I first heard it in an episode of Spongebob. Spongebob and Patrick were trying to sell chocolate bars and as a way to get people to buy them they said that eating it would make the person live longer. At first and for a while I never thought it was true. Chocolate is known to not be that great for you, so how can it also be something good enough to make you live longer?

A study from Harvard researchers took 8000 men and examined their candy eating habits. It was found that those who ate chocolate tended to live longer. Those found to live the longest ate candy, on average three times per month. The researchers believe that this finding came to light because chocolates main ingredient, cocoa powder, is also thought to decrease risk of heart disease and cancer. Because chocolate does contain a lot of sugar, butter, and fat it as also advised at the end of the article to remember, moderation is key!

I thought this article was very interesting but I had one huge problem with it. There wasn’t anything said about taking any third variables into account. All they did was measure candy eating habits and then said chocolate makes you live longer.  How do they know it wasn’t another type of candy? Or maybe even another part of the subjects diet? I think there are way to many confounding variables that weren’t thought of that could make the outcome of this study completely different had they been taken into account. 

Well it’s here. There is snow on the ground and it is officially winter in Happy Valley. Now more than any other time during the year though we see tons of student flocking to the nearest tanning beds to maintain their summer glow into the cold gloomy winter months that approach. Tanning (moderately) outside during the summer is one thing but it has become common knowledge that stepping into a tanning bed is a whole new ballpark.

 In an article, found here, many studies are talked about that all focus on just how bad indoor tanning is for people. For example, n a study released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed just how many people actually use tanning beds, booths, or sun lamps.  5000 people between the ages of 18 and 29 were studied and 6% of them said that they had been tanning indoors in the past year. About a third of the 6% were white women aged 18-21, and another 6% were white women between the ages of 22 and 25. On average it was found that women in their 20’s went tanning indoors more than 20 times in the previous year and as much as 13% of women with a family history of skin cancer had reported to still go indoor tanning. The article also touches on another study that found that the risk of melanoma rose 75% in people who started tanning indoors before the age of 30. This study was so conclusive that it based the World Health Organization’s decision to classify tanning devices as carcinogenic in 2009. 

This article just continues to prove the point we are all being told over and over again, indoor tanning isn’t worth the risk. Something about the studies in this article that really took me by surprise were the ages of the people with the highest risk of getting cancer. The article really talks about how the majority of those going tanning indoors are those in OUR age group and by going to the tanning beds that young they are increasing their chances of cancer by 75%! By referencing analyses and findings from different studies and showing that all the studies came to the same conclusion the author really erased any doubt that any of these studies could be wrong with their findings. 

 Its finals week, you’re cramming all the information you can for you’re upcoming exams, and if you’re anything like me you’re calculating the lowest possible grade you can get on the final and still pass the class. It’s moments like these that I start thinking, what if our grade depended on something else rather than our final exam.

Trying to find something to improve overall performance (and attendance) was the main goal of this study just conducted using the 901 students in an intro to psychology course at the University of Texas. The students were quizzed on their computers at the beginning of every class; the quizzes each student received had seven questions that were the same among the entire class. The eighth question was personalized to the student taking the quiz, usually just a question they got wrong on a previous quiz. Then the cumulative quiz scores would take the place of the final exam. Many students disliked this process at first but by the end of the course the class had outperformed the previous psych class by scoring “10% higher on subset of 17 questions that appeared on both classes’ test” and slightly higher overall grades. Also, the quizzes were all based off of readings and previous class material, which helped increase attendance rated to 90% at the middle of the semester from the dismal average of 60%. All in all the study found that switching the grading system of a class from one based on midterms and finals to one based on daily quizzes improves attendance and overall performance.

For someone like me who really needs motivation to attend class regularly this idea of being quizzed during every class is something I could definitely get used to. The idea seems pretty foolproof to me as long as you show up everyday and do the readings the night before, you’re going to do just fine on the quiz. By how the results showed that grades improved significantly using this method I think it is safe to say that the daily quiz also helps students retain the information much easier than having to just study for one huge exam at the end of the semester. 

