Monthly Archives: October 2015

Goo Lagoon: A Possibility?

Recently, scuba divers have found what appears to be a river at the bottom of a quarry.

Wait, what?

I know; it’s kind of hard to wrap your head around. Cenote Angelita is a cenote in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. A cenote is “a deep sinkhole formed from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath.” According to Ripley’s. Cenotes often have a vast majority of underwater caves, as well. When first looking at Angelita, it looks like any other natural swimming area; clear, fresh water. It isn’t until about 29 meters under the water where the real magic happens. Under the fresh water is a one-meter thick layer of hydrogen sulfide, which is heavier than the fresh water above. Underneath the hydrogen sulfide is the ever denser saltwater. Looking at the divide in the water is absolutely breath taking. If it weren’t for the presence of the diver in the photos, I would not have even known the picture was taken under water; it looks like a regular river. This phenomenon is called halocline. Halocline happens when cold, dense seawater sees a very sharp desalination gradient. This also explains how we see ice in the ocean, since we know saltwater doesn’t freeze. This process occurs when the untouched saltwater in the underlying caves of Angelita meets the fresh rainwater when it rains. So far, Angelita is the only place where this amazing site is possible to be seen. There are plenty of other cenotes in the Yucatan, which is a popular tourist spot in Mexico. Tourists can visit the caves and see the mysterious salt and fresh water in the different caves.

One very interesting thing is that much like when you shake an oil and vinegar container, when someone passes through the halocline, the layers mix. Eventually, the layers separate again, and the halocline is once again formed. The sole thing I take away from this: Goo Lagoon from SpongeBob SquarePants IS indeed possible.

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Sources:

http://www.ripleys.com/blog/mysterious-underwater-river/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halocline

Closing the Gap Between Organ Transplant Scarcity and the Countless Patients in Need

Annually, 150,000 people around the world join the waiting list for an organ transplant but half of them die before they can get one.

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Why are there Organ Shortages?

Only a very small number of people die in a way that allowed their organs to be suitable for transplantation. Such as in the hospital, in an intensive care unit, following a road accident or a stroke. Or some people haven’t made it clear that they want to become an organ donor when they die, and relatives may be too distraught to give the doctors permission.

Xenotransplantation

Xenotransplantation is the process of transplanting organs or tissues between members of different species.The transplant can be carried out between concordant species , which are closely related and have a lot of the same genes. Or it can be carried out between discordant species that aren’t closely related, therefore having few genes in common. Transplants carried out between discordant species result in more violently rejected transplanted organs. This is because all animals have ‘flags’ on their cells that tell what species they are.

Why are transplanted organs rejected?

Majority of people with transplanted organs suffer from rejection, even if they’re from the same species. Rejection happens because the recipient’s immune system realizes that the new organ is not its own. Thats why transplant patients must take anti-rejection drugs. On the other hand if the organ being donated comes from a different species it is rejected quiet quickly in a process called hyper acute rejection. “In hyper acute rejection pre-programmed antibodies in the recipient’s bloodstream target the xenoantigens, “the flags”,  all over the transplanted organ and trigger a destructive chain reaction. The blood supply to the transplanted organ is blocked, cells die, and the organ stops working.”

 Ways we’ve tried to prevent hyperacute rejection of xenotransplants?

In 1992, British scientists successfully breeder a pig with human “flags” on its cells in hopes to prevent hyper acute rejection of xenortansplants. “The scientists did this by putting DNA for the human flags into the pig embryos then put them into the wombs of surrogate sows. They had to do it multiple times before they were finally successful in creating a ‘transgenic’ pig with a DNA  0.000001% more human than other pigs.”

Dilemma 

But, this still didn’t get rid of the rejection problems for xenotransplant because when monkeys were given these “transgenic” pig organs the longest they survived was only a few months. Many people asked why the British scientists didn’t transplant the “transgenic” organs into humans, because after all they did have human “flags” now. And the answer was because it was unethical and “they were worried that the pig organs could carry potentially dangerous pig viruses into their human recipients, such as PERVs.” In 1997, British scientists discovered PERVs, Porcine Endogenous Retroviruses, could infect humans, and even though they didn’t have any evidence proving that, they didn’t want to risk spreading the disease. For example, “every species has its own type of endogenous retrovirus which is harmless to the species it lives in.”

We currently use pigs insulin to treat diabetes, and their heart valves to replace diseased human valves. To this day, the closest we’ve gotten to actually using “transgenic” pig organs for human transplants was when the livers of transgenic pigs were used to keep two patients alive in the USA while doctors searched desperately to replace them with human organs. “The two patients – one of them Robert Pennington – were connected to transgenic pig livers on trolleys at their bedside. The pig livers took over the work of their own failed livers, cleaning their blood and keeping them alive. Both procedures were successful and the two patients are alive and well after human livers were found for them and transplanted. ( this was all done before scientists discovered that PERVs could infect humans)”

The Big Step Forward

Until, the landmark study by George Church and his team at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School where they used the gene editing system known as “CRISPR–Cas9” to genetically engineer pig DNA in 62 locations. “By using CRISPR–Cas9 like a pair of molecular scissors Church and his team have inactivated all 62 repetitive genes containing a PERV in pig DNA, surpassing a significant obstacle on the path to bringing xenotransplantation to clinical reality.”

 

Work Cited

http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/222

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/organfarm/etc/faqs.html

Killer SunScreen

kid-sunscreen

What is sunscreen and why do we use it?

The first sunscreen was invented in 1938 by an Austrian scientist named Franz Greiter. Sunscreen was created to protect the skin against ultraviolet radiation from the suns UV-A and UV-B rays, which is the the leading cause of skin cancer. Also known as SPF, Sun Protection Factor, which measures how well the sunscreen is at preventing UVB from damaging the skin. UV-A rays seep deep into the skin and increase reactive oxygen species that can damage the DNA. Meanwhile, UV-B rays only effects the outer most layer of the skin that increases direct photochemical damage to DNA, which mutates genes causing wrinkles and aging of skin.

Sunscreen combines multiple ingredients that help prevent sun’s ultraviolet radiation from penetrating the skin. There are two kinds of active ingredients in sunscreen, mineral and chemical filters. Chemical filters include: oxybenzone, avobenzone, octisalate, octocrylene, homosalate and octinoxate. Mineral sunscreens use zinc oxide and/or titanium dioxide.

Chemical EWG Hazard Score Use in U.S. sunscreens Skin Penetration Hormone disruption Skin Allergy Other concerns References
UV filters with higher toxicity concerns
Oxybenzone 8 Widespread Detected in nearly every American; found in mother’s milk; 1-to-9% skin penetration in lab studies Acts like estrogen in the body; alters sperm production in animals; associated with endometriosis in women Relatively high rates of skin allergy   Janjua 2004, Janjua 2008, Sarveiya 2004, Gonzalez 2006, Rodriguez 2006, Krause 2012
Octinoxate (Octylmethoxycinnamate) 6 Widespread Found in mothers’ milk; less than 1% skin penetration in human and laboratory studies Hormone-like activity; reproductive system, thyroid and behavioral alterations in animal studies Moderate rates of skin allergy   Krause 2012, Sarveiya 2004, Rodriguez, 2006, Klinubol 2008
UV filters with moderate toxicity concerns
Homosalate 4 Widespread Found in mothers’ milk; skin penetration less than 1% in human and laboratory studies Disrupts estrogen, androgen and progesterone   Toxic breakdown products Krause 2012, Sarveiya 2004, SCCNFP 2006
Octisalate 3 Widespread; stabilizes avobenzone Skin penetration in lab studies   Rarely reported skin allergy   Walters 1997, Shaw 2006 Singh 2007
Octocrylene 3 Widespread Found in mothers’ milk; skin penetration in lab studies   Relatively high rates of skin allergy   Krause 2012, Bryden 2006, Hayden 2005
UV filters with lower toxicity concerns
Titanium Dioxide 2 (topical use), 6 (powder or spray) Widespread No finding of skin penetration No evidence of hormone disruption None Inhalation concerns Gamer 2006, Nohynek 2007, Wu 2009, Sadrieh 2010, Takeda 2009, Shimizu 2009, Park 2009, IARC 2006b
Zinc Oxide 2 (topical use), 4 (powder or spray) Widespread; excellent UVA protection Less than 0.01% skin penetration in human volunteers No evidence of hormone disruption None Inhalation concerns Gulson 2012, Sayes 2007, Nohynek 2007, SCCS 2012
Avobenzone 2 Widespread; best UVA protection of chemical filters Very limited skin penetration No evidence of hormone disruption Relatively high rates of skin allergy   Klinubol 2008, Bryden 2006, Hayden 2005, Montenegro 2008
Mexoryl SX 2 Uncommon; pending FDA approval; offers good, stable UVA protection Less than 0.16% penetrated the skin of human volunteers No evidence of hormone disruption Skin allergy is rare   Benech-Kieffer 2003, Fourtanier2008
6 other ingredients approved in the U.S. are rarely used in sunscreens: benzophenone-4, benzophenone-8, menthyl anthranilate, PABA, Padimate O, and trolamine salicylate

Effects of Sunscreen on the Human Body

To explain the chart above,

In two European studies by Margaret Schlumpf of  the University of Zurich in 2008 and 2010 she found sunscreen chemicals in mothers’ breastmilk, potentially exposing the fetus. In Schlumpf’s 2010 study she discovered that 85 percent of the milk samples she collected contained at least one sunscreen chemical.

