Sleep and the phases of the Moon

　　睡眠與月相

　　Lunacy?

　　精神失常?

　　People do not sleep easy on nights when there is afull Moon

　　月圓之夜，不能安眠

　　IT SOUNDS like an idea dreamed up over a fewbeers in the pub one evening.

　　這聽起來就像某晚在酒吧喝了幾杯啤酒后的胡說八道。

　　And that, those involved freely admit, is exactly what it was.

　　提出這個(gè)觀點(diǎn)的人也坦誠的這電子的確就是這么來的。

　　As Christian Cajochen and his colleagues put it in their paper on the matter in CurrentBiology, We just thought of it after a drink in a local bar one evening at full Moon.

　　他的同事和Christian Cajochen將有關(guān)睡眠與月相研究的論文放到了《當(dāng)代生物學(xué)》上，我們就是月圓的那晚在附近一個(gè)酒吧喝了幾杯才想到的。

　　It was a way of testing the persistent but unproven idea that the full Moon affects humanbehaviour, generally for the worse.

　　這是個(gè)未經(jīng)證實(shí)的測試持久性的方法，滿月會(huì)影響人的行為，總的來說，它將惡化你的行為。

　　In prescientific days this was expressed in terms like moonstruck and lunatic.

　　現(xiàn)代科學(xué)出現(xiàn)以前，這種情況被稱作月色撩人或者癡狂。

　　And it found even more sinistermanifestation in the form of the lycanthrope, who did not sleep when the Moon was full,

　　研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，甚至還有更多像狼人一樣的兇神惡煞，他們在月圓之夜化成狼的樣子，

　　but turned into a wolf instead.

　　而不是像往常一般睡去。

　　Though few now believe in werewolves some modern thinkers still suspect the Moon s phaseaffects sleep patterns,

　　盡管如今已經(jīng)很少人相信狼人的存在，但一些當(dāng)代思想家仍懷疑月相會(huì)影響睡眠模式,

　　and on that particular moonlit night Dr Cajochen and his buddies realised they already hadthe data needed to find out.

　　而且就在這個(gè)不同尋常的月夜Cajochen博士和同僚們才意識(shí)到，他們早已掌握了本想挖掘的數(shù)據(jù)。

　　Those data came from a study on body clocks and sleep patterns they had conducted adecade earlier at the Centre for Chronobiology at the University of Basel,where they work.

　　這些數(shù)據(jù)來自10年前他們所在的瑞士巴塞爾大學(xué)時(shí)間生物學(xué)中心，一個(gè)關(guān)于生物鐘與睡眠研究。

　　Between 2000 and 2003 they had looked at the effect of the daily body clock on the sleeppatterns of 33 volunteers.

　　那次試驗(yàn)在2000至2003年間曾觀察過33名志愿者在日常生物鐘下的睡眠模式。

　　The protocol they had used was perfect.

　　研究所使用的方法無懈可擊。

　　Volunteers were shut away from daylight for days at a time, so their sleep patterns could notbe affected by the illumination a full Moon brings.

　　研究期間，志愿者都與日光隔絕，所以觀察對象就不會(huì)對滿月的月光產(chǎn)生反映。

　　And it was also the ultimate in double-blind experiments.

　　這也是一個(gè)終極雙盲試驗(yàn)。

　　Neither the participants nor the organisers could possibly have been biased by knowing theexperiment was intended to look at the effect of the full Moon, since at the time it wasconducted it wasn t.

　　志愿者和組織者都不可能因知道此次研究是針對滿月帶來的效應(yīng)而出現(xiàn)偏差，當(dāng)時(shí)實(shí)驗(yàn)結(jié)果沒有說明兩者之間有關(guān)聯(lián)。

　　A few days number-crunching gave Dr Cajochen and his team what they were looking for.

　　經(jīng)過幾天的計(jì)算后，Cajochen博士小組得到了他們想要的數(shù)據(jù)。

　　And the answer was yes, the phase of the Moon does affect human sleep patterns, evenwhen the human involved cannot possibly see the Moon.

　　并得到了肯定的答案，月相的確影響著人們的睡眠，即使參加研究的志愿者不能看到月亮。

　　Electroencephalography showed that the volunteers slept, on average, 20 minutes lessaround the time of the full Moon.

　　腦電波圖顯示了他們的睡眠腦電圖，平均來說，將近月圓或者剛過滿月那幾天，人們睡得比平常少20分鐘。

　　It also took them five minutes longer to get to sleep, their delta activity was 30% lowerthan at other times, their level of melatonin, a sleep-related hormone, was reduced, andthey reported, subjectively, that they had not slept as well as usual.

