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  3. The study by researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that even in the absence of moonlight, participants sle

The study by researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that even in the absence of moonlight, participants sle

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问题     The study by researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that even in the absence of moonlight, participants slept less deeply and for shorter periods during the full moon than at other lunar phases. It is a phenomenon already known in other organisms as the "circalunar rhythm", but has never before been shown in humans.
    The brain pattern, eye movements and hormone secretion of volunteers were studied while they slept. Participants were also asked for subjective assessments of their sleep quality. The results, published in Current Biology , showed that around the full moon, subjects’ brain activity associated with deep sleep decreased by 30%. They took 5 minutes longer to fall asleep, had 20 minutes less sleep overall and lower levels of melatonin—a hormone known to regulate sleep. These findings correlated with the volunteers’ own perception that sleep quality was poorer during the full moon.
    Previous research has found no association between the phases of the moon and human physiology or behaviour. "I think one issue in the past was that they compared a lot of people by mixing different laboratories, different devices, and including data from patients, so the entire thing was not standardised," Cajochen said. "The advantage here is that we really had a standardised protocol. " The data was taken from a previous study that was not originally looking at the moon’ s influence. Participants were kept in a very controlled environment, with artificial lighting, regulated temperature and no way of checking the time. This ensured that internal body rhythms could be investigated independently of external influences.
    "The only disadvantage with such a standardised procedure is that we could only investigate 33 people," said Cajochen. "What I would like to do in the future is to increase the number of subjects and then to follow up each person through the entire moon cycle. " But such a study would have problems of its own, he added. "If you’re actually going to tell people you’re investigating the influence of the moon, then you may trigger some expectation or sensitivity in them. Sleep is also a psychological thing, of course. "
    If true, the mechanisms responsible for the phenomenon are unknown. Malcolm von Schantz, a molecular neurobiologist at Surrey University, said: "Essentially it could be either two things: the moon itself has a gravitational pull which somehow affects our physiology. I find that very unlikely as the gravitational pull of the moon is fairly weak. It doesn’t cause tides in lakes for example, only in large oceans. In fact, if you’re sitting within 15 inches of the wall right now then the wall has a stronger gravitational pull on you than the moon does. So I don’t think we have a sort of mini-tide in ourselves. "
    "The alternative is that there is a ’counter’, a mechanism which keeps track somehow of the phases of the moon. " Marine animals are already known to follow a circalunar rhythm and some believe it is tightly intertwined with the circadian rhythm—the other internal clock that many organisms, humans included, have which is entrained to the sun. Other researchers have wondered why a human circalunar clock should exist in the first place. Michael Hastings, a neuroscientist studying circadian rhythms at Cambridge University, said: "In evolutionary terms, it sounds plausible to me at least. " If you were a hunter gatherer, you’d want to be out there on a full moon, not a new moon. It might be that there’s something about suppression of sleep under those circumstances because you should be out hunting.
Compared with research and study in the past, the advantage of the study by researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland is that______.
选项 A、they had a standardised protocol
B、they studied the phases of the moon and human physiology or behaviour
C、they compared a lot of people by mixing different laboratories and different devices
D、participants were asked for subjective assessments of their sleep quality
答案A
解析 本题考查考生对第三段有关本文讨论的这个研究与以往研究相比的特点以及优势的理解。第三段第二句借由一名研究人员之口讲出了以往的研究存在的问题，以及此次研究的优势在于“我们确实有一个标准化的流程”，即[A]选项。第三段第一句提到“以往的研究并没有发现月相和人类的生理或行为之间存在关联”，这并不意味着以往的研究没有研究月相和人类的生理或行为这个问题，因此不是现在这次研究异于以往研究之处，[B]错误；[C]选项“他们对许多人进行比较，这些人来自不同的实验室，使用不同的设备”，根据这名研究人员的描述，这恰恰是过去的研究的特点，不是本次研究的优势，也不正确；[D]选项是关于本次研究的研究方法的介绍，并不能确定过去的研究有没有也涉及这个方面，因此不能算作本次研究的优势，也不正确。
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