In 2008 the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested a sample of more than 2,500 Americans and found that more than 96 percent of them contained traces of Oxybenzone. The researchers noticed that their participants had a significantly higher concentrations of Oxybenzone in their bodies during the summer which led them to concluded that the application of sunscreen was the cause.

But according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) not only is sunscreen a danager to humans it has also been reporter to be destroying our coral reefs.

Coral reef with butterflyfish

The NOAA said that” this is the third time in history, the world is in the midst of a global coral bleaching event.” When scientists conducted studies in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands they discovered that oxybenzone was extremely harmful to the coral reefs. According to The Washington Post a very small amount of oxybenzone is needed to harm the coral in fact they said there only needs to be “the equivalent of a drop of water in a half-dozen Olympic-sized swimming pools” to cause sufficient harm. Lead researcher Craig Downs said that from approximately 14,000 tons of sunscreen ending up in the coral reef each year 80 percent of the coral reef has been destroyed!

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What can we do to stop this?

Coral reef animals and plants have been a gold mine for finding new cures and medicine in the 21st century. So, the U.S. National Park Service strongly encourages us to use “reef-friendly” sunscreen that doesn’t contain oxybenzone to help preserve our coral reef.

Work Cited

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/dr-mike-hart/does-sunscreen-cause-cancer_b_3280578.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sunscreen-coral-reefs_56274317e4b08589ef49bf67?utm_hp_ref=science&ir=Science&section=science

http://www.cdc.gov

http://www.doctoroz.com/article/your-sunscreen-might-be-poisoning-you

http://www.skincancer.org/prevention/sun-protection/sunscreen/sunscreens-explained

http://www.ewg.org/2015sunscreen/report/the-trouble-with-sunscreen-chemicals/

http://www.sun-protection-and-products-guide.com/who-invented-sunscreen.html

A sea horse story

What is a Hippocampus? It is Latin for Sea horse – hippo meaning horse and kampos meaning sea monster. Not a creature people talk about too often. Why don’t we discuss this sea creature a little!

Collectively, in the world, there are almost fifty different types of this species and plenty of “sub-species”. Scientists find difficulty in distinguishing all the sea horse species because “individuals of the same species can vary greatly in appearance and new species continue to be found.” The sea horses tend to live in the weed-like components of the sea. These creatures are known to “eat small crustacea such as Mysis Shrimp. An adult eats 30-50 times a day. Sea horse fry (baby sea horses) eat a staggering 3000 pieces of food per day.” Although, these fish lack teeth and a stomach therefore, “food passes through their digestive systems so quickly, they must eat almost constantly to stay alive.” The snouts are able to stretch and expand. When the seahorse needs to reach into a tight area is when it will stretch its snout. Expansion is done if the “prey is larger than the snout.”

So we talked about a couple aspects of their bodies, let’s continue. Like most sea creatures, sea horse’s eyes are independent from each other. This is very useful with predators and prey. “Unlike most other fish, sea horses have an exo-skeleton. Their bodies are made up of hard, external, bony plates that are fused together with a fleshy covering. They do not have scales.” They all have prehensile tails ,which help in “strong currents and waves.” Sea horses cannot swim well, so “they rely on their dorsal fin.” This fin will beat between “30-70 times per second.” Pectoral fins either side of the head help with stability and steering.

Speaking of ‘swimming away’… how do these fish avoid predators? Well, it is not easy due to their size and swimming abilities. Although sea horses do have some tricks! Like chameleons, these creatures are able to use surrounding colors to camouflage themselves. “They have even been known to turn bright red to match floating debris.” Aside from threats in the water – there are also forms of threat from humans. There are three main actions humans will perform that hard the sea horses. These being:

  1. “The Traditional Chinese Medicine Trade takes in excess of up to 150 million seahorses a year from the wild and these are used for all types of medicine.
  2. The Curio Trade takes approximately one million seahorses from the wild. Along with shells and starfish; they are deliberately taken from the sea and left to die in the boiling sun. They are then sold as souvenirs, sad and sorrowful reminder of once beautiful creatures.
  3. The pet trade takes an estimated one million seahorses from the wild and It is thought that less than 1,000 survive more than six weeks, very often suffering a slow and possibly painful death.”

When one sea horse dies, I wonder if their partner will know? Most likely. This is due to the fact that “sea horses pair for life.” Each morning the pair will “reinforce their pair bonding with an elaborate courtship display.” How does this work? “The female meets the male in his territory and as they approach each other, they change colour. The male circles around the female and the pair often spiral around an object.” The courtship display may last “unto an hour.”

Now what usually comes after a marriage? Babies! Except it is a little different of a process with sea horses. The female sea horse’s eggs transfer to the male where he fertilizes each in his pouch. Small species can have between 50-150 eggs and larger species, up to 1,500. Their gestation period can be from “fourteen to four weeks” long. The actual birthing can take a while with “contractions lasting unto 12 hours.”

A sea horse’s birthing process – video

Those babies are completely on their own once born. “The first two to three weeks of their lives” are spent “drifting along in the plankton layer of the ocean.” Unfortunately, “less than one in a thousand will survive long enough to become an adult due to predators.” If not predators, I am sure the size of sea horses does not help in survival because the currents can become unbearable.

Sea horses are just little creatures that people sometimes forget about them I always found their way of life to be quite interesting. I hope you gained some new information and fun facts on our horse-like sea monsters!

sea horse

Image Citation

Resource for most information in the blog.

Gained video from this site.

Allnighters: The college life

Admit it, at least once in your life time you’ve pulled an allnighter to study for an exam you had the next day, or those blogs you waited last minute to do…again 🙁  I see snaps from penn states campus story on snapchat of people doing all nighters at the library.  Is it truly worth it though? How much does it affect a college students life if they lose a nights sleep? Lets find out 🙂

According to the national institute of health they say the people that are the most sleep deprived are us of course, the college students. “Research at Brown University has found that approximately 11% of students report good sleep, while 73% report sleep problems. ” On average adults should get around eight to ten hours, but do most college students succeed with that…not really.  Instead we tend to get 6, maybe even less due to things like sports, work, and studying. These statistics don’t really surprise me as much, because we’re trying to balance out sleep between school and social time. Its very hard to get all three things perfect.  I wonder what nights college students had the most sleep issues, in the beginning, middle, or towards the end. Would that change the statistics about the number of hours and the sleep problems.

There are whole bunch of negative effects that sleep deprivation can have on us.  For instance our immune system can mess up make us feel shitty. For example when we get a cold, and then out of no where it turns into the flu 🙁 I hate when that happens to me, because it makes me more miserable than I already was.  Our mood is another negative that can be caused by a sleepless night . When we don’t get enough sleep , we are cranky and don’t really care for anything. Our mood from a sleepless night can make us miss out on what the teacher said. Memory is shot just like that and won’t be back to normal until we sleep again

Our appearance looks different as well when us college kids don’t get enough beauty sleep. There was this one study done by researcher Tina Sundelin, M.SC who did a correlation study that dealt with participants looking at pictures. There were 40 participants altogether and they had to look at 20 photos. Ten of the photos were of people that had slept for more than required 8 hours of sleep. The other set was of people that didn’t sleep at all during the 24 hour cycle. After looking at the photos they had to describe the folks in the picture.  The participants said the ones who got no sleep had bags under their eyes, skin almost like a ghost, ect. One of things I wish they mentioned was the categories for the twenty photos. Was it a mix of kids from freshman to Senior year the participants looked at in the photos or were they all from one class.

From now on I will try to make an effort to making a habit of going to bed at an earlier time. Also I need to stop doing homework till the very last minute.  That’s one of the reasons I stay up too late.

Also here’s a picture I found that relates to my topic of college and sleep sleep_infographic

 

 

Are Adrenaline Junkies actually Adrenaline Addicts?

Everyone knows a person like this. They love all forms of adventure, speed, and height, and can’t stop coming back for more. They can never be satisfied, and always look for something bigger, higher, or faster to check off the bucket list. I am talking, of course, about the adrenaline junkie. But are they really addicted to the “rush” from their high-octane adventures? I think that this in indeed a form of addiction, similar to getting a high off of drugs or sex.