　　而且入睡時(shí)間也比平時(shí)多需要5分鐘，他們的是平日幅度的30%。他們體內(nèi)的一種與睡眠相關(guān)的黑色素荷爾蒙減少，而且研究對象也主觀地反映他們不像平常那樣睡得香腦波幅度。

　　Nor was any of this connected, in female volunteers, with their menstrual cycles.

　　而女性志愿者的試驗(yàn)數(shù)據(jù)顯示,她們的生理周期與這些睡眠時(shí)間和激素水平中的任何一個(gè)都沒有關(guān)系。

　　Lest any astrologer reading this result get cocky, Dr Cajochen does not believe that what hehas found is directly influenced by the Moon through, say, some tidal effect.

　　以免有些占星師洋洋得意，Cajochen博士認(rèn)為，他所得出的規(guī)律并不是由月亮通過某種潮汐導(dǎo)致的。

　　What he thinks he has discovered is an additional hand on the body s clock-face.

　　他認(rèn)為這些研究結(jié)果只是往生物鐘表盤上多加了一個(gè)指針。

　　Besides the well-known endogenous daily cycle which the experiment originally studied, thereis also an endogenous monthly cycle entrained to the Moon by unconscious observationover a long period of the light from the heavenly bodies concerned.

　　除眾所周知的自身的日循環(huán)外，這也是研究最初的目的，身體還有一個(gè)受到月亮調(diào)控的內(nèi)在月循環(huán)，這是長期以來在對天體不經(jīng)意的觀察中得到的啟示。

　　Lunar cycles exist in other species so this is not, as it were, a lunatic idea.

　　月亮運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)周期對其他物種也影響，這并不是異想天開。

　　But those species that have been studied are animals like marine iguanas, for whomknowing the tides is important.

　　被研究的動(dòng)物對象包括海蜥蜴，潮汐對它來說非常重要。

　　What use an ingrained lunar calendar is to a human being remains to be determined.

　　什么使陰歷扎根于人類社會(huì)當(dāng)中仍是一個(gè)迷。

　　Perhaps sleeping lightly on moonlit nights was a defence mechanism against predators.Wolves, for example.

　　也許在月光明亮的夜晚淺睡是對狼人等肉食動(dòng)物的防御機(jī)制。

　　Sleep and the phases of the Moon

　　睡眠與月相

　　Lunacy?

　　精神失常?

　　People do not sleep easy on nights when there is afull Moon

　　月圓之夜，不能安眠

　　IT SOUNDS like an idea dreamed up over a fewbeers in the pub one evening.

　　這聽起來就像某晚在酒吧喝了幾杯啤酒后的胡說八道。

　　And that, those involved freely admit, is exactly what it was.

　　提出這個(gè)觀點(diǎn)的人也坦誠的這電子的確就是這么來的。

　　As Christian Cajochen and his colleagues put it in their paper on the matter in CurrentBiology, We just thought of it after a drink in a local bar one evening at full Moon.

　　他的同事和Christian Cajochen將有關(guān)睡眠與月相研究的論文放到了《當(dāng)代生物學(xué)》上，我們就是月圓的那晚在附近一個(gè)酒吧喝了幾杯才想到的。

　　It was a way of testing the persistent but unproven idea that the full Moon affects humanbehaviour, generally for the worse.

　　這是個(gè)未經(jīng)證實(shí)的測試持久性的方法，滿月會(huì)影響人的行為，總的來說，它將惡化你的行為。

　　In prescientific days this was expressed in terms like moonstruck and lunatic.

　　現(xiàn)代科學(xué)出現(xiàn)以前，這種情況被稱作月色撩人或者癡狂。

　　And it found even more sinistermanifestation in the form of the lycanthrope, who did not sleep when the Moon was full,

　　研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，甚至還有更多像狼人一樣的兇神惡煞，他們在月圓之夜化成狼的樣子，

　　but turned into a wolf instead.

　　而不是像往常一般睡去。

　　Though few now believe in werewolves some modern thinkers still suspect the Moon s phaseaffects sleep patterns,

　　盡管如今已經(jīng)很少人相信狼人的存在，但一些當(dāng)代思想家仍懷疑月相會(huì)影響睡眠模式,

　　and on that particular moonlit night Dr Cajochen and his buddies realised they already hadthe data needed to find out.

　　而且就在這個(gè)不同尋常的月夜Cajochen博士和同僚們才意識(shí)到，他們早已掌握了本想挖掘的數(shù)據(jù)。

　　Those data came from a study on body clocks and sleep patterns they had conducted adecade earlier at the Centre for Chronobiology at the University of Basel,where they work.

