Professor Baird said there had been difficulty in funding research because of this link, although the new pill uses the drug in far smaller doses.

BBC: NEWS | Health | Birth pill 'may cut cancer risk'

The behavioural economists reckon this may be because psychologists have focused on trying to link the moon to extreme behavioural problems in a few disturbed people, rather than to more humdrum lunacies affecting humanity as a whole, including a bias against shares around full moons.

ECONOMIST: How the sun and the moon move markets