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While not officially listed as an addiction, there is an official label of “adrenaline junkie” in the scientific community. Temple University’s Frank Farley made the first official classification of these personalities in 1980’s, calling those who gravitated to danger and risk “Type T” personalities. But just because science hasn’t confirmed it as an official addiction doesn’t mean it isn’t.

dognews.com

I therefore dug deeper into what could possibly be addictive about an adrenaline rush itself. What I found was that when the body senses a potentially dangerous or frightening situation, it responds in several ways that create the “rush” people associate with these extreme sports. First, the adrenal gland produce, you guessed it, adrenaline. In addition, the pituitary gland creates its own endorphins, which add increased pleasure and decreased pain to the experience. Dr. Bernard Beitman of the University of Virginia looked at the first part, the adrenal gland secreting adrenaline, and explained how this could be the addictive factor. As is stated in this Q&A, adrenaline is closely linked with dopamine, which “plays a major role in pleasure and addiction” Is this the link that could settle the matter once and for all?

dtpatton.wordpress.com

A look at a helpful guide called HelpGuide courtesy of Harvard’s medical program explained to me why dopamine causes addiction. Dopamine combines with the chemical glutamate to rewire the brain such that it begins to associate the addictive “thing” (in this case adrenaline) with pleasure and positive feelings and desire more and more. Thus begins the cycle of addiction.

A single statement from a single doctor doesn’t confirm that adrenaline rushes are addicative. No single statement is enough to conclusively overturn a null hypothesis. I turned to search engines, with page after page of search results using the term “adrenaline addiction” but without a link to a study or experiment that actually proves this to be a real addiction. For although it may seem like all signs point to this being a real affliction, science cannot simply assume something to be true. Thus, my alternative hypothesis that adrenaline rushes can be addictive is in limbo, not rejected but not a proven medical diagnosis either.

red light cameras

horrible bossesThe use of red light cameras is a growing method of law enforcement over the past decade. The high speed cameras take a photo of drivers running red lights. A ticket is then mailed to the residence of the person to which the car is registered. These
horrible bosses 2cameras have come under attack in the U.S. Opponents of the cameras claim they are unconstitutional because they bypass due process. Proponents of the cameras claim they make the roadways safer. Since this is a class based on science, and not constitutional law, I was curious to the accuracy of the latter argument.

Red light cameras have two hypothesis that need to be tested. The first is that red light cameras cause a reduction in accident rates. The second hypothesis is that red light cameras cause a reduction in injuries and fatalities.

An observational study conducted by the IIHS rejected the null hypothesis that red light cameras do not reduce injuries and fatalities. Their study look at 99 U.S. cities around the country with a population of over 200,000 people. Of those 99 cities, 14 implemented red light camera enforcement. The IIHS observed accident data from those cities from 1992-1996 (when no cities used red light cameras) and from 2004-2008 (when 14 cities used red light cameras). The IIHS then analyzed “the citywide per capita rate of fatal red light running crashes…” Researches than did a statistical analysis and found that fatal red light running fatal crashes declined by 35% compared to 14% in other cities. The IIHS then estimated, after controlling for land area and population density, the IIHS estimates that the fatal rate of accidents due to red light running in 2004-2008 was reduced by 24%.

There are a few problems with this study. The first is the sample size. Only about 14% of the cities evaluated had red light cameras in use. That is disproportionate to the number of cities without the cameras. The results of the individual cities with cameras have a greater affect on the analysis because there are so few in the camera category (similar to the kids and e-ciggarette study Andrew showed us). Also, although third variables stated to measured, it is impossible to account for all confounding variables in this kind of study. Population type could be a factor for example. According to a Washington Post article, people in the Millennial Generation are driving less than previous generations. Therefore, there were more teen drivers in proportion to the population in 1992-1996 than there are from 2004-2008. Teen drivers are more likely to take risks behind the wheel, and with their diminishing driving habits, there is reason to believe this could have affected the study.

Another, more thorough, observational study published in the Journal of Safety Research found data consistent with the null hypothesis that red light cameras reduce accident rates. The study evaluated 253 signalized intersections in Flanders, Belgium from 2002-2007. During that time period, red light cameras were installed, and researches evaluated the effects. The study displayed a complex statistical method for controlling for trend effects (trends in related injuries in Flanders). Then, researches did a meta-analysis of all the intersections in the study. They found the following:

“The analyses showed a non-significant increase of 5% in the number of injury crashes. An almost significant decrease of 14% was found for the more severe crashes. The number of rear-end crashes turned out to have increased significantly (+ 44%), whereas a non-significant decrease (− 6%) was found in the number of side crashes. The decrease for the severe crashes was mainly attributable to the effect on side crashes, for which a significant decrease of 24% was found.”

This study is well conducted. It has a large sample size, and takes into account trend affects. It fails to reject the null hypothesis that red light cameras reduce accident rates. It does, however, support the the alternative hypothesis that red light cameras reduce severe accidents resulting in fatalities or serious injuries. There could be compounding variables though. For example, in the five year span from 2002-2007, automotive crashworthiness likely improved. The implementation of side airbags became more common in new cars during that time period, which may have affected the rate of serious accidents. Also, the narrow scope in regard to the location may not represent a worldwide or an American population.

I would like to see a thorough observational study conducted that looks at cities’ past insurance claims, crash data, population density, population demographics etc. From there, the chosen, similar cities would be randomly required to implement red light camera enforcement. The study would last only a year to limit the effect of technological advances in automotive safety. From this study, a better conclusion could be made with regard to the hypothesis proposed.

Seeing sounds

color shitListening to music is a very sensual thing.  When you listen to a good song our bodies can get invested in it, whether it be dancing, or even getting so emotional you cry.  Most people can only say they hear sounds though, but there are a few people in this world that can actual see sounds.  There is a condition called synesthesia and it connects multiple senses together.  For example there is a woman in England who sees different colors when she hears different notes.  

Another example is a man named Matthew Blakeslee who can taste different things when he touches different things, such as raw meat.   Synesthesia has been studied by scientists since the 1880’s, but it was for a long time thought of as mockery.  Then it was perceived as if the person affected was on LSD, it wasn’t until the 90s until it was studied for real.  The mechanism for why people are like this is a difference in the temporal and parietal lobes of the brain.

brain

Another type of synesthesia is people who associate colors and shapes to numbers.  My best friend actually has this type of synesthesia, and it has actually has helped her in her schooling.  “It makes it easier to make mental associations.” says my friend, Sarah.  This makes sense on why she was in the top 5 in my class, and she didn’t even try.

A test that was done to see if somebody actually has this type of synesthesia, a team of scientists put certain numbers into certain shapes, like a triangle.  The numbers were also varied in color, and only people with the condition automatically assumed certain colors were certain numbers when putting them into shapes.

color shit2
When someone can hear colors on the other hand it means that auditory and visual signals are 
mixed.  What happens is that the brighter the sound, the brighter the color, so it is a correlation.  Also, when the sound is louder the color is more prominent, also correlating with dynamics.  

There is no possible way of synesthesia being anything other than a biological occurrence.  I mean there is a possibility that people are lying, but the results of the number test showed that all of the people diagnosed reacted like they should have, and those without did the same.  It is hard to experiment on something that is a condition, and that is why there were not too many experiments done on these people.  The condition is also not exactly common, especially the severe cases such as seeing sounds.

It would be really cool to be able to sense everything at once, but at the same time it could be very annoying to see yellow every time you heard someones nasaliy voice.  So if you can see sounds, or associate colors with numbers, you may have synesthesia!

 

more deprived, more deviant

high school.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-largeCrime surrounds us everyday and is something that has been continuously obtaining more attention because of technology. The definition of crime depends on that certain societies culture and social institutions. Since we all feed off each other to define what social norms are, people decide collectively what is and what is not okay. Functionalist Theory shows us that crime and deviance both result from structural tensions. Crime is inevitable, I’m not saying that everyone attempts to surpass crazy extremes, but we all mess up as humans at some point in our lifetime. *Anyone who says they haven’t is a liar.* Crime and deviance are two necessary elements that make up modern society. Anything that has power will always demand a group of people who work against that force. We can see this with the government, food industry, environment activists, and businessmen. All of these institutions/ forces have such high amounts of power that they have to instill rules, but when you don’t live in a utopian society people will always go against rules, “rebels.”

In America there are still certain cities and counties that have banned alcohol and have remained dry since the Prohibition, or later encountered a problem again and had to ban it. Now the ironic thing is that when there was a study done in these alcohol free areas, it was discovered that these places had more meth labs. This just goes to prove that deviance always manages to find its way into our society, and is seen currently with Marijuana abuse in our modern day society. We are currently experiencing a generation of people where the demand on Marijuana has reached a whole new extreme. Ever since Colorado has made it legal and then taxed it, they completely surpassed the amount they predicted they would make.
. The thing with deviance is that it is modes of action that do not conform with social norms, so is it really for the action itself or the thrill? Although the majority of the US still hasn’t legalized weed, when this generation was growing up it was illegal everywhere. I believe all high schoolers interviewed would agree with the fact that the whole process of obtaining Marijuana is much more of a thrill than smoking it is. People tend to become more deviant because certain labels are attached to their behavior by political authorities/others and causes them to feel as if they have to reach this certain expectation. In return, as kids continue to perpetuate in the activity with groups of kids, they begin to feel more accepted, and then the habit ends up becoming a lifestyle. Differential associations actually suggest that criminal behavior is learned through association with others who regularly engage in crime. During the Prohibition there was an extreme uproar of crimes and felonies committed, which just goes to show that history really does always repeat itself. I’m not saying no one consumes alcohol anymore, but when there is less curiosity, there is also less cravings.

