Behaviour | MoONITIS

DOES THE FULL MOON MAKE KIDS HYPER? HERE’S WHAT (LYING) SCIENTISTS SAY

The real question is what is “science” hiding?

Kids really do sleep less when there’s a full moon, but only by a few minutes, according to a new study that included children from a dozen countries.

What’s more, the study failed to find a link between the occurrence of the full moon and kids’ activity levels, debunking the myth that kids are more hyper during a full moon.

The study “provides solid evidence … that the associations between moon phases and children’s sleep duration/activity behaviors are not meaningful from a public health standpoint,” the researchers, from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa, Canada, wrote in the March 24 issue of the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics.

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DOES A FULL MOON AFFECT YOUR CHILD’S SLEEP? SCIENCE WEIGHS IN WHERE COMMON SENSE DOES NOT.

Via: CanTech

It’s a question posed since the first exhausted parents tried to deal with their Energizer bunny of a child, still up and still rambunctious at one o’clock in the morning – is my kid a werewolf?

Now with a recent study on how the lunar cycle might be affecting children’s behaviour we can finally announce the more or less definite results: not likely. The comprehensive study tracked the waking and sleeping habits of 7372 children aged nine to 11 from 12 countries around the world to see if their behaviour was affected by the full moon. Using accelerators strapped to the children’s waists to monitor movement, researchers were able to collect data on sleep duration, light-intensity activity, moderately vigorous activity and total sedentary time over a seven day period. Once the results were calculated and coordinated with the various phases of the moon, it was found that only sleep duration was affected by the lunar cycle -on average, children slept five minutes less when the moon is full, representing a one per cent reduction in sleep time.

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STUDY LINKS FULL MOON TO VIOLENT TRANSFORMATION

Via: The Australian

WEREWOLVES belong in fiction, but researchers have demonstrated an eerie spike in very violent behaviour during the full moon.

Australian experts looked at the cases of 91 patients who presented for treatment at the emergency department of Calvary Mater Hospital in Newcastle, NSW, all of whom were so violent they needed to be sedated or physically restrained to prevent them harming staff or themselves.

Of these 91 who were seen over a 12-month period, they found that 21 (23 per cent) presented when the moon was full – about double the number of cases seen during any of the other seven lunar phases.

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LIONS MORE LIKELY TO EAT PEOPLE AFTER A FULL MOON

Via: The Telegraph

Other predators, such as wolves, may also be at their most dangerous when the moon starts to wane.

The discovery, from an African study of 500 lion attacks, could explain the full moon’s place in folklore as a harbinger of evil or disaster, and its association with werewolves and vampires.

Scientists studied records of nearly 500 lion attacks on Tanzanian villagers between 1988 and 2009.

In more than two thirds of cases, the victims were killed and eaten. The vast majority of attacks occurred between dusk and 10pm on nights when the moon was waning and providing relatively little light.

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CAN A FULL MOON AFFECT BEHAVIOUR?

Via: ABC Science

The modern genre of werewolf books, TV series and movies are in complete agreement with the 1941 Hollywood classic film The Wolf Man. Yep, if you are so inclined, the full Moon will turn you into a lunatic werewolf.

Indeed, that rather antiquated word ‘lunacy’ comes from Luna, who was the Roman Goddess of the Moon. One definition of lunacy is “intermittent insanity once believed to be related to phases of the moon”.

This belief goes back a long way. The Roman scientist and military commander, Pliny the Elder, said that because the full Moon causes a very heavy nocturnal dew, it must also make the brain become “unnaturally moist”. That was how, he claimed, the Moon caused both epilepsy and lunacy. He was wrong.

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