So-called "science-based skeptics" have long mocked the idea that human sleeping patterns are in any way affected by lunar cycles -- it all sounds just a little too wacky for their status quo level of cognitive ability. But a new study published in the journal Current Biology supports what the more progressive vein of scientific inquiry has been learning for years, mainly that the human body responds to the changing geophysical rhythms of lunar cycles as a result of its own internal circalunar clock.

To come to this conclusion, researchers from the University of Basel (UB) in Switzerland studied the sleeping patterns of 33 volunteers who were divided into two separate age groups. All the participants slept in a specially designed sleeping laboratory, and while they slept, scientists analyzed their brain patterns, eye movements, and hormone secretion levels during varying stages of the regular lunar cycle.