Howle Becker, a man who studied marijuana users in the 60’s, saw that a lot of the individuals he studied depended on the level of acceptance they felt by their close associates and their views on deviant behavior. He implies that once a teen is confronted by their parents in a negative way, that they will stop engaging in the activity. But honestly based off of personal experience and the kids I have seen/met, once they feel more alienated, they only indulge in the activity more. So the real question is whether once it’s legal, will it continue to have the demand it has now or drop?

Have a Seat…or not?

We all have been there, that point in time during class where you just cannot possibly sit any longer. You start to fidget in your seat to try and find the most comfortable position only to find yourself with a numb tailbone or legs and feet that have fallen asleep. My high school classes were 90 minutes long, and the chairs were god awful, not comfortable at all. Many times teachers would try to break up class by giving us a minute or two to stand up and stretch or an activity that required we get up and move around in attempts to keep our attention for the full period. The teachers that did not do this then had to deal with the never-ending bathroom trips from students. No student could have had to go that often, instead they used it as a reason to get up and walk around. With this in mind the question has been posed in learning and working environments if it is, in fact, better to do work standing up versus sitting down.

Think about it, when people are trying to think what is a common thing many tend to do? They pace. You don’t see people trying to come up with ideas laying down quite often. Or, how about when you need to clear your head so you get up from what you’re working on and go for a walk or a run. So, is there a relationship between physical activity and being more productive or being able to think better? Sage Journals produced a study on this with school aged children. Their goal was to determine if standing desks helped children in the classroom in regards to “performance and behavior”. They also evaluated the effect the desks had on “physical activity” (Get to the article by clicking here). The conclusion of the study is as follows, “standing desks may provide an attractive alternative to traditional seated desks as they provide the potential for a less sedentary student body while maintaining and possibly improving academic performance” (Get the full conclusion here). However, even this study concludes that more studies need to be done in order to determine if standing increases children’s productivity.

The above study was an example of an experiment. They put some kids at standing desks and recorded the data regarding behavior, productivity, height, weight, and BMI, then compared that to a baseline from before the kids started at the standing desks.

A second study from The FASEB Journal measured the same thing, but in adults at the workplace. The overall goal was the same, to find if standing helps productivity versus sitting. In short the study replaced workers’, ranging from ages 33 to 66 years old, regular desks with new height adjustable desks, thus increasing their standing time throughout the work day. The conclusion that they found in this study was that “these changes were accompanied by decreased tiredness and increased perceptions of amount and quality of work completed and overall work performance” (Find the page here).

Get the link to this image here .

Get the link to this image here .

These two studies both have enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis that standing versus sitting does nothing. In fact, in both studies it shows that productivity, among other things, increased when standing desks were incorporated. USA Today’s article online provides the first hand account from Jeff Gothelf  saying that he too saw his productivity increase from standing versus sitting. His theory why, as he states, is because “When you’re standing, you are not relaxing or hanging out watching videos or doing other stuff. You’re very goal oriented. There are no distractions. You’re in and out” (see quote here).

I tried to do a study like this for my psychology class senior year of high school. We came up with little brain puzzles and had a random assortment of students, both guys and girls, take them standing and then sitting. We timed how long it took them to complete each one. In the end our findings were inconclusive as the results did not sway in a particular direction. Then again we also had to take into consideration that some people, regardless of their body position, did not understand the puzzles.

I agree that more studies should be done on this to further find out if there is a direct link between standing versus sitting and productivity in both school and the workplace. However, judging by the above findings there is, for sure, a correlation between the two.

 

Is Coffee good for you?

Every morning, I see kids waiting on line to get a hot coffee from the creamery. Drinking one cup of coffee in the morning seems fine, right? But later in the day, I will see people going back into the creamery to get their second or third cup of coffee. This made me start to think. Is having more than one cup of coffee a day healthy or unhealthy? I personally think it is unhealthy. There is no way that much caffeine is good for the body.

One study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition states that one to three cups of coffee a day may slightly elevate your risk of high blood pressure. Those in the experiment who drank less than 1 cup of coffee did not have an increased risk for high blood pressure. A contradicting study stated that “women who drink two cups a day have an 11 percent lower risk of heart failure than those who drink less and that those who gulp down two to three cups are 25 percent less likely to die from heart disease.” As you can see, studies exist for both sides of the argument. One of these studies shows the benefits of drinking more coffee and the other shows the negative side effects. My feeling is that it tends to be true that the more cups of coffee one drinks, the more risks that would accompany it.

Surprisingly, I found from my research that there are a lot of healthy benefits to drinking coffee. For example, coffee contains Potassium, Magnesium, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B5, Folate, and much more. Yes, coffee may only contain 2% of each, but drinking 2/3 cups a day along with your other meals does supply some nutrients.. Caffeine is also known as a stimulant. This means that it blocks the function of an inhibitory neurotransmitter called Adenosine. By doing this, caffeine increases activity in the brain and releases neurotransmitters like norepinephrine and dopamine. These two stimulants reduce tiredness and makes people feel more awake. Lastly, studies have shown that “coffee drinkers have up to a 65% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. There are a lot of benefits to drinking coffee that I was unaware of.

The bottom line is that coffee could be good for you if you drink it in moderation Although related but slightly off-topic, I discovered while doing research many articles that referenced people being addicted to coffee as similar to an addict to alcohol. This made me sUnknowntart to wonder what would happen if someone who is addicted to coffee stopped drinking it for a period of time. Would they feel a sense of withdrawal? Or will they be perfectly fine without it?

An experiment was done by an individual who is addicted to coffee to determine how it felt to give up drinking coffee for 30 days. At first he limited himself to 1 cup a day and then later only allowed himself to drink tea. He found that his sleep patterns did not really change. One would think that having less coffee would allow one to be able to sleep longer. However, that was not the case. I question this study because it did not restrict the individual from other sources of caffeine.

Another finding
was that he was able to focus more and stay calmer throughout the day. He was able to focus more on tests and projects as well. Something I found surprising was that he did not really crave coffee. He only craved it when he smelled it or when he saw other people drinking it. I guess that is a good thing. He was able to resist coffee for 30 days and did not have any major side effects. Once again, I believe this experiment is somewhat flawed because of the other sources of caffeine, like tea, made available to the subject. A true test would be to see if there were any side effects without any caffeine, such as having the subject just drink decaf products.

People drink coffee for many different reasons. Some people drink it to help them wake up, some people drink it to help them focus in school, and other people drink it just because they like the taste. No matter what the reason is, people should not drink it in excess. Just like so many of the products on the market, moderation is the important thing. When you drink coffee in excess, it could have negative implications to you. However, only drinking 1-3 cups a day is actually good for an individual. Therefore, my hypothesis stating that drinking more than one cup of coffee a day is bad for you was incorrect. Another important piece of information one should take away from this blog is that someone addicted to coffee may be able stop if they wanted to. The key point to remember is to understand the other sources of caffeine in your diet and the impact they have on your addiction. It is possible that one who thinks they are addicted to coffee is truly addicted to caffeine.

People should not depend on coffee throughout the day to function properly. It is healthier to get more sleep throughout the night. So, next time you are tempted to get your fourth or fifth cup of coffee, ask yourself, do you really need it?

Banana

When you were little did your parents ever force you to eat bananas? Well, mine sure did.  Before I was allowed to have any sort of junk food I alBananasways had to eat a banana first.  When I was little I used to always get angry that she made me eat something healthy before I could eat something that I loved.  Now I’m thankful that they made me eat them because now I know how many benefits there are.

When you eat bananas, they help you produce tryptophan.  This helps fight depression.  Also before working out a good idea is to eat a banana because it helps you to prevent cramps.  A study that show that eating about one half a banana helped keep energy levels up.  The potassium in the banana helped to prevent the cramps, so next time you are thinking of going to the gym make sure that you eat a banana before you go!

One thing that we should start worrying about is cardiovascular diseases.  One way to prevent diseases is by eating more bananas.  If you have a banana every morning, it will keep your electricity going through your body which is required to keep your heart beating.  Eating just a single banana can help you get the amount of potassium that you need on a daily basis.

I hope that you are now convinced to eat a banana because I sure am! I definitely am going to try to eat a lot of bananas because there are so many health benefits!

Caffeineaholic- Myth or Fact?

We all know the dreadful feeling of waking up for early classes. As college students we are 24629197901249062_1386727686
constantly battling between the gruesome late nights filled with schoolwork and early mornings filled with classes. For most people including myself, that combination is definitely not ideal. After I turn off my alarm and drag myself out of bed, I find it extremely difficult to keep my eyes open for even a split second. Luckily caffeine can come to the rescue! Routinely within 10-30 minutes upon waking, I am usually rushing to get my hands on a nice cup of coffee. As I take my first sip of coffee each morning I feel like a whole new person, and I hate to admit it but I have become a caffeineaholic. 

Today among American adults, coffee serves as the leading source of caffeine. This statisic makes coffee more attractive in the eyes of individuals, especially sleep- deprived ones.

When drinking coffee, individuals most likely do not think about the long term outcomes their cup of coffee could have on them. People may not admit to a coffee addiction, but if coffee is part of your everyday routines and you can not imagine a morning without it, then chances are you are developing a dependence on coffee or caffeine in general.



