FRIDAY THE 13th FULL MOON
For soccer fans, Friday the 13th is a lucky day because the World Cup is underway. The world's biggest sports event began yesterday in Brazil with a game between the host country and Croatia. (Brazil won.) To celebrate the kickoff, Jean-Baptiste Feldmann took this picture of the Moon rising over Nuits-Saint-Georges, France:
The fact that this month's full Moon falls on Friday the 13th has been widely noted in the media. Such a coincidence is not particularly rare. The last Friday the 13th full Moon occurred on Aug. 13, 2011. The next one will be on Aug. 13, 2049.
Neither is the coincidence unlucky. Folklore holds that all kinds of wacky things happen under the light of a full Moon. Supposedly, hospital admissions increase, the crime rate ticks upward, and people behave strangely. The idea that the full Moon causes mental disorders was widespread in the Middle Ages. Even the word "lunacy," meaning "insanity," comes from the Latin word for "Moon." The majority of modern studies, however, show no correlation between the phase of the Moon and the incidence of crime, sickness, or human behavior. This is true even on Fridays.
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