Once girls start wearing makeup its very rare to see them out in public without it. Many believe its because it makes them look better than they do without while others just enjoy playing around with different makeup and making themselves look different than they normally would. Since the vast majority of the female population wears makeup on a daily basis I began to wonder if wearing it helps other aspects of their life, specifically how intelligent they appear to be.

A new study, talked about here, done by Procter & Gamble, tested the theory of whether or not women with more makeup on were more or less likely to be seen as more competent than those who were bare faced. The study had a total of 25 female subjects all different ethnicities and between the ages of 25 – 50. These women were photographed bare faced, with a natural makeup look, a professional makeup look, and a glamorous makeup look and not allowed to see their reflection so their personal feelings about their appearance would not play out on their faces to those observing them. Then 149 adults (61 being men) viewed each picture for just enough time to make a snap judgment off of the photo. Based off of the results of the study it was found that in addition to boosting attractiveness makeup also helps increase other’s perceptions of a woman’s competence, likability, and trustworthiness.

The main thing I noticed about this study was they really covered all their bases so that they would come to a conclusive finding. Any variable they thought would be a problem they handled, for example, the way they didn’t let any of the women look in a mirror so their personal preference would not affect the study. This is a great quality of the study because it makes the findings much more solid and rules out any third-variable issues.  As for the results, I wasn’t surprised by the findings but I did personally feel that it’s kind of unfortunate that it takes something as materialistic as makeup to convey qualities like competence, trustworthiness and likability. This are all traits that we should judge a person by after getting to know them not based off of their personal appearance. 

The picture below shows the pictures used in the study. On the far left you see a barefaced woman while on the far right you have the same woman with a glamorous makeup look. Which face looks the most come tent, trustworthy, or likable? You be the judge!

College students have a lot of stress. Whether it be their school lives, their family lives, trying to land that internship next semester, trying to find housing for next year, etc., the list is endless. Now when the stress gets to be too much sometimes how many of us go and check our social media site, kind of as a time out from the real world? For example, you’re feeling stressed about upcoming due dates and exams so you take a few minutes to see what other people are up to on Instagram and Twitter to distract yourself for the time being. I know I do this way to often and usually this does calm me down, or so I thought. New research shows that checking your social media sites may actually be adding stress to you when you are really trying to eliminate it!

In this article a quick study was done to see how people who were networked via social media’s stress levels compared to those who were not networked. Their study found that social network users 14% more likely to characterize their lives as “somewhat stressful while non-users were 28% more likely to say their lives were “not at all” stressful. These results then made the researchers question why this was trend occurred.

The researchers came up with a few possible reasons as to why there is such an evident association between social media and stress. The first was the “keeping up with the jonses” effect, meaning that social media is the most prominent way people hear about new fashion trends, movies, music and other hot products. This influence social media has on the latest trends also seems to correlate with stress. It was found that people who thought social media influences the products they buy significantly were 455 more likely to say their lives were “very stressful”.  Then there was the “pressure to portray your ideal selves for everyone to see”.  40% of social media users admitted that they post things that make them look better, and this need to control how we appear to others also has a very strong correlation with stress. In fact, it was found that people who post things on sites like Facebook or Twitter that are going to improve how they appear to others are over 4.5 times more likely to “always” feel stressed.  A final example is simply feeling the need to be on our electronic devices all the time is a huge stress booster. 51% of adults admit to being addicted to their digital devices and these said addicts are 32% more likely than non-addicts to say their lives are more stressful.

 I definitely agree that social media is adding stress to our lives, but I don’t think it adds as much stress as the article/study makes it seem like it does. The study should have also looked into what other factors of stress may have been affecting the participants of their research to make sure they would have come to a more conclusive answer. All in all, if you are feeling overwhelmingly stressed, put the phone down! It’s only going to add some more stress that you don’t need. 