According to an article from Everyday Health, “ caffeine is the most common mood-altering drug in the world.” That statement stood out to me because I could not even count the amount of times I have heard people say “I haven’t had my cup of coffee yet today, talk to me after.”

838a4db1653d021ac81d8695feafcb10 In many areas you can find a Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Caribou Coffee, or another coffee shop on almost every block. The popularity of coffee is growing each day, and leading to many addictions among individuals. A recent poll concluded that over 83 percent of adults in the United States drink at least one cup of coffee a day.

Just like a severe dependence on any other drug, individuals can suffer from withdrawal. After stopping the mass intake of caffeine, withdrawal symptoms can appear within 12-24 hours. Experimental and survey studies regarding caffeine withdrawal were conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore and American University in Washington, D.C. After their studies, they concluded that the most common symptoms faced by individuals enduring caffeine withdrawal include:

  • Headaches
  • Fatigue
  • Drowsiness
  • Depression
  • Anger/ Irritability

If you feel like you are suffering from a caffeine addiction, there are some strategies for cutting down on caffeine. A few include:

  • Mixing decaffeinated coffee with regular coffee
  • Drink soft drinks that do not contain caffeine

Click here for additional information on how to recognize and then break a caffeine addiction.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine_dependence

http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/01/29/caffeine-addiction-is-no-joke-for-some/65142.html

Ocean Pollution: We are Killing Our Oceans

It was thought for a very long time that the ocean could handle anything that was put into it. The ocean is so massive that people believed it would dilute any harmful and unnatural substance that was placed in it. However today we know that this is not the case. The ocean’s ecosystem is deteriorating at an alarming rate and is slowly dying. As humans we have been gradually murdering seventy percent of the surface of the earth by throwing just about anything harmful and man-made including radioactive waste, trash, garbage, chemicals, and heavy metals into the ocean for centuries. Now these proverbial tides are turning; since the 1970s there have been worldwide movements to stop the destruction of our oceans. In 1975 the United Nations made it illegal to dump waste and trash into the ocean. To enforce this new world wide law “The International Maritime Organization was given responsibility for this and a protocol was finally adopted in 1996, a major step in the regulation of ocean dumping” (marinebio.org). Now because of this international law the amount of hazardous material dumped into the ocean every year has decreased at a significant rate every year. There are many manmade materials and substances polluting the oceans and they all have a detrimental effect on the oceans and their ecosystems.

There are thousands of different types of hazardous and deadly materials that make their way into the worlds’ oceans every year, but these substances can be divided into several different categories. These categories are radioactive material, sewage, oil, trash and garbage, fertilizers, chemicals, and heavy metals. According to the Marinebio Conservation Society, radioactive material comes from “the nuclear power process, medical use of radioisotope, research use of radioisotopes and industrial uses” (marinebio.org). Sewage consists of wastewater from homes and cities, which contains human excrement and any other materials that are washed into the sewers. A substance that is more deadly than sewage that is polluting the ocean is oil, which comes from tankers and offshore refineries. Out of all the things that are polluting the ocean, trash and garbage makes up a large majority of it. There are “trillions of decomposing plastic items and trash” that is currently floating around in the ocean (NationalGeographic). This trash is basically anything that we use in our daily lives that gets thrown out or disposed of, from reusable plastics to chairs to clothing. Another substance that is damaging the ocean is fertilizers. Fertilizers are used by farmers and in large quantities, they are basically chemicals used to help plants grow. Eventually the fertilizers make their way into the ocean. Another substance that is similar to fertilizers is chemicals, this consists of such things as pesticides, herbicides detergents and basically any other substance that is unnatural and artificially made (NationalGeographic). A final hazardous material that has made its way into the ocean unnaturally is heavy metals. Heavy Metals are such things as arsenic, copper, lead, and zinc that are dug out of the ground and made into things (NationalGeographic). All of these substances are currently in the oceans ecosystem and causing damage.

All of these hazardous substances just don’t magically appear in the ocean, they end up there through many different ways. Three ways that result in almost all ocean pollution are oil spills, agricultural runoff, and dumping. When someone thinks of oil spills they might think that this is something that doesn’t happen that often; however this is not the case. The Environmental Encyclopedia states that “from 2000 to 2008, an average of 24 tons of oil has been spilled annually” (OpposingViewpoints). Also there are major events such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill and Deepwater Horizon drilling rig accident. When a tanker ship for Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska it leaked almost 750,000 barrels of crude oil into the water for several days. The Deepwater Horizon accident occurred when an explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico “triggered an oil leak on the ocean floor, for 87 days oil spewed into the Gulf” (OpposingViewpoints). This incident resulted in over 200 million gallons of crude oil to be released into the ocean.

Another way that hazardous material gets into the ocean is through agricultural runoff. According to Marinebio Conservation Society agricultural runoff is when harmful materials and chemicals such as “pesticides, fertilizers, and other chemicals used on farms contaminate nearby rivers that flow into the ocean”, which results in these harmful chemicals making their way into the ocean and its ecosystem (marinebio.org). Large amounts of these extremely harmful and deadly chemicals are used on just about every farm and “40 percent of fertilizers used in the United States end up in waterways and coastal marine environments.” (OpposingViewpoints). These chemicals and fertilizers have an immense impact and effect on the oceans ecosystems.

By far the most significant form of ocean pollution is dumping. Dumping results in just about anything that is hazardous being placed in the ocean by the ton every year. Anything from sewage and trash to chemicals and fertilizers to dredged material to industrial and nuclear waste ends up in the ocean as a result of dumping. Up until the 1970s dumping wasn’t illegal. The Marinebio Conservation Society states that “in the 1970s, 17 million tons of industrial waste was legally dumped into the ocean”; now dumping is illegal and it has decreased but it still happens every day all over the world (marinebio.org). There are still dozens of countries that illegally dump raw sewage and other waste into the ocean daily, despite the fact that there is an international ban on ocean dumping. These three different methods are responsible for just about everything that is hazardous and polluting the ocean to be deposited into the ocean and cause further damage.

It is not impossible to figure out all of these hazardous materials and chemicals that are dumped into the ocean have a serious and immensely damaging impact on the ocean and its ecosystem. Every one of these pollutants kills marine life and damages the habits and areas that they live in. Fertilizers and sewage robs water of its oxygen, causing uninhabitable areas and killing marine life. Fertilizers put extra nutrients into the water which cause “massive blooms of algae that rob the water of oxygen, leaving areas where little or no marine life can exist” (NationalGeographic). It is because of these algae blooms that over 400 areas around the world are completely dead and can no longer support life. Sewage and fertilizers that have ended up in the ocean have and will continue to kill entire ecosystems and habitats for marine life. As a result of agricultural runoff from fertilizers “55 percent of the rivers in the United States are, as of 2013 considered in poor health” (OpposingViewpoints). Fertilizers not only kill marine life but they also damage waterways and ocean environments all over the world.

Another leading pollutant that kills hundreds of thousands of animals a year is trash and garbage disposed of into the ocean. There is currently over a trillion pieces of trash and plastic currently floating around in the ocean. According to National Geographic ocean currents have taken much of this trash and pooled it all into one massive area know as the Pacific Trash Vortex, which is estimated to be the size of Texas. Because of all the trash that has been deposited into the ocean over the years, an entire massive island has been created (NationalGeographic). All of this trash is often mistaken for food by fish, seabirds and other marine life. This has resulted in of over one million dead seabirds and 150,000 marine mammals each year. (OpposingViewpoints). When they eat this trash and plastic it results in a slow death due to lack of proper nutrients. Radioactive waste is also very deadly because it can stay radioactive for decades, which can kill animals from radiation poisoning. Many of the hazardous materials that are polluting the ocean “are consumed by small marine organisms and introduced into the global food chain” (NationalGeographic). Not only are these pollutants killing marine life and the habitats that they live in, but they are are also harming us. When marine animals eat these harmful chemicals and substances they stay in their bodies, and when other animals eat those animals the chemicals are again transferred to them. When people consume some marine life there is still sometimes left over traces and amounts of these dangerous substances that humans are then consuming.

Here is a very powerful video that shows what ocean pollution does to marine life:

Overall there are many different man made pollutants that enter the oceans and cause massive amounts of damage. As humans just about everything we create from radioactive material, sewage, oil, trash and garbage, fertilizers, and chemicals ends up into the ocean. These substances are deposited into the ocean through ways such as agricultural runoff, dumping, and oil spills. Once these hazardous materials are in the ocean they can destroy entire ecosystems and kill millions of marine animals that require the ocean to live. Ocean pollution has and will continue to have a great effect on the ocean’s life and ecosystem.

Here are my sources:

 

Picture at the top: http://www.shft.com/thumbs/540×308/files/plastic-pollution-ocean-9725.jpg

Video at the bottom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3XGUnjDRUQ

http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/explore/pristine-seas/critical-issues-marine-pollution/

http://marinebio.org/oceans/ocean-dumping/

http://ic.galegroup.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ic/ovic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=OVIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&display-query=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&u=psucic&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&source=&search_within_results=&p=OVIC&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE|CV2644150832

 

Is it better to take notes by hand?

