A: A full moon

HEART SURGERY PATIENTS RECOVER MORE QUICKLY DURING CERTAIN MOON PHASES: A new study carried out in Rhode Island hospital finds that patients who have heart surgery when there is a full moon spend less time in the hospital than those who have surgery during other moon phases. Senior author of the study, Dr. Frank Sellke, says, “We focused the study on patients having aortic dissection and found that the odds of dying following this procedure were greatly reduced during the waning full moon, and that length of stay was also reduced during the full moon.” To find this, researchers studied the imapct of the lunar cycles and season variation on two surgical groups– one of patients having their ascending aortic dissection repaired, and those having aortic dissection and either aortic valve surgery, coronary bypass surgery or both. Sellke says the study found that those who had aortic dissection repairs performed during the full moon phase had a 10-day stay in the hospital, while those who were treated during other moon phases had 14-day hospital stays. (Daily Mail)