Lunacy
I've been reading The Last Psychiatrist's blog for a while now. He (she?) was curious about whether the moon cycles really do affect people's craziness and searched for studies and statistics done. After citing them and boring statistics, he concluded something that I think makes better sense.
"My interpretation of this is that the moon can't affect your behavior directly (duh), but one's relationship to lunar cycles could influence your behavior. Take the classic wolf and full moon relationship. Prey animals, such as rats, generally reduce their activity during the full moon (don't want to get caught, I guess.) Wild maned wolves (which eat rats) travelled significantly less during the full moon. The authors' explanation was that prey is less available, so wolves would want to conserve energy. Additionally, maybe one reason why so few studies are American is that we have a lot of artificial night light, so the moon has less or no influence, while elsewhere there is less artificial light? Who knows. I'm going to bed."
Full article here: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2006/11/lunacy.html
"My interpretation of this is that the moon can't affect your behavior directly (duh), but one's relationship to lunar cycles could influence your behavior. Take the classic wolf and full moon relationship. Prey animals, such as rats, generally reduce their activity during the full moon (don't want to get caught, I guess.) Wild maned wolves (which eat rats) travelled significantly less during the full moon. The authors' explanation was that prey is less available, so wolves would want to conserve energy. Additionally, maybe one reason why so few studies are American is that we have a lot of artificial night light, so the moon has less or no influence, while elsewhere there is less artificial light? Who knows. I'm going to bed."
Full article here: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2006/11/lunacy.html