Do you remember that at the very beginning of the semester, probably at the second or third class, when the professor prohibited the use of computers at class, he said that note-taking by hand was more efficient than note-taking on computer? I wonder if what the professor said is true, so I dig into the question, and I found one and only one research about this problem. I do this research not to fight for my right of taking notes with computers, but to find out which is the better way of studying in the future.

PS: Assume if students turn on their laptop on class, taking notes is the only thing they are doing.

taking-notes

The research was conducted by two people from Princeton University and University of California, Los Angeles. In the experiment, sixty-seven students were chosen, thirty male, thirty female, and one unknown (this is what is on the report. I do not know what does “unknown” represents). Five TED Talks were selected with average length of fifteen minutes. The content was interesting but not common knowledge, and the students did not know the information in the TED talks. Students were assigned to take notes with normal laptops and notebooks. After the video, the participants will be asked several questions related to the video. A score will be given based on the accuracy of the answer.

The result shows that students who took notes with laptops had slightly better performance on factual questions, while students who took notes with hand had significantly better performance on conceptual questions. Content vise, students who take notes with laptop has an obvious advantage.

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The study could be biased. As I did not see what the questions were, bias could occur during the grading process. If the professor was really against technological use in class, he might manipulate the result. Also, because I failed to find more similar experiment, it is hard to do a meta-analysis to test the accuracy.

handwriting-notes-1024x576-1024x576

The conclusion we can get from the experiment is that although taking notes on computers can record more information, taking notes by hand gives students much better understanding of the information. This conclusion can either be correct or false positive. The result may occur because it is impossible for students to write down everything when taking notes by hand (it is much faster to type), they need to understand the material better so that they can choose the most essential information to write down.

Although failed to find the another experiment, finding out the mechanism for causing the result may be helpful in testing the accuracy of the theory as well. Cognitive psychologist Robert Bjork has a theory that harder learning process can make memorizing easier. This theory can provide a mechanism for why taking notes by hand can help students’ conceptual understanding of the information.

keep-calm-and-learn-hard-7

Overall, it seems that taking notes by hand is more helpful to students than taking notes by computer because it makes students understand the material in class better. To this point, I begin to wonder that which will be more efficient, totally focusing on class without taking notes or take some notes by hand. Taking notes will definitely get more information recorded, but will “not taking note” make students understand better? It is a pity that I did not find any experiment on this theory and I can not risk myself to do the experiment. Hopefully someday someone will try to find out the answer to the question.

Works Cited

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/22/0956797614524581.full

http://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/research.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/taking-notes-by-hand-could-improve-memory-wt/

 

Work: Slow or Busy?

Everyone who works probably gets that anxiety before they walk through the front doors about the busyness. I  definitely do especially if its for a home football or volleyball game.  We pray that there’s not that long of a line, and if there is one then its time to put the game face on and keep the customers moving through.

I couldn’t find anything on how we would know if it would be busy or not at work, so I thought of way we could test it.

My hypothesis (theory) would be “Will it be slow or busy at work today?” The independent variable (X) in this case are the days I work during the week and the dependent variable is the calendar of events.

To test this I would first look at the calender and look at the dates on the days I work. Then I would look to see all the events that are scheduled for that specific day.  After that’s done, the next step would be to write down all the possible third variables that are associated with the days I work during the week and calendar of events. They include the time in which the event starts, what the weather’s going to look like that day, if classes are going on,  the totals from each of the registers  throughout the day and finally whether its morning, afternoon or evening.

Afterwards I would make a graph in excel and keep on recording what I see for a few weeks. That’s all I can think of doing as of right now. I’d say this would be considered a correlation because the days of work depend on the calendar of event, but it doesn’t work the opposite way.

w-l-balance

Is Diet Coke better than Regular?

Most schools are a Pepsi campus, but personally I am not a fan. I like Coke better specifically diet coke. To me a diet coke and lemon in the hand is the best thing and always the best thing and always quenches my thirst. I like the taste of diet coke compared to the taste of the regular coke. I actually think that the regular coke is too sugary and it actually hurts my teeth when I drink it, so I never drink it. Although, drinking soda specifically coke isn’t good for someone’s health and if they want to loose weight, but which type diet or regular is “better” for you?

It could just be an extra label on the can/ bottle saying diet, but is diet any better than just regular coke? The reason why there is a “diet” name to coke is because there is no sugar used but rather artificial sweeteners that were considered safe by the FDA, Food and Drug Administration. Just because there is no sugar in the drink doesn’t mean that the artificial sweetener is healthy. There is no evidence yet to prove if artificial sugars are healthier. This article states that “recent research shows that artificial sweeteners are not inert- they alter human metabolism and gut bacteria and may be linked to Type-2 diabetes.”

A scientist at Washington University’s School of Medicine in St. Louis conducted study with the intent to find out how 17 obese humans processed glucose after drink water or sucralose, otherwise known as Splenda. The conclusion was that the people who had the sucralose released 20% more insulin compared to the people who drank water before the glucose.  So artificial sugars have no role in the functioning of the metabolism. There is going to be another experiment with a control group being the non- obese subjects.

Researcher Bjorn Richelsen did an observational study to see if sugar sweetened soft drink increased obesity through our appetites. The conclusion  was that the regular sugary coke led people with a larger appetite and the people who drank diet coke did not increase their caloric intake. This website claims that “the researchers found that, on average, people who drank diet soda over the course of the 12- week study lost about 13 pounds, which was 4.5 more than those who had switched to water. They said that was due to the fact that diet soda make people feel more full and leave them with a larger appetite than water.

From a lot of the research that I was looking into, nothing was very conclusive or gave definite answers. So my conclusion is that there needs to be more tests to see if what I am actually drinking, which is the diet coke, is a faux and I should be drinking the regular to not gain any extra weight or add not safe sugars into my body. I like the taste of diet coke better, but if it worse for my health then it is not worth drinking.

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Death and Dying

I think one of the most interesting things to think about is what happens after you die. What is it like? Is there a heaven and hell or are we reincarnated into a tree, a slug, another human, a rock? Or is there just endless nothingness, an eternity of pitch blackness? However, this post is not about the issue of life after death, it is about life just before death.

People have varying views on how they want to live their last days and the critical decisions they make in those last days. I wanted to see if this varied in any significant way from country to country.

One study was done on the views of death and dying in Ireland. The study was a survey in which they asked the 667 adult participants a variety of questions pertaining to their ethical views of health care at the end of one’s life.

Figure 1

Figure 1

Questions the surveyors asked the participants on the issue of decision making in relation to terminal illness (answers as percentages).

As you can see, most participants believed either the doctor, the family, or a combination of the two had authority over decision making when determining treatment in the event they were in the hospital. In actuality, in Ireland, the family does not have any legal standing in terms of decision making for incompetent patients. Decision making is left to the lead physician unless there is a conflict between the best interests of the family and the doctor that decisions are left to Irish courts.

Figure 2

Attitudes towards how the participants would like to be treated while dying (answers as percentages).

Most participants believed a competent person has the right to free will, and also put a strong emphasis on quality of life rather than length, as well as that they feared helplessness and dependence more than death. In addition, the participants put a strong emphasis on spiritual and religious support, showing the country’s strong sense of Roman Catholicism (84.2% of the population).

The study concludes that the Irish general public is massively misinformed on end-of-life care, dying, and death. For many, trust is left to physicians and family. In addition, quality of death is profoundly more important than timing of death and religion plays a major role in determining that quality. But how does Ireland compare to the United States?

A study done by the Pew Research Center set out to ask some similar questions to Americans.

Figure 3

This question most closely relates to question 6 of Figure 2. Interestingly, there is an 8% increase in America compared to Ireland in favor of wanting to be alive no matter what (31% in America and 23% in Ireland).

Figure 4

To me, this is one of the most interesting parts of the entire study. What really jumps out at me is that White and Hispanic Catholics believed it is acceptable to have a moral right to suicide under any case. Of course there are varying views and a vast array of liberal and conservative Catholics, but Catholicism believes that it is a sin to commit suicide as God has given you life and to take that life which he has given you would be grounds to go to hell. At any rate, I found it to be interesting.

I would be curious as to take a look at some of the other major countries around the world (France, China, Japan, Germany, etc.) to find out their views on life just before death and the treatment one should be able to receive. It might be able to tell us a lot about each country’s culture and show some similarities and differences on a topic for which many people have very strong opinions.

Images:

http://jme.bmj.com/content/36/8/454/F1.large.jpg

http://jme.bmj.com/content/36/8/454/F2.large.jpg

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/11/end-of-life-overview-1.png

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/11/end-of-life-overview-5.png

Why it’s time to legalize anabolic steroids

Growing up in a pretty stable home with two good parents, I was always told that all drugs are bad and to stay away from them. I researched and read up in steroids, which are illegal in the US and considered a class 3 narcotic by the DEA, looked at all the different variables and realized that statement isn’t entirely true in my opinion and I know I will catch some criticism for this but hear me out please.

