I work in a hospital, and a surprising number of my scientifically-trained medical colleagues have more superstitions about the full moon than we we have bed pans (which, by the way, now come in plastic and designer colors (why????), so you literally won’t freeze…well, you know.)
Back to the full moon. If you are addicted to nature shows like I am, you know that lunar cycles affect a lot of things, like when turtles come onto beaches and lay their eggs. Many other marine invertebrates and vertebrates (like the California grunion) also time spawning, mating, and egg-laying to lunar cycles, although not all during a full moon.
Lunar Phases Illustration. Credit: University of Nebraska, Lincoln
However, in a British study published this year by Dr. Rachel Grant, a biologist specializing in amphibians, she documented over a ten year period that newts, frogs, and salamanders synchronize their mating activity to the full moon. Lucky them. Although the thought of spending ten years crawling through the damp marshy underbrush of the English countryside at night, full moon or not, to confirm the amorous activities of newts, frogs, and salamanders, falls far from my idea of fun. I tip my hat to Dr. Grant for her tenacity. Maybe it’s a British thing. For the full BBC article, click here.
English Newt. Credit: Adur Valley Wildlife, West Sussex, England; http://www.glaucus.org.uk/Town2004.htm
But when it comes to we humans, we just plain got the short shrift on the whole lunar cycle thing. Maybe God was thinking, “I’m going to give my humans that big brain, with all the fancy frontal lobe options, so I’ll just scratch the full moon thing I gave the amphibians off the list.” Except he seems to have left the “Fascination with the Full Moon” switch in the on position, so with the big frontal lobe we made up a whole bunch of stuff to fill in the gap. It’s just that none of it is true, even though we really, really want it to be.
Why I am thinking about this? (Don’t ask my wife; she’ll have a completely different answer.) For one thing, the existence of water on the moon was confirmed this week by NASA spacecraft, and that is a critically important resource if we ever go back to the moon. Send people, that is. With water, you can make, well, water to drink, you can make air by splitting the 2 H’s from the 1 O, and, you can make rocket fuel, by combining the H’s and the O’s and lighting them.
The other reason is MSNBC.com published an article on moon myths, titled, “Moon myths: How real are lunar health effects?” And since it is a good idea to keep lunar myths about health out of the Health Care Reform Legislation–They do not need another distraction–I thought I would offer you the chance to read the MSNBC piece: Click here, and then share your favorite myth, or if you’ve heard one they don’t list, it would be fun to add it. More fun than crawling through the muck looking for newts in the process of propagating their species.
Oh, and if you can find any scriptural references to the moon, by all means, include it. I just didn’t take the time to look.
Incidentally, the next full moon occurs on October 3, at 23:12 PDT. It is typically called the “Hunter’s Moon” but also is known from older sources as the “Blood Moon.” So, if you have clear skies and go out to moon at the full moon, please give the amphibians their privacy.
UPDATE and CORRECTION: According to Spaceweather.com, the full moon on October 3 is called the Harvest Moon, because it occurs after the Fall Equinox, regardless of whether it falls in September or October. The hunters apparently get the lunar short shrift this year. The next full moon is November 2, and the one after that December 1, but also December 31 (New Year’s Eve by the Full Moon! There’s got to be a myth about that, even if we have to make one up.) So the whole moon name thing doesn’t always line up really well.
Full Moon taken from the International Space Station. This is what the moon looks like without having to view it through earth's atmosphere. Credit: Nasa.gov.
Next time: Is the dark side of the moon really dark?
Blessings,
David
DISCI: Disciples' Institute for Scientific and Cosmological Inquiry 
Let’s see. This comes to mind. Sleeping in the light of the (full?) moon will make you a…lunatic. I guess we should be having sex instead of sleeping.
Are you old enough to remember the common “green cheese” expaination?
One late night when I was on-call in the ER, several ER nurses were blaming the patient volume on the full moon. I made the mistake of first, pointing out it wasn’t a full moon that night, and second, that there was no evidence that ER visits actually increased during full moons. Well! You would have thought I had committed heresy. They launched into all the evidence they had that they were right (it wasn’t mean, we all knew each other) and there was no way they were going to modify their beliefs based on the mere scientific fact. I decided that keeping my mouth shut in the future would be the best way to preserve our working friendship! I would have had more success using the “green cheese” myth; that they would have probably agreed with. Hah!
That’s funny. I believe you. No one under stress seems to appreciate a rational mind.
My mom used to work second shift in the emergency room. She and many of the other nurses swore that on full moon nights, they were always busier, and things were a little crazier.
I don’t have any Scripture quotes, but I love the ending of “Goodnight Moon”:
Goodnight stars,
Goodnight air,
Goodnight noises everywhere
I’ll check out the MSNBC article – thanks David.
Hey, I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say GREAT blog!…..I”ll be checking in on a regularly now….Keep up the good work! 🙂 🙂