Shine On ...

Our Earth recently experienced a "Super Moon," the closest approach of our orbiting satellite in 18 years.  (See Super Moon.)  Now, given that the moon does cause tides in our oceans, why would we not expect this event to cause tides in our terrestial lands also ... or earthquakes?  Such recent catastrophic events in New Zealand and Japan, it would seem to me, are therefore quite scientifically understandable and should have been predicted. No?

Peanuts

It seems that peanut allergies are growing both in the populations affected and severity of the reactions.  Now, as I seem to recall, they used to treat bee sting allergies by giving such people increasingly large doses of bee venom until they could tolerate a bee sting without an emergency room trip.  (Bee-keepers are stung so much that many are not bothered at all by even multiple stings.)  Now parents of such hyper-allergic children are creating  peanut-free environments for their children. One even has required students in his child's classroom to wash their hands and rinse out their mouths three times a day to thwart any peanut-allergy reaction by his daughter (see Peanut Dad.)

This leads me to the following hypothesis -- I wonder if such serious peanut sensitivities are caused by such hysterical parental behavior rather than in spite of it?