Steroids were developed in the 1930’s in Europe for males who’s testicles didn’t produce enough testosterone. The main ingredient in steroids in most cases is pure synthetic testosterone. There is also a compound named DecaDurabolin or more commonly known as “Deca” which is given to patients who just recovered from chemotherapy or HIV/AIDS to stimulate the appetite to put back on all the weight lost during treatment. Steroids really didn’t get any recognition in sports until the US caught wind of Russian olympic athletes using them to get the edge of the Americans. So what did we do in response? Made a stronger and more potent compound to give to our athletes to win, keep in mind this was during the cold war and the US was not going to take any chances losing to the Russians.

As I’m researching more into the subject matter I can see why they are illegal because of the side effects which can be reduced sperm count, irritability, increased chance of a male to have impotency, increased anger “roid rage”, increased chance of heart attack, and even death. But only a total of three people die per year due to steroid use yet alcohol is responsible for every one in ten deaths in adults and tobacco kills roughly five million people a year worldwide. Aspirin, advil and multi-vitamins kill 106,000 people per year yet steroids are still illegal.

I feel that if steroids were made legal then the risks would be greatly reduced. Users would have dosages administered professionally by a nurse, users would have blood work done regularly and be monitored by a professional to help the steroid user. I don’t personally use steroids and can’t really give an opinion on how it affects the body but as far as I can see it’s just another supplement to give you an edge over the competition.

 

Are We Really Using Only 10% Of Our Brains?

I remember when I first saw the movie, Limitless, with Bradley Cooper, a statement was made about how we only use about 10-20 percent of our brains. When I heard that, I was both fascinated, yet confused as to what the purpose was of the other 80-90% of our faculties. It seemed kind of useless to me. Well, the reason for my confusion was quite normal as that statement that we use so little of our brains is actually false. The same myth has been repeated numerous times in movies, television ads, and even books. The exact origins of this myth is unknown, but there are commonly held theories as to where it came from. Some of the most notable theories are that Albert Einstein’s intelligence stemmed from his ability to use more than 10% of his brain and that American psychologist William James made the statement that a person “develops only 10 percent of his latent mental ability.”

This myth is so widespread that a survey in 2012 showed that teachers from both Britain and the Netherlands supported this myth, with 48% of the teachers surveyed for Britain and 46% of teachers in the Netherlands. Even the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research sent out a survey with results expressing that 65% were behind this idea. Brain scans have repeatedly shown that the brain is constantly going even when a human is in a state of sleep. So why is the myth still floating around? It’s because it encourages people to strive harder as they feel there is more potential to be unlocked to accomplish greater things.

Those studying the brain hold a consensus that the brain is used for any number of tasks, some we may not known about. Whether it be from our thoughts, regulating emotions, planning, creating, dreaming, or sleeping. Every part of the brain is in effect to carry out these tasks. Behavioral neurophysiologist Eric Chudler states that, “”We use different parts of our brains in different ways when we do different things, but there are no parts of the brain sitting there unused.” This is confirmed based on what is known as a functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) machine which through scanning the brain can allow neurologists to see specifically what parts of the brain are currently in use. When more oxygen released from blood is received to the brain that particular area of the brain in action will light up highlighting that it is in use. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans, are another form of technology that can show what parts of the brain are active by using a radioactive chemical given off when scanned by the machine. fmriimage7sahin_fmri_noun-verb_inflection_summary

 

 

 

 

Have you ever wondered why when a person suffers brain damage or has a portion of their brain removed that they don’t just fail to function. That’s because there is no 90% of the brain not being in use. The rest of the brain takes over to perform the tasks that it can, as not every part of the brain is affected by the trauma.

Sources: 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-11/do-we-only-use-10-per-cent-of-our-brains/5648810

https://formerf1doc.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/some-important-science-on-disorders-of-consciousness-part-2/

http://www.intechopen.com/books/advanced-brain-neuroimaging-topics-in-health-and-disease-methods-and-applications/active-and-passive-fmri-for-presurgical-mapping-of-motor-and-language-cortex

http://www.nedsahin.com/methods/fmri/

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percent.asp

http://www.wired.com/2014/07/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-10-brain-myth-explained-in-60-seconds/

 

 

The Effect of Showers on Circadian Rhythm and Sleep!

It’s safe to assume that everyone has a morning ritual of sorts to get ready for the day. Shaving, showering, maybe a little homework and some breakfast to get ready for the day are pretty much staples of university life no matter what year you’re studying. However, I’ve noticed with my routine that I find it extremely difficult to feel awake and ready for my classes. How can this be? I got eight-plus hours of sleep last night, why do I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck full of pillows? As I climb out of the warm shower I just took- same as every morning- I realized my skin felt very warm, similar to the feeling of being wrapped in blankets, and the feeling of sleep was still there, even though I’d been awake for almost an hour and a half now. I took to researching this feeling, and as it turns out, the time of day humans take showers has more to do with our sleep cycles than we might have expected.

Showers are pleasant enough a place to relax and unwind before or after a long day, and it has more to do with your natural sleep cycle than just a good feeling!

Showers are pleasant enough a place to relax and unwind before or after a long day, and it has more to do with your natural sleep cycle than just a good feeling!

The important thing to understand about the human sleep cycle is that it is not simply an on/off switch that happens when we decide to go to sleep. Our sleep schedule is based of a set of day-based endogenous (meaning self-sustained and built-in to our biological framework) cycles called circadian rhythm, that affects our sleep cycles as well as our metabolism. Insomnia has been heavily linked to problems with individual circadian rhythm patterns, as there are two main types of circadian rhythm cycles: transient (jet lag or recent changes in a sleep schedule) and chronic (such as various syndromes like insomnia, advanced sleep-phase disorder or a chronically irregular sleep cycle). Our individual circadian rhythms tend to govern a natural sense of balance in our day, and the body begins a process of preparing itself for sleep, whether or not we adhere to that process. It’s a natural step in this biological “ritual” for the brain and body to cool itself, and a rise in external skin temperature is a result of heat escaping through the skin. However, human beings don’t always respond to this cooling effect, and it can result in problems with sleeping, as it interrupts that particular circadian aspect of our sleep schedule. In a fascinating study consisting of 12 insomniac women compared against 12 without insomnia, a brain-cooling cap was utilized to monitor the effects of each test subject in a controlled environment as they tried to go to sleep. The cooling of the brain with the help of the cap was so beneficial that the women with insomnia fell asleep on average of 13 minutes, where the non-insomniac subjects took on average of 16, and each test population was able to sleep for the same amount of time uninterrupted by 89% of the insomniac population! It turns out that body and room temperature have very much to do with different sleep cycles, and showering with different temperatures of water at different times of the day can have predictable effects on the brain!  The important thing to note here is that both cold and hot showers can aid in sleep, but other factors such as room temperature, the point of the sleep cycle you are in, etc. can affect the way the body responds to a change in external and internal body temperature.

shower

The human body regulates its temperature during different parts of the day in tune with circadian rhythm and its metabolism, so it’s no surprise that changes in temperature can have such significant effects on sleep!

I think these studies were decently done, but I would have liked to see a more close attention on different controls that could have affected the results of the insomnia study more profoundly, such as health habits, dietary changes such as vegetarianism, room temperature, and whether or not the person was a smoker, etc. Moreover, different cultures and countries express habits of bathing differently than the U.S., where it is more common to take a warm shower at night-which relaxes the muscles and prolongs the cycle of the body’s cooling process after leaving the shower- whereas cold showers in the morning can make someone more alert and ready for a workday. I think I’ll be experimenting a little more on my own with this idea, and I’d like to see more research done in this area to see the effects of body heat more clearly on changes in sleep schedules and uninterrupted patterns in circadian rhythm. Next time you wanna head to bed, try an extra hot or cold shower, and see how it affects you!

http://blog.lunasleep.com/showering-what-water-temperature-will-help-you-sleep-better/

http://valleysleepcenter.com/coldshower/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8033241

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1188944-overview

Click to access Gompper2010skin%20temp%20WVD%20ambulatory.pdf

Finding Courage is Scary

Throughout my life I have tendency to play things safe, not taking many risks, maybe one here or there just to mix things up sometimes. The risks people take though are very complexing because it takes a lot of courage to do something that could risk your physical condition, your mental condition or emotional condition. Looking further into this issue of gaining courage to have the ability to share a personal moment or to ask the question that no one wants to address or to stand up to someone. The amount of courage it takes to do some of these things is something I wanted to further look into.

Aristotle a famous philosopher from history believed courage to be the most important quality in a man. He once wrote “courage is the first human virtues because it makes all others possible”.  This was taken from an article by the Huffington post. In this article it goes through how people deal with fear and how courage can help them prevail through their darkest of times.  A study exploring the power of the mind involved 60 volunteers for a study that used fMRI scanning technology to see what part of the brain had activity when the participants showed a form of courage. The certain part of the brain that was active was in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex. This study rejects the null hypothesis that when faced with a moment that requires courage there is no activity in the brain.

