lunar effect

anyone notice the recent full moon? it was one of those low hanging, impossibly huge yellow moons - "cosimo's moon". it's common urban myth that every full moon emergency rooms fill up with crazy patients, there are more violent crimes, suicides, dog bites, and births of babies...

if the full moon can so affect the tides, why not human behavior? lune, loony, lunatic, lunacy... these words had to be generated from some observation, no? i was surprised to learn, people have actually studied this. and in a meta-analysis of 37 studies on the moon's effects on human behavior, they found that the moon accounted for no more than 3/100 of 1 percent of the monthly variation..

hmm.. maybe my own selective memory clouds my judgement. or maybe i just prefer to believe the more romantic explanation (cyrano shouting at the moon, pretending to be crazy) that nature moves us in ways we do not yet fully understand..