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Surprising Science

Will the Supermoon Affect You?

Closer to Earth than any time since 1993, the moon will be 20 percent brighter than usual tonight. Will its fabled effects on the body, such as encouraging crime and fertility, be amplified, too?

The full moon tonight is being called a supermoon because it will be much closer to Earth and much brighter than usual. “If a full moon affects the human body, then a supermoon surely would send those effects into overdrive, leading to even more pregnancies, epileptic seizures, surgery screw-ups, suicides, assaults and various other types of biological havoc. Surely, it would. The operative word, of course, is ‘if.’ And the Skeptic’s Dictionary begins a nice distillation of moon-related folklore this way: ‘The full moon has been linked to crime, suicide, mental illness, disasters, accidents, birthrates, fertility, and werewolves, among other things.'”


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