Have you ever ventured into the bathroom and wondered, which was more clean – the fast and convenient “eco-friendly” automated hand dryer .. or the old fashioned paper towel dispenser? This question has recently been turning in my head whenever I get out of the stalls. Is there a difference to which appliance reduces the most amount of bacteria on my hands? By how much? I decided to take the plunge and figure this mystery out. The results that came back were absolutely shocking to me! 

     Next, they enlisted 16 volunteers to have their hands sprayed with a harmless strain of Escherichia coli bacteria, then swabbed for a sample, had the volunteers wash using water but no soap, swabbed again, dried using paper towels, and finally swabbed a third time. Jamie and Adam then repeated the process with the same volunteers, bacteria and washing technique, but used hand dryers instead. On average, the paper towels removed 71% of the bacteria on the volunteers’ hands, while the hand dryers only removed 23%, confirming the first part of the myth.” (summary of episode can be found here)

     Samples taken from swabbing the testing areas yielded 3 strains of bacteria for the paper towel area and 41 strains of bacteria remnants for the hand dryers, confirming the second part of their myth that indeed… hand dryers are filled with more bacteria simply because the person’s bacteria in front of you is essentially being blown off their hands and spread all around the surface of the dryer itself.

Imagine standing in a foreign country you’ve never traveled to before. You’re sightseeing and suddenly start to feel like you’ve seen that particular monument or famous building before. It seems like it’s this super natural force that can’t be real life. What is this indescribable feeling? D�j� vu. We’ve all heard of it and chances are most, if not all of us have experienced it. It’s literal translation is “already seen.” Whether it be for 1 second or for as long as 30 seconds, the feeling of experiencing something for a second time that you’ve never actually experienced before is definitely an alarming and unexplainable feeling. When you really think about this, it truly seems impossible. So what causes this crazy sensation? According to this website, that was provided by Penn State itself, d�j� vu is something that still hasn’t really been explained by science. Throughout the years, different scientists have had different theories as to the reason behind this phenomenon. Repressed desires and collective unconscious have been ideas, but as the science world became more educated on how the brain worked, the less likely these theories were. There was even thought that it was caused by one part of the brain visually seeing something and then the other side of the brain got that delayed information and stored it as a memory. 

I don’t think there’s anyone who loves cute animals more than my roommate. Every time I get home, she’s always “aww”-ing at something fluffy on her computer screen. While part of me is tempted to ask her how she somehow never has work to do, something always stops me. I remembered hearing before that looking at cute animals can help increase productivity, but how could that be?

According to an article in the Huffington Post, Hiroshima University conducted a study about “cute animals” led by Japanese researcher Hiroshi Nittono. For the experiment, Nittono studied 48 students as they completed a task similar to playing the game “Operation.” The students were asked to attempt the task 3 times: “the first after looking at a series of pictures of baby animals, then after seeing adult animals and finally after seeing pictures of delicious foods.” The results showed that participants performed the task more carefully after seeing the cute baby animal images. “This is interpreted as the result of a narrowed attentional focus induced by the cuteness-triggered positive emotion that is associated with approach motivation and the tendency toward systematic processing.”

But this seemed to good to be true; I can take a study break by looking at cute animals AND it will actually be beneficial? I had to see some serious scientific evidence…

According to the Washington Post, adults tend to slow down speech when talking to puppies and kittens, and these behaviors “may transfer to subsequent task performance.” I found myself being able to relate to this hypothesis considering the way I talk to my dog at home… But not all people talk to puppies and kittens, and I’m sure not everyone talks to them slowly. Could there be another reason behind the findings of the study?

Luckily in the world of science, there’s always room for another potential answer. “Caring for babies (nurturance) not only involves tender treatments but also requires careful attention to the targets’ physical and mental states as well as vigilance against possible threats to the targets. If viewing cute things makes the viewer more attentive, the performance of a non-motor perceptual task would also be improved,” the study stated. To me, this reasoning seemed much more legitimate because it was based on the natural, compassionate way that humans tend to care for babies, which I think we all can agree holds true.

I never thought I’d see the day, but there you have it: puppies are scientifically proven to help you focus. As college students, we’ve all had those moments where we just can’t bring ourselves to be productive. So next time you’re ready to throw in the towel for the night, follow @CuteEmergency on Twitter! But in the mean time, enjoy these puppies J

Do you ever contemplate the idea that one miniscule event in your life could have changed you forever? Imagine that you’d been just 30 seconds earlier to class that day and sat in a different seat; you could have missed out on sitting next to the person who may one day be your best friend. Perhaps you missed a song on the radio, and you may not have ever heard of what is now your favorite band. The opportunities that we take, as well as those we skip over, have the chance to mold and shape who we are and where our lives take us. Some facets could be due to pure chance, or our background may affect some aspects of who we become. Continuing with the idea discussed in class as to whether or not worms can impact intelligence, I decided to look into what else can have an effect on a person’s academic success.