 Its 9 o’clock on a Thursday night and your favorite show is about to start. You’re sitting on the couch anticipating the start of the show when all of the sudden it hits you, that paper that was assigned what feels like ages ago, well its due soon, actually its due at midnight. You break out the computer and frivolously get to work. The countdown begins and thus starts the weekly dilemma faced by the average college student.

It’s not like we don’t know when things are going to be due. We are told the second we receive our assignment when it we need to turn it in by, this usually being several days to even weeks before said date. We are told by teachers in grade school not to put our assignments off until he last few days in order to achieve our best work so why are we still doing exactly that? It has become second nature for college level students to put there work off until the last minute but dos this really mean that the work they eventually hand in is in fact of lesser quality because it was done so close to its deadline?

In an article that can be found HERE, The author goes into depth on the causes, consequences and even a study done about procrastination affecting the quality of work. For example the article references a study done by Jin Nam Choi, a business professor a Seoul National University in South Korea. In his study Choi found that there were two types of procrastinators. There were passive procrastinators, who solely procrastinated because of their lack of time management skills. Then there were also active procrastinators who preferred the time pressure and purposely put their work off until the last minute. In their study they found that the active procrastinators, who had the same level of procrastination as their passive counterpart, actually showed a productive use of time and had academic performance outcomes that were similar to and sometimes almost better than the grades of non-procrastinators. With regards to the study Choi was later quoted saying,  “From my own life and findings from these studies, I believe that procrastination characterized by these four effects–outcome satisfaction, preference for pressure, intentional decision and ability to meet deadlines–is beneficial for individual well-being and performance.” 

I definitely agree with the findings of the study. I think as soon as you find what works best for you it doesn’t matter if you start your assignment the day before or the week before the deadline. It all boils down to personal preference. The one part about the study I did see a potential problem with was that in the study the active procrastinators were asked if they felt they had the same level of procrastination as their counterpart. I feel that this is something that is very variable. I’m never going to know if my level of procrastination is the same as someone else’s; I can assume that it is, but I will never know for sure. That assumption that procrastination levels are the same could throw off the entire experiment so I think there should have been anther step there to ensure that the levels of procrastination were the same. 

Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, affecting 90-95% of the 13 million men already diagnosed with diabetes today. You can learn everything you need to know about type 2 diabetes here but basically it is when your pancreas isn’t letting out enough insulin or your body just isn’t working with the insulin your body is producing. Diabetes is a serious issue but a new study has found that weight training regularly with aerobics may reduce your risk by up to 59%!

Yeah, I was shocked too! With everything we know about alcohol you would think that shyingaway from it would help rather than hurt but according to a new study, led by psychologist Charles Holahan at the University of Texas, regular drinkers are less likely to die early than those who rarely/never drink.

Everyone right? wrong! There are actually more people than you would think, in fact 15% of adults in the United States are not online and 92% of those are perfectly fine with it! This information comes from a survey that was conducted last spring that surveyed 2,252 peopleover the age of 18. 

Ever wonder why it’s so hard to resist junk food? Many scientists believe that we crave junk food the same way we crave other substances, like illegal drugs. This belief is growing thanks to a study being conducted by students from Connecticut College. 

The study tested the affect of oreo’s on the rats brains by looking at the number of neurons in the brain’s “pleasure center” that were activated from eating. The results of the study supported the fact that consumption of foods high in fat or sugar can lead to addictive behaviors and can make the brain act in a similar way an illegal drug would. 

An important thing to keep in mind with this study is that “addicted” doesn’t mean what we are all thinking it means. When it is used in terms of the study it is more along the lines of meaning that the rats sought something out and found pleasure in eating them. The main purpose of the study was not about the oreos but to show the effect foods high in fat and sugar have on your brain. 

Now its’ easy to see why unhealthy foods are so hard to say no too! So next time you are eating oreos just keep in mind that everything is great in moderation!