Lunar rhythms in biological systems
Biologists as well as artists and poets have thought about the Moon's influence on living creatures.
Lunar rhythms in biological systems are phenomena whose timing corresponds to a lunar month, the Moon's (roughly) 29.5 day orbit around Earth. In some cases these rhythms may depend on external cues, such as a greater or smaller amount of moonlight due to the moon's phases. In other cases, for example the approximately-monthly cycle of menstruation, the correlation in timing may reflect no known lunar influence.
External links
- Lunar Rhythms in Aquatic Animals A General Review
- Palmer, JD; Udry, JR; Morris, NM (1982). "Diurnal and weekly, but no lunar rhythms in humans copulation". Human biology; an international record of research 54 (1): 111–21. PMID 7200945.
- Foster, Russell G.; Roenneberg, Till (2008). "Human Responses to the Geophysical Daily, Annual and Lunar Cycles". Current Biology 18 (17): R784–R794. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.07.003. PMID 18786384.
Lunar cycles had, and continue to have, an influence upon human culture, though despite a persistent belief that our mental health and other behaviours are modulated by the phase of the moon, there is no solid evidence that human biology is in any way regulated by the lunar cycle
- Zimecki, Michał (2006). "The lunar cycle: effects on human and animal behavior and physiology". Postepy higieny i medycyny doswiadczalnej 60: 1–7. PMID 16407788.
In fish the lunar clock influences reproduction and involves the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis. In birds, the daily variations in melatonin and corticosterone disappear during full-moon days. The lunar cycle also exerts effects on laboratory rats with regard to taste sensitivity and the ultrastructure of pineal gland cells. Cyclic variations related to the moon's phases in the magnitude of the humoral immune response of mice to polivinylpyrrolidone and sheep erythrocytes were also described. It is suggested that melatonin and endogenous steroids may mediate the described cyclic alterations of physiological processes. The release of neurohormones may be triggered by the electromagnetic radiation and/or the gravitational pull of the moon
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