When the authors reanalyzed their data to eliminate this confounding factor, the lunar effect vanished.
#Full moom february full
Yet a fatal flaw marred these findings: in the period under consideration, full moons were more common on weekends, when more people drive. In one study published in 1982 an author team reported that traffic accidents were more frequent on full-moon nights than on other nights. Still, even the handful of research claims that seem to support full-moon effects have collapsed on closer investigation. Persistent critics have disagreed with this conclusion, pointing to a few positive findings that emerge in scattered studies. In their 1985 review of 37 studies entitled “Much Ado about the Full Moon,” which appeared in one of psychology’s premier journals, Psychological Bulletin, Rotton and Kelly humorously bid adieu to the full-moon effect and concluded that further research on it was unnecessary. By combining the results of multiple studies and treating them as though they were one huge study-a statistical procedure called meta-analysis-they have found that full moons are entirely unrelated to a host of events, including crimes, suicides, psychiatric problems and crisis center calls. In all cases, they have come up empty-handed. Kelly have searched far and wide for any consistent behavioral effects of the full moon.
Florida International University psychologist James Rotton, Colorado State University astronomer Roger Culver and University of Saskatchewan psychologist Ivan W. There is a more serious problem for fervent believers in the lunar lunacy effect: no evidence that it exists. Third, the gravitational effect of the moon is just as potent during new moons-when the moon is invisible to us-as it is during full moons. Yet to the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports of a “mosquito lunacy effect.” Second, the moon’s gravitational force affects only open bodies of water, such as oceans and lakes, but not contained sources of water, such as the human brain. As the late astronomer George Abell of the University of California, Los Angeles, noted, a mosquito sitting on our arm exerts a more powerful gravitational pull on us than the moon does. First, the gravitational effects of the moon are far too minuscule to generate any meaningful effects on brain activity, let alone behavior. The human body, after all, is about 80 percent water, so perhaps the moon works its mischievous magic by somehow disrupting the alignment of water molecules in the nervous system.īut there are at least three reasons why this explanation doesn’t “hold water,” pardon the pun. even added officers on full-moon nights in an effort to cope with presumed higher crime rates.įollowing Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, some contemporary authors, such as Miami psychiatrist Arnold Lieber, have conjectured that the full moon’s supposed effects on behavior arise from its influence on water. In 2007 several police departments in the U.K.
One survey revealed that 45 percent of college students believe moonstruck humans are prone to unusual behaviors, and other surveys suggest that mental health professionals may be still more likely than laypeople to hold this conviction.
#Full moom february professional
Belief in the “lunar lunacy effect,” or “Transylvania effect,” as it is sometimes called, persisted in Europe through the Middle Ages, when humans were widely reputed to transmogrify into werewolves or vampires during a full moon.Įven today many people think the mystical powers of the full moon induce erratic behaviors, psychiatric hospital admissions, suicides, homicides, emergency room calls, traffic accidents, fights at professional hockey games, dog bites and all manner of strange events. Indeed, the Roman goddess of the moon bore a name that remains familiar to us today: Luna, prefix of the word “lunatic.” Greek philosopher Aristotle and Roman historian Pliny the Elder suggested that the brain was the “moistest” organ in the body and thereby most susceptible to the pernicious influences of the moon, which triggers the tides. Hover over events for more details.ACROSS THE CENTURIES, many a person has uttered the phrase “There must be a full moon out there” in an attempt to explain weird happenings at night. Current lunation cycle is highlighted yellow. Dates are based on the Gregorian calendar. Time is adjusted for DST when applicable.
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