Forty years ago, Apollo astronauts placed the first of several retroreflector arrays on the lunar surface. Their continued usefulness for laser ranging might suggest that the lunar environment does not damage optical devices. However, new laser ranging data reveal that the efficiency of the three Apollo reflector arrays is now diminished by a factor of 10 at all lunar phases and by an additiona...

Personal characteristics of patients and environmental factors at psychiatric hospitals have been identified as predictors of absconding. This study seeks to establish a relationship between time of the year and absconding. All characteristics of absconders were analysed over a two-year period using hospital records (N= 104). Public holidays and lunar phases were obtained through almanacs for e...

A review is presented of wide-angle, low-light-level imaging observations of the Moon’s extended sodium atmosphere and Monte Carlo simulation studies used in their interpretation. The observational results at quarter and fulI Moon show dramatically different morphology patterns. The computer model results show that both morphologies are consistent with a single source function and subsequent dy...

[1] Atoms in the thin lunar exosphere are liberated from the Moon’s regolith by some combination of sunlight, plasma, and meteorite impact. We have observed exospheric sodium, a useful tracer species, on five nights of full Moon in order to test the effect of shielding the lunar surface from the solar wind plasma by the Earth’s magnetosphere. These observations, conducted under the dark sky con...

From the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management, Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, Texas. Corresponding author: Peter T. Walling, MD, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management, Baylor University Medical Center, 3500 Gaston Avenue, Dallas, Texas 75246. As I look at the full moon on a clear night, light travels between the moon and me in just over 1 second, enters my eyes...

Most animals, including birds, have cyclic life histories and numerous studies generally conducted on captive animals have shown that photoperiod is the main factor influencing this periodicity. Moon cycles can also affect periodic behavior of birds. Few studies have investigated the influence of these environmental cues in natural settings, and particularly in tropical areas where the change i...

Sexual reproduction of the reef-building coral Montastrea cavernosa was studied in the Santa Marta area, Caribbean coast of Colombia, from October 1990 to October 1991. The area is subjected to a seasonal upwelling–outwelling regime. From microscopical analysis of tissue sections sampled each lunar month around the full moon, it was confirmed that this is a gonochoric, broadcasting species, wit...

Abstract. The lunar cycle has long been suspected to influence biological phenomena. Folklore alludes to such a relationship, but previous scientific analyses have failed to find significant associations. It has been shown that lunar cycles indeed have effects on animals; significant associations between human circadian rhythms and lunar cycles have also been reported. We set out to determine w...

Animals are exposed to many conflicting ecological pressures, and the effect of one may often obscure that of another. A likely example of this is the so-called ‘‘lunar phobia’’ or reduced activity of bats during full moon. The main reason for lunar phobia was thought to be that bats adjust their activity to avoid predators. However, bats can be prey, but many are carnivorous and therefore pred...