Further studies have concluded when put in a situation that fear feeds into brain activity surges into the same area as before into subgenual anterior cingulate cortex. Researches put the participants in a cage where they can’t move at all and the snake comes closer or further away based on the buttons they press. Meanwhile as this is happening the fMRI scanner scans the brain. The results of both this and prior study confirm this section of the brain have a direct correlation when person shows courage. Then again a common third variable one could identify is the fact both used snakes in the studies for a reaction. So it possible could have an effect to do with snake to make the study of the part of the brain a false positive.

In conclusion the hypothesis is currently correct or a false positive. The null hypothesis as previous stated is rejected from the study.

Do We Really Need Eight Hours Of Sleep Each Night?

“I have a love/ hate relationship with sleep,” I think as I write this blog post late on a Wednesday night. Somedays, I can sleep from 3:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., only getting five hours of sleep which is three whole hours less than the recommended, and feel great the next day, full of energy and happiness. Somedays (usually the weekends), I can sleep a total of ten hours, and feel sluggish and unproductive for the rest of the day. And then other days, the complete opposite will happen to me, where the more sleep I get the better I feel. So what is the recommended amount of sleep for our age group? Do I need that much sleep? What will happen if I don’t get that specific amount of hours of sleep? Is it the same for everyone? Why can I feel okay on less sleep and sluggish with more sleep?

According to the National Sleep Foundation, young adults and also adults until the age of 65 should get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night. Of course, these numbers change for children, who should get around 9 to 11 hours of sleep per night, and elderly people, who only need around 7 or 8 hours per night. Under the “may be appropriate” column (aka, depending on the specific person’s need for sleep, it says that 10 to 11 hours of sleep may be appropriate for 18 and 19-year-olds. Under the “not recommended” column, it says less than 6 hours and more than 11 hours are not recommended, which is usually about where I fall because I guess I like to hit both extremes sometimes. I will occasionally hit that perfect 7 hours of sleep mark and feel great the next day, but unfortunately, I only get between five and six hours of sleep per night. What happens to my mental state and my body when I do not get these magic 7-9 hours of sleep? And why is it bad if I get more than 11 hours of sleep? I thought sleep was good for you!

www.pinterest.com

www.pinterest.com

So it depends on the person if they decide they feel the healthiest on 7 hours of sleep, that is scientifically okay. If one needs more sleep than that, 11 hours is perfectly okay too. So when I fall out of this recommended zone, what happens to my body? Mentally, sleep loss over time also known as sleep deprivation causes serious problems. Sleep deprivation can cause depression, forgetfulness, loss of proper judgement, and lack of alertness. Because sleep solidifies knowledge learned during the day and stores it away to memory while you are asleep, sleep is extremely important when it comes to memory, cognitive function, and test taking the for the next day. As far as physical health goes, sleep deprivation can cause some serious damage. Heart disease, Heart attacks, heart failure, high blood pressure, strokes, diabetes, early ageing of the skin, and weight gain are some of the negative effects to not getting the proper amount of sleep each night. This is enough to convince me to make sleep a priority! So what happens to my body when I oversleep? And is it harmful?

www.youtube.com

www.youtube.com

Sleeping too much can also cause depression. It can also lead to heart disorders, back pain, diabetes, feeling tired, unrefreshed and demotivated, decline in cognitive function, and earlier death! So the effects of oversleeping are very similar to not getting enough sleep, so it is important to hit that target 7-9 hours, depending on your preference. Harvard Health says that both too little and too much sleep affects memory. “Our findings suggest that getting an ‘average’ amount of sleep, seven hours per day, may help maintain memory in later life and that clinical interventions based on sleep therapy should be examined for the prevention of [mental] impairment,” said study leader Elizabeth Devore, an instructor in medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

I agree with what these sources say because I learned about sleep cycles in my psychology class last year, and that the reason you can sometimes feel refreshed after only a few hours of sleep is due to sleep cycles.  If you wake up naturally during a period of your sleep cycle where you are in a light sleep (Not REM), you may feel awake and happy only after five hours of sleep. If you are violently awoken by your alarm while your are in a period of deep REM sleep, you may feel sluggish after even 11 hours of sleep. There are technically five levels or stages of sleep. Sleepiness, light sleep, deep sleep (3&4), and Rapid Eye Movement sleep, which is the deepest level of sleep. The best is to be naturally woken during a light sleep period. There is an amazing App  that will take a 30 minute period of when you want to wake up, monitor your motions during the night by laying the phone on your bed, and then ring an alarm when you are in your lightest cycle of sleep so you ultimately feel more refreshed every day.

www.lillyspuppies.com

www.lillyspuppies.com

So how can you help you mind and body by getting the perfect amount of sleep for you each night? Harvard Health has a few tips to help out. Establish a regular bedtime so your body is used to falling asleep at the same time every night, so you can fall asleep faster, therefore maximizing your sleeping time. Avoid doing homework in bed- make your bed for sleeping purposes only. Get some exercise during the day so you release energy and stress, which helps you fall asleep faster. Complete stressful tasks in the beginning of the day and leave the easier tasks to complete for later in the afternoon. Don’t drink caffeine after 2:00 p.m. And finally, make sure your room is pitch-black so you can get a good night’s rest, because we learned in class that dim lighting (from a television or cell phone), may lead to depression and a lower quality of sleep, so it is worth shutting it all down.

Music and Studying

Whenever I am on my computer, I am usually listening to music.  No matter if I’m reading news articles, taking random quizzes on Buzzfeed, or doing homework, I am almost always listening to music.  This got me to thinking about the connection between listening to music and doing homework or studying.  Does listening to music while trying to study or complete homework have a negative impact?

There have been many studies completed to try to find out if listening to music while doing homework has a negative or positive effect.  The results are mostly mixed.  A study completed by the University of Phoenix reported that music can be distracting when doing homework, especially if there are lyrics.  They suggest that students who listen to music with lyrics while completing work have a harder time concentrating and may later have a hard time remembering the information. 

You can read the full report here.

Another experiment by the University of Wales Institute in the United Kingdom, focused on different sounds and the ability to be able to recall information.  They had the participants of the study try to remember and later recall letters in order. They were tested in different settings like a quiet room, music they like, music they don’t like, and others.  In this study similar to the one conducted by the University of Phoenix, the participants performed the worst while listening to music. 

However, some studies have shown that listening to music that is instrumental while doing homework can help.  A study from the University of Dayton found that students who were listening to classical or instrumental music in the background performed better in spatial and linguistic processing. 

Conclusion

So what can be summed up is that it really depends on what music is being played to determine if it is helping you study.  It mostly points in the direction that listening to music while studying or doing homework is a distraction.  However, instrumental music has shown to help students while studying. 

Works cited

Seattle Pi

Mind the Science Gap

Why Are Everyone’s Taste Buds Different?

Everyone says I am the world’s pickiest eater, and I find it annoying because it isn’t my fault that I don’t like most foods, it’s my taste buds’ fault!! I always wonder why my taste buds don’t like certain foods so here is a blog on it.

Papilla is the little bumps that we all have on our tongues. People who have a ton of bumps usually find flavors to be too much and don’t like the taste of things, LIKE ME. We have sensitive tongues so we like things mild and toned down. While people who do not have a lot of bumps on their tongue like spicy things and their tongues can handle foods like that. Another factor in liking different tastes has to do with the tongues taste bud’s ability to detect molecules in the food. Everyone can recognize the 5 tastes, but the different chemicals that we all have can make the range of those tastes differ.

In high school we did this taste experiment in psych class. To find out how sensitive your tongue is, you can put blue food dye on your tongue. If your tongue doesn’t get very blue then you have way more taste buds, and your tongue is more sensitive to taste. If your tongue turns very blue then you have less taste buds and you can usually have more flavors and spicy food!

2014-blog-supertaster_600px

People’s tastes also are different because of the sensory capacities for the different tastes. “The sensory capacities of your taste buds are dictated by the structure of the receptors on your taste cells, and on their capacity to excite the process of transmitting the taste message,” (TasteScience). The receptors catch the molecules that touch the front of the taste cells. After, they direct a message in the cell to the nerve endings around the cells. The different structure that everyone has come from their genes.

Another factor that plays into what you taste is trigeminal sensitivity. This means the different reactions to cold and hot. Foods of course trigger the tastes, but they also trigger the trigeminal sensitivity on the temperature. For example, some people like the cooler taste of mint, and some like the warmer taste that cinnamon has.

Studies and Research:

Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in New Jersey has researchers that just discovered a protein messenger inside of our taste buds. It is called gustducin and activates when we eat sweet and bitter things. Dr. Robert F. Margolskee said that gustducin performs as an intercessor for the sweet stimuli and a chain that sends messages straight to the brain to inform it that it is a sweet taste.

Dr. Stephen D. Roper does most of his research on a freshwater lizard. He does this because the lizard’s taste buts are a million times bigger than human’s taste buds. This makes it easier to record the cells responses to different food. Dr. John Teeter and Dr. Joseph Brand use a catfish for their research because it has taste buds all over its body on the outside.

taste-buds-fungiform-papillae-vallate-papilla-gustatory-hairs-stratified-squamous-epithelium-of-tongue-taste-fibers-of-cranial-nerves

http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/taste_buds.html

http://www.tastescience.com/abouttaste3.html

http://ilovebacteria.com/taste.htm