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Sometimes even sober and focused medical scientists are allowed to have a little fun on the job.

Jean-Philippe Chaput of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute is a little bowled over by the attention he got when he adapted an earnest study of childhood health by factoring in phases of the moon. It’s called Are Children Like Werewolves?

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Chaput found that children get almost exactly the same amount of sleep whether the moon is new, half or full. No big deal, he thought — but then he got calls and emails from all over Europe, North America, even Australia.

Chaput studies childhood obesity, sleep and healthy living. But when he found a pile of existing data, it was a little like finding a fast car with the keys in the ignition, just waiting to go.

He took it out for a test drive.

The original study, done in Europe, surveyed the effects of a new diet on children’s weight, hormones and metabolism, and it included figures on how long kids were sleeping. It was simple, Chaput said, to convert the dates of these measurements to phases of the moon.