             There are a few obvious factors that play into a person’s measured intelligence, such as their upbringing, environment, and role models. It’s very easy to see how these could have a huge influence on an individual’s academic success. A healthy upbringing in a happy and well-off home will allow a child to focus more on their studies, and positive role models give children something to aspire towards which usually gives them a more powerful drive to do well in school.  According to The Discovery Channel, there are five main factors that influence a person’s intelligence. The first is genetics, which they refer to as “nurture.” Studies show that genetics can influence anywhere from 40% to 80% of a person’s intelligence. It is also connected to the brain structure, as brain pathways with “better” development allow for better IQ scores. The next reason they list is early nutrition. They state that the nutrients received from a mother’s diet before a child is born, as well as the nutrients they receive within the first few years of life, can enhance brain structure, as well as enlarge the caudate. The caudate is a region in the brain that involves the way we learn as well as our memory. As previously mentioned, they also list “nurture” as a factor, which is essentially the environment in which a child grows up. Another factor listed is what is referred to as “birth order,” meaning that there was once an understanding that the oldest child would be more intelligent than any child born after. While this is neither proven nor disproven, it is often accepted to be true. The final factor they list is environment, which they essentially describe to be the same thing as “nurture.” They did not form a clear line between “nurture” and the “environment” or how they may each have a different impact on a child (“Curiosity”).

The question that now remains is: what other factors play into a person’s intelligence?  Also, what steps could parents take before a child is born to improve their IQ? Nutrition was mentioned, but what specific nutrients benefit the brain and its development in particular?

And, as for experimenting to test these theories, wouldn’t be unethical to purposefully deprive an unborn baby or a toddler of the proper nutrients it needs? How did they create a control group?These are just a few of the many questions left unanswered by The Discovery Channel’s research.

The fact that something like genetics or prenatal nutrition, both of which are so far out of our control, could influence our intelligence and consequently our whole life is a scary concept. Life truly is a game of chance and coincidence.

“Curiosity.” Discovery Channel. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Sept. 2013. <http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/5-factors-that-affect-human-intelligence.htm>

When I’m traveling I always have to make the tough decision to eat fast food or not, and I always face the constant battle between Subway or McDonald’s, two of the biggest fast food companies. Trying to maintain my health I usually pick Subway for a nice whole-wheat sub, but contrary to popular belief Subway can be unhealthier than McDonald’s.

Regardless of the errors, the experiment discovered that the average person in the experiment ate 1030 calories at McDonald’s and 955 calories at Subway, which is not a significant difference.  The article on Take Part states that students should not consume more than 850 calories in a school lunch. By definition, both fast food chains are unhealthy.  The hard hitting evidence is the sodium that is in each product that both companies sell.

Everyone has heard the old saying “make sure you drink eight 8-oz glasses of water a day!” before in their life, but how many of us actually use that advice? While no one can live without water, it’s important to remember the vital functions that water can provide us with.  

For my whole life, I have had allergies to something.  Sneezing, coughing, hives, swollen lips, vomiting; you name it, I have had that type of reaction to something.  Whether it was a pollen allergy or for allergy, I have experienced it all! Surprisingly I do not have a gluten or peanut butter allergy (well, as of right now I don’t) but I am allergic to many other things.  My list includes: kiwis, peaches, cherries, guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, pertussis vaccines and z packs (many people take z-pack when they have bronchitis in order to break up the mucus in their lungs that makes their chest feel heavy).  Even though I have had allergies for most of my life, I never really understood what exactly was happening in my body to give me allergies to certain foods.  According to Medical News Today , when someone has an allergy to something, it means they have a hypersensitive immune system that responds to certain things as if they are toxic pathogens entering the body and your body is trying to get rid of the pathogen.  Something interesting that I read was that usually people do not have allergic reactions immediately.  It could take someone a while to build up an allergy to something. For me, it took twelve years for my body to decide that it wasn’t going to let me eat peaches.  This process is known as sensitization.  This is when the body’s process of building up antibodies to fight the pathogen.

I don’t know about you, but personally, crows have always freaked me out. As a symbol of death, I hate the foreboding vibe I get from them.