What really causes crop circles?

Two British men named Doug Bower and Dave Chorley first started making them with implements no more mysterious than some rope and a 5-ft iron bar for bending the corn. (They later enhanced their equipment, and ultimately confessed to their hijinx in the early 1990s.)

Can a full moon really cause people to act strangely?

The full moon marks a monthly peak in various kinds of psychotically oriented crimes such as murder, arson, dangerous driving, and kleptomania. People do seem to get a little bit crazier about that time of the month. That's something most police and hospital workers have known for a long time. Indeed, back in eighteenth-century England, a murderer could plead "lunacy" if the crime was committed during the full moon and get a lighter sentence as a result. Scientists, however, like to have a hard physical model to explain their discoveries, and so far there isn't a fully accepted one. Dr. Lieber speculates that perhaps the human body, which, like the surface of the earth, is composed of almost 80 percent water, experiences some kind of "biological tides" that affect the emotions. When a person is already on psychologically shaky ground, such a biological tide can push him or her over the edge. At the University of Miami, psychologist Arnold Lieber and his colleagues decided to test the old belief of full-moon "lunacy" which most scientists had written off as an old wives' tale. The researchers collected data on homicide in Dade County (Miami) over a period of 15 years - 1,887 murders, to be exact. When they matched the incidence of homicide with the phases of the moon, they found, much to their surprise, that the two rose and fell together, almost infallibly, for the entire 15 years! As the full or the new moon approached, the murder rate rose sharply; it distinctly declined during the first and last quarters of the moon.

How does mint make your mouth cool?

The cooling sensation you are feeling is the same effect as if you have ever spilled acetone or rubbing alcohol on your skin, or sweat a lot on a very hot day. The acetone and alcohol have very low boiling points and evaporate quickly but they need energy to vaporize. The molecules are absorbing the heat from your skin (or mouth in the case of the cough drop) to change their state from liquid (or solid) to gas. They are essentially 'stealing' your body heat to turn into a vapor. You are experiencing a cooling effect thanks to this heat transfer.


Hope this helps ease your concerns about these subjects....

G