Author Archives: zym5081

Rats Helping Find Cure To Gambling Addiction

Little rats sitting around slot machines in a cage. That is the premise of this study.

“In the 16-month study, a cohort of 32 laboratory rats responded to a series of three flashing lights before choosing between two levers. One combination of lights (all lights illuminated) signaled a win and seven combinations (zero, one or two lights) signaled a loss. A “cash-out” lever rewarded the rat with 10 sugar pellets on winning trials, but gave a 10-second “time out” penalty on losing trails. The “roll again” lever allowed the rats to begin a new trial without penalty, but provided no sugar pellets.”

Much like humans, the rats showed excitement when they won and were upset when they lost. When rats had a near miss, they treated it almost like a win.

Scientists used a D4 dopamine blocking medication on the rats, making the rats much less likely to “cash-out”. Dopamine receptor has been linked to behavioral disorders for a long time. When rats were given the medication they showed reduced signs of problem gambling.

Not all rat studies can be linked directly back to humans because their species are still quite different, but the study is promising because it eliminated many variables by just leaving the rats in the cage to do that. But, will rats keep gambling just because they are bored and have nothing else to do? It could be a similar effect like that of the rats in the Rat Morphine experiment. So maybe humans continue to feel compelled to gamble when they are bored or feel trapped.

My friend’s grandmother had a gambling problem for a long time. She was there so often that the bouncers and dealers knew her and would put her at the best tables. Eventually, she made herself stop cold-turkey for good and hasn’t turned back since.

I found this study to be quite interesting because it could lead to a medication for problem gamblers as well as other behavioral diseases, but it needs much more looking into. How could scientists design a study with humans to test this?

Eating Nuts Leads to Longer Duration of Life

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Almonds, cashews, peanuts, you name it. Either way, these nuts may lead to a longer life. A recent study shows that men and women who eat nuts daily are 20% less likely to die(during a 30 year period) than those who never eat nuts.

During a 30 year study by Harvard, 119,000 men and women had to fill out surveys on food and lifestyle habits every two to four years, including how often they ate 1 ounce of nuts.

This study was observational, but they did at least take into account many other variables, having the participants record them in the survey. Exercise, smoking, and weight were just a few that were recorded. When the variables were taken into account, the nuts still proved to reduce risk of death. For example, most smokers who ate nuts lived longer than smokers who didn’t.

The problem with this study is that people have to recall how often they ate nuts in a two or even four year span and that is very difficult to estimate. They could have bettered this study by making them record what they ate eat day and how much, so they could accurately account for the amount of nuts that they ate.

I like eating nuts, but I do not have them often at all. My mom is a vegetarian, so she always eats nuts and is still in very good health, so maybe I should take a lesson from her. Benefits of Eating Nuts

Now just because they ate nuts more often and some variables were accounted for, this does not rule out third variables. Maybe constantly choosing nuts as a snack as opposed to candy over 30 years really helps maintain good health. How do you feel about this study? And what other third variables may not have been accounted for?

Kids’ Fitness on the Decline

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That’s right, today’s kids are less fit than their parents were at that age. Today’s kids all across the globe take 90 seconds longer to run a mile than their parents’ generation did in 1975 for ages 9-17. Kids vs. Parents.

“The new study was led by Grant Tomkinson, an exercise physiologist at the University of South Australia. Researchers analyzed 50 studies on running fitness — a key measure of cardiovascular health and endurance — involving 25 million children ages 9 to 17 in 28 countries from 1964 to 2010.

The studies measured how far children could run in 5 to 15 minutes and how quickly they ran a certain distance, ranging from half a mile to two miles. Today’s kids are about 15 percent less fit than their parents were, researchers concluded.”

kids-running[1].jpg

This news is not surprising. With the obesity problem, video games, lack of physical education classes, dangerous neighborhoods, and better technology, kids have gotten lazier and more out of shape. A study on this large of a scale brings significant evidence to the table, even if it is only observational. Like all studies, there are many variables to keep in mind, but this study is on a very general, so I am fine with the variables not being taken account of. I am interested to know how just the United States kids compare to older generations. I am also interested to know if location plays a role in this, as well as time spent in front of the TV, eating habits, and hours of sleep each night play a role in the overall fitness difference between generations.

I have always had a feeling this may be true. Just hearing stories about the games my parents always played outside when they were younger, as well as my brother and his friends, I just don’t see it with this younger generation. I know my generation was towards the beginning of this lazy era, but my friends and I were still outside all the time playing games. Now whenever I see younger kids whether it be cousins at a family gathering, going to my friend’s house and seeing his little brothers, or simply going to the grocery store, they are always sitting around playing video games. They just bring their Gameboy wherever they go and play it all the time. They never use their imagination and make up a game or just run around playing. It is quite disturbing.

In all, I felt this study was very strong because of it’s general, broad hypothesis, allowing a observational study to support it quite well. How do you feel about the study? If you have a problem with it, how do you think they could have improved it?

Check out this other Kids’ Declining Fitness article.

Tomatoes Can Help With Strokes

3-Second Rule

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You’re sitting at the table with your friend when all of a sudden you drop your Twinkie on the floor. You quickly pick it up.

“Gross,” your friend says, “you’re not actually going to eat that now are you?”

“What’s wrong with it?” You reply, “It was on the ground only for three seconds. Three-second rule.”

You then shove the Twinkie in your mouth and enjoy the delicious, spongy substance.

But does the three-second rule actually work? Is it true that if a substance is on the ground for only 3-seconds than it will not have much bacteria on it? Scientists decided to test this theory out.

