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  3. The study by researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that even in the absence of moonlight, participants sle

The study by researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that even in the absence of moonlight, participants sle

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问题     The study by researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that even in the absence of moonlight, participants slept less deeply and for shorter periods during the full moon than at other lunar phases. It is a phenomenon already known in other organisms as the "circalunar rhythm", but has never before been shown in humans.
    The brain pattern, eye movements and hormone secretion of volunteers were studied while they slept. Participants were also asked for subjective assessments of their sleep quality. The results, published in Current Biology , showed that around the full moon, subjects’ brain activity associated with deep sleep decreased by 30%. They took 5 minutes longer to fall asleep, had 20 minutes less sleep overall and lower levels of melatonin—a hormone known to regulate sleep. These findings correlated with the volunteers’ own perception that sleep quality was poorer during the full moon.
    Previous research has found no association between the phases of the moon and human physiology or behaviour. "I think one issue in the past was that they compared a lot of people by mixing different laboratories, different devices, and including data from patients, so the entire thing was not standardised," Cajochen said. "The advantage here is that we really had a standardised protocol. " The data was taken from a previous study that was not originally looking at the moon’ s influence. Participants were kept in a very controlled environment, with artificial lighting, regulated temperature and no way of checking the time. This ensured that internal body rhythms could be investigated independently of external influences.
    "The only disadvantage with such a standardised procedure is that we could only investigate 33 people," said Cajochen. "What I would like to do in the future is to increase the number of subjects and then to follow up each person through the entire moon cycle. " But such a study would have problems of its own, he added. "If you’re actually going to tell people you’re investigating the influence of the moon, then you may trigger some expectation or sensitivity in them. Sleep is also a psychological thing, of course. "
    If true, the mechanisms responsible for the phenomenon are unknown. Malcolm von Schantz, a molecular neurobiologist at Surrey University, said: "Essentially it could be either two things: the moon itself has a gravitational pull which somehow affects our physiology. I find that very unlikely as the gravitational pull of the moon is fairly weak. It doesn’t cause tides in lakes for example, only in large oceans. In fact, if you’re sitting within 15 inches of the wall right now then the wall has a stronger gravitational pull on you than the moon does. So I don’t think we have a sort of mini-tide in ourselves. "
    "The alternative is that there is a ’counter’, a mechanism which keeps track somehow of the phases of the moon. " Marine animals are already known to follow a circalunar rhythm and some believe it is tightly intertwined with the circadian rhythm—the other internal clock that many organisms, humans included, have which is entrained to the sun. Other researchers have wondered why a human circalunar clock should exist in the first place. Michael Hastings, a neuroscientist studying circadian rhythms at Cambridge University, said: "In evolutionary terms, it sounds plausible to me at least. " If you were a hunter gatherer, you’d want to be out there on a full moon, not a new moon. It might be that there’s something about suppression of sleep under those circumstances because you should be out hunting.
By illustrating that the wall has a stronger gravitational pull on you than the moon does, the author intends to say that______.
选项 A、the moon itself can not have a gravitational pull which somehow affects our physiology
B、the gravitational pull of the wall is fairly strong
C、the gravitational pull of the moon can not cause tides in lakes
D、people should not sit within 15 inches of the wall because of its gravitational pull
答案A
解析 关于月亮引力对人体的影响的讨论出现在第四段，第四段对前文所述关于“月节律”现象给出了一种可能性的解释，继而通过与墙的引力的比较推翻了这一可能性的存在。第四段一开始就给出了结论：“我发现这很难，因为月球的引力是相当弱的”，即是说明月球本身的引力不足以对人体生理情况产生影响。随后作者又以墙的引力为例，说明月亮的引力还比不上墙的引力对人的影响，更加印证前面的结论，因此[A]是正确答案。[B]说法错误；[C]是作者的原话，证明月球引力之弱;[D]属于过度推论，而且也不是作者意图说明的内容。
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