Why the moon rules your life

I do not believe in astrology, particularly the sort published in newspapers and popular magazines. I do not believe that constellations of burning gases billions of light years away, so far that no human can ever make the journey from earth to these constellations in one lifetime, can possibly rule my life, let alone give me a commonality with 1/12th of the population.

The moon however is a different matter. This hunk of rock is orbiting the earth close enough for its mass and gravitational field to affect the oceans and tides, and, I would argue, us.

I have previously written about the effect of the full moon on human behaviour. Personally I think the tide goes out on our collective brains – some more than others. I accept that scientists have been unable to confirm this, but attest that no scientist ever accompanied me on a full-moon Saturday night shift in the medical emergency service I used to work at. People ran screaming from the building – and that was the staff. The punters ran screaming INTO the building. All in all, a noisy and eventful experience.

My back-up hypothesis is that the additional light from the full moon means people are more likely to be out and about, or at least unsettled. This sounds more plausible, but the tide out in the brain thing is much more interesting.

And while we may not enjoy the effect the moon has on us, I have recently discovered that the moon is also not enjoying our company. Apparently it is fleeing from our orbit at the rate of 2 inches per year. Seriously. Fast enough to make a difference, slow enough for us not to notice unless we are determined to use reflectors and lasers and trigonometry. And most of us aren’t, so you and I will have to take the word of George Darwin (son of Charles) who hypothesised this and the NASA scientists who confirmed it.

Now the effect f the moon on the earth apparently has some interesting effects on the earth. It is quite well-known that the moon influences the tides. This is particularly well-known to people who read the beginning of this posting quite carefully.

But the effect of these frequent tides is to slow the earth’s rotation down. So without the moon, the earth would be spinning a lot faster and hence our “days” would be much shorter – as much as three times shorter. Imagine an 8-hour day instead of 24 hours. You’d barely get anything done when it would be night again.

This of course, would not only be inconvenient, but probably we would all have evolved differently – different sleep patterns, different adaptations. Not just us, but plants and animals as well. And given that life is thought to have originated in the oceans….well, what effect would fewer tides have had on the mixing of the primordial soup?

And then the faster the earth spins, the more winds are generated – producing waves and weather. So if the earth is spinning slower, then weaker waves and weather patterns.

In other words, a different planet entirely.

Fascinating stuff, but one more important fact: You weigh slightly less when the moon is directly overhead. No moon means it is pointless to wait until the middle of the night to weigh yourself for maximum effect.

What – you don’t do that? Just me then.

PS – enjoy the July 4th full moon!

How important is play?

photo credit Jeremyiah

Parents and teachers will have been indoctrinated into the concept of play as a learning tool. It is important (we are told) for young children to have play-time in order to develop – gross motor skills, fine motor skills, social skills and an understanding of how to world works. Children who have been deprived of this opportunity (think of the terrible plight of Romanian orphans in the 1980s) have significant deficits in both their older childhood and their adulthood. Not to say that these things can’t be overcome, but the experiences of the child at an age when their brain connections are still forming can set the dominant and used connections for life. It’s pretty tough for an old brain to learn new tricks (connections).

For first-world parents, of course, this translates into guilt. Are you providing the right kind of play experiences? Are you providing the right kind of educational toys? Is your child hitting all of their milestones at the right time? Ka-ching, Ka-ching – the multinational toy companies know what you are thinking and they know how to press your buttons! (Click here for suggestions of the sorts of toys from which children really benefit. )

However a couple of recent articles have indicated how ingrained the concept of play is, and how it has played a survival function in evolution. Leading “play studies” scientist (there’s another job I want!) and author of Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, Stuart Brown theorises that evolution favours those animals that are able to produce additional superfluous neural connections (eg through play) – connections that just might come in handy some time. Play keeps the brain flexible and helps it to think laterally and problem-solve. It helps you to develop courage and confidence to try new thinks

Author and former Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Dr Marc Bekoff says animals have rules about when and how to play. The rules are as follows:

1.Everyone must want to play.
2.Everyone has to cooperate — they work together — to keep the game from becoming fighting. (NOte to my children: wild animals know the difference between playing and fighting…..)
3.Everyone needs to communicate and pay attention to each other’s movements, sounds and smells.

Put that way, it’s obvious what benefit a senseless and trivial activity like play must have for animals – and humans. Play behaviour has been observed in mammals, reptiles, insects and fish – and probably other categories of animals as well.

The second play article that crossed my desk in the last two days is about starving polar bears playing with a sled dog (as opposed to eating it). As well as featuring a video link of starving wild polar bears playing with sled dogs, this article also refers to evidence that animals that play tend to live longer and pass on their genes. (Of course it is also possible that animals that play are more attractive to the opposite sex….. but that’s just my take on things, not anything scientifically based!)

Play Scientist Stuart Brown’s book is available here: Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul

Interested in Neuroscience? Can I recommend the following book by UK neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield: Tomorrow’s People: How 21st-Century Technology Is Changing the Way We Think and Feel