　　這些數(shù)據(jù)來自10年前他們所在的瑞士巴塞爾大學(xué)時(shí)間生物學(xué)中心，一個(gè)關(guān)于生物鐘與睡眠研究。

　　Between 2000 and 2003 they had looked at the effect of the daily body clock on the sleeppatterns of 33 volunteers.

　　那次試驗(yàn)在2000至2003年間曾觀察過33名志愿者在日常生物鐘下的睡眠模式。

　　The protocol they had used was perfect.

　　研究所使用的方法無懈可擊。

　　Volunteers were shut away from daylight for days at a time, so their sleep patterns could notbe affected by the illumination a full Moon brings.

　　研究期間，志愿者都與日光隔絕，所以觀察對象就不會(huì)對滿月的月光產(chǎn)生反映。

　　And it was also the ultimate in double-blind experiments.

　　這也是一個(gè)終極雙盲試驗(yàn)。

　　Neither the participants nor the organisers could possibly have been biased by knowing theexperiment was intended to look at the effect of the full Moon, since at the time it wasconducted it wasn t.

　　志愿者和組織者都不可能因知道此次研究是針對滿月帶來的效應(yīng)而出現(xiàn)偏差，當(dāng)時(shí)實(shí)驗(yàn)結(jié)果沒有說明兩者之間有關(guān)聯(lián)。

　　A few days number-crunching gave Dr Cajochen and his team what they were looking for.

　　經(jīng)過幾天的計(jì)算后，Cajochen博士小組得到了他們想要的數(shù)據(jù)。

　　And the answer was yes, the phase of the Moon does affect human sleep patterns, evenwhen the human involved cannot possibly see the Moon.

　　并得到了肯定的答案，月相的確影響著人們的睡眠，即使參加研究的志愿者不能看到月亮。

　　Electroencephalography showed that the volunteers slept, on average, 20 minutes lessaround the time of the full Moon.

　　腦電波圖顯示了他們的睡眠腦電圖，平均來說，將近月圓或者剛過滿月那幾天，人們睡得比平常少20分鐘。

　　It also took them five minutes longer to get to sleep, their delta activity was 30% lowerthan at other times, their level of melatonin, a sleep-related hormone, was reduced, andthey reported, subjectively, that they had not slept as well as usual.

　　而且入睡時(shí)間也比平時(shí)多需要5分鐘，他們的是平日幅度的30%。他們體內(nèi)的一種與睡眠相關(guān)的黑色素荷爾蒙減少，而且研究對象也主觀地反映他們不像平常那樣睡得香腦波幅度。

　　Nor was any of this connected, in female volunteers, with their menstrual cycles.

　　而女性志愿者的試驗(yàn)數(shù)據(jù)顯示,她們的生理周期與這些睡眠時(shí)間和激素水平中的任何一個(gè)都沒有關(guān)系。

　　Lest any astrologer reading this result get cocky, Dr Cajochen does not believe that what hehas found is directly influenced by the Moon through, say, some tidal effect.

　　以免有些占星師洋洋得意，Cajochen博士認(rèn)為，他所得出的規(guī)律并不是由月亮通過某種潮汐導(dǎo)致的。

　　What he thinks he has discovered is an additional hand on the body s clock-face.

　　他認(rèn)為這些研究結(jié)果只是往生物鐘表盤上多加了一個(gè)指針。

　　Besides the well-known endogenous daily cycle which the experiment originally studied, thereis also an endogenous monthly cycle entrained to the Moon by unconscious observationover a long period of the light from the heavenly bodies concerned.

　　除眾所周知的自身的日循環(huán)外，這也是研究最初的目的，身體還有一個(gè)受到月亮調(diào)控的內(nèi)在月循環(huán)，這是長期以來在對天體不經(jīng)意的觀察中得到的啟示。

　　Lunar cycles exist in other species so this is not, as it were, a lunatic idea.

　　月亮運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)周期對其他物種也影響，這并不是異想天開。

　　But those species that have been studied are animals like marine iguanas, for whomknowing the tides is important.

　　被研究的動(dòng)物對象包括海蜥蜴，潮汐對它來說非常重要。

　　What use an ingrained lunar calendar is to a human being remains to be determined.

　　什么使陰歷扎根于人類社會(huì)當(dāng)中仍是一個(gè)迷。

　　Perhaps sleeping lightly on moonlit nights was a defence mechanism against predators.Wolves, for example.

　　也許在月光明亮的夜晚淺睡是對狼人等肉食動(dòng)物的防御機(jī)制。