Moon and the weather. Rather, any apparent effect is caused by
the tides鈥� subtle influence over the weather鈥攆ogs rolling in from the sea
at high tide, for example. But once again the effect is small.

Can we blame it on the moonlight? Well-known neural pathways link the eye to
the body鈥檚 biological clock in the hypothalamus and pineal gland鈥攖he
source of the jet-lag hormone melatonin鈥攁s work by Josephine Arendt at the
University of Surrey and others has established. The trouble, says Arendt, is
that moonlight itself is probably far too faint to influence these timekeeping
mechanisms.

If that wasn鈥檛 bad enough for the believers, there are also doubts as to the
validity of the research. Back in 1985, psychologists James Rotton of Florida
International University in Miami and Ivan Kelly of the University of
Saskatchewan, Canada, examined 37 lunacy studies. They concluded that most were
beset by methodological problems. When they corrected for these, all those
intriguing relationships between human behaviour and phases of the Moon
vanished.

Lunacy, then, doesn鈥檛 stand up to scrutiny. There鈥檚 too much negative
evidence, too many methodological errors and no plausible mechanism. A victory
for the sceptics, but one that still leaves one nagging question. Why is the
lunar myth so persistent?

Psychiatrist Charles Raison of the University of California at Los Angeles
believes he has the answer. He argues that the lunacy myth is a 鈥渃ultural
fossil鈥濃�攁 memory of a time when the Moon really did have a
behaviour-altering power that it has since lost.

What鈥檚 changed in modern times, he says, is the importance of the Moon as a
source of nocturnal illumination. In the days before gas lamps and electric
lights, when candles were an expensive luxury, a moonlit night gave people an
opportunity to do all sorts of things鈥攑lough, hunt or travel, for
instance. In the three days around the full Moon, lunar light is 12 times
stronger than at half full. Overall, people stayed up later and slept less
during the full Moon than at other times of the month, Raison argues.

Here at last is a plausible link between the Moon and behaviour. Sleep
deprivation over a single night can induce mania, Raison says, even in healthy
people. Epileptic fits can also be provoked by sleep deprivation, and may once
have been blamed on the malign influence of the Moon. Raison鈥檚 theory also
neatly explains why lunar influences are so elusive today. He suspects that
artificial lighting swamps any effects the Moon used to exert on the way we
behave.

There is already evidence that artificial lighting in towns and cities
suppresses changes in circadian rhythms, including the release of melatonin.
Thomas Wehr and his colleagues at the National Institute of Mental 午夜福利1000集合 in
Bethesda, Maryland, found that men living in Washington DC showed none of the
predicted seasonal changes in body chemistry. The highly lit urban environment
blocks the body鈥檚 response to seasonal changes in the hours of daylight. If
artificial lighting can do that, it can surely swamp any impact of moonlight.
Even the brightest full Moon can鈥檛 compete with sitting near a 100-watt light
bulb.

It鈥檚 a neat idea, experts in human biorhythms agree. 鈥淚鈥檝e worked in
Botswana, in a place where there was no mains electricity,鈥� says nutritionist
Linda Morgan of the University of Surrey. 鈥淭he difference in activity cycles
when the Moon was full was very marked. People were out and about visiting
people well into the night. The whole fabric of society, the feasts and such
like, was organised around full Moons.鈥�

Raison鈥檚 idea is even testable. Researchers should look for the effects of
the Moon in societies where it still influences sleep-wake cycles, he suggests.
Native Americans living traditional lifestyles in the south-western US might be
ideal for such a study, he says. There we might find the ancient belief in the
power of the Moon vindicated at last鈥攁nd settle a question as old as
lunacy itself.

Humans are not the only ones supposedly under the Moon鈥檚 influence. Some
people think animals are lunatics too.

In January, The Veterinary Record published a letter from Michael
Gilmore, a vet working in the Dordogne, about a widespread belief in France that
the full Moon makes horses more prone to colic. He wanted to know if similar
beliefs were prevalent in Britain and Ireland.

In reply, Fergal Hennessy, a vet in County Clare, reported that the Moon had
a huge influence on his working life. Folk traditions hold that the waxing Moon
promotes healthy growth in animals and is the best time for calving. It is also
a good time for planting seeds and cutting hair. Many of Hennessy鈥檚 clients
would not undertake routine chores, such as dehorning or castrating livestock,
if the Moon was waxing鈥攖hey feared the animals would bleed excessively.
But such chores would be tackled with gusto while the Moon was waning. Local
people also believed that weeding, cutting corns or charming warts were best
done by a waning Moon.

There is some evidence that animal behaviour is influenced by the Moon. Last
year, Chanchal Bhattacharjee, a casualty doctor at the Bradford Royal Infirmary,
published a paper in the British Medical Journal examining the timing
of 1621 bite injuries from animals鈥攊nflicted mostly by dogs, but also
cats, rats and horses鈥攐ver three years. To his surprise, he found that the
number of victims rose swiftly a few days before a full Moon and peaked sharply
on the day of the full Moon itself.

But as always seems to be the case with lunacy research, there is also
evidence to the contrary. Alongside Bhattacharjee鈥檚 paper, the BMJ
published a study by Simon Chapman of the department of public health at the
University of Sydney. His conclusion was that admissions for dog bites are no
more frequent during a full Moon than at any other time.