“Five food items were tested by Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) to see whether the three-second rule could be trusted. Bread with jam, cooked pasta, ham, a plain biscuit and dried fruit were all dropped on the floor and left for three, five and 10 second intervals. These were selected as they are commonly eaten foods and all have different water activity levels; a key factor in whether items will sustain bacterial growth in the three seconds before they are picked up from the floor.” 3-Second Rule

The results of the study were that foods high in salt or sugar were safer to eat after being picked up off the ground because harmful bacteria has a more difficult time living on these substances. This means that fast food, ham, lebanon bologna, and other processed foods are safer to eat off the ground, whereas fruits, vegetables, pasta are not nearly as safe. The dried fruits contracted klebsiella after 5 and 10 seconds. This bacteria “can potentially lead to a wide range of diseases such as pneumonia, urinary tract infections, septicaemia and soft tissue conditions.” And pasta contracted the harmful bacteria klebsiella after three seconds. Food low in water content such as biscuits, are also safe to eat off the ground in three-seconds because bacteria has a hard time thriving without water.

The conclusion of this study is hard to understand because the journalist failed to mention it. This was a poorly written article about the study. The journalist said dried fruit contracted klebsiella after three seconds, but quoted the article later saying that it displayed that type of bacteria after five and ten seconds. He concluded by saying how most people only apply the three-second rule at home, but not in public. From the data I found that the three second rule has less of an impact on the cleanliness of our food than most people would think. It is less about the duration the food is on the ground and more about the type of food that was dropped. Foods low in water or high in sugar or salt had significantly less harmful bacteria growing on them than other foods.

In all, I found this to be a poor study. This was strictly observational and no variables were taken into account. Just because certain foods developed harmful bacteria after being on the ground doesn’t mean they picked it up from the ground. They may have caught it in the air on the fall to the ground. Other variables needed to be held in check as well. Lighting may be reason bacteria could grow better. The surface area of the food is a problem, larger surface area means it has a greater chance of picking up more bacteria. Certain areas of the floor may have been more infected than others.

I would have done the study differently. Dropping the food onto a clean surface with only one type of harmful bacteria existent to see which ones picked it up and which didn’t and do this with multiple types of bacteria for different durations of time. Here are a couple links on how the Five-Second doesn’t work, which is only two second away from the three-second rule. Five-Second 2.

After countless years of dropping food on the ground and eating it, I will probably continue to do so because this study was quite weak. I probably won’t do it with fruits anymore though since they seem to soak up bacteria in a matter of milliseconds. If you have any suggestions as to how to better this study or if it may change your habits comment below.

Dieting Adds Pounds

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There has been much debate on different diets and which work best and how. There is the Atkin’s diet, the South Beach diet, the Dukan diet, and many more. The problem is, these diets may help us shed a few pounds in the short run, but studies have shown that dieting may make us fatter in the long run. Dieting Help

New evidence shows that slicing calories alters your brain and your metabolism, causing your body to store more fat when you eat. It also makes your mind go from craving food, to obsessing over it.

Researchers took “50 obese men and women, and coached them through eight weeks of an extreme 500-to-550-calories-a-day diet (a quarter of the normal intake for women).” Dieting or Starving. “At the end, the dieters lost an average of 30lb. Proietto’s team then spent a year giving them counselling support to stick to healthy eating habits. But during this time, the dieters regained an average of 11lb. They also reported feeling far hungrier and more preoccupied with food than before losing weight.”

Tests on the dieters showed that hormones were working extremely hard, telling the body that it was starving and needed to eat in order to store more fat. “Their levels of an appetite-stimulating hormone, ghrelin, were about 20 per cent higher than at the start of the study. Meanwhile their levels of an appetite suppressing hormone, peptide YY, were unusually low.”

Now the correlation between the ghrelin increase at the end of the study may not have been due to the previous strain of dieting because this was an observational study and no variables were taken out. This study could have been much more effective if a variable such as exercise been taken into account. The foods eaten also should have been recorded because they may not have been getting all of their needed nutrients.

The results of the study are due to the evolution and survival of the human race. Humans are able to store much more fat than most other animals when compared pound for pound. Keeping that in mind, dieters need to realize that starving oneself only helps in the short run, but hurts in the long run. Plus there are many other negative effects of too much calorie cutting such as depression, mood swings, and weak immune system as a result of malnutrition.

I have watched as my uncle has struggled with his weight over the years. From being a fit, star wrestler in his younger years, to being over 260lbs. His weight has fluctuated tremendously. He recently put on 20 more pounds after slimming down again. In his early struggles he tried to just diet and my parents said the weight would come back in a few months. Now, when he has combined healthy eating and regular exercise it tends to stay off longer, but when he feels content and stops exercising regularly, he starts to put the weight back on.

To summarize, dieting can end up hurting the body more than helping. The only way to safely lose weight is to exercise regularly and eat healthy (in moderation). If you have any suggestions as to how this study could have been more properly conducted or any other additional information on dieting, inform me in the comments section.

Concussions and Alzheimer’s

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This has been a highly debated topic. With the recent settlement between the NFL players union and the NFL, this topic has really been brought to the spotlight. With more and more emerging studies, the evidence seems to be racking up that concussions do cause Alzheimer’s.

One study “looked at 64 patients who experienced concussions and compared their MRI brain scans a year after their injury to those of 15 healthy patients over the same time period.” They found that damage to white matter in the brain was similar to those of Alzheimer’s patients.

Formally concussed patients suffer from similar “sleep-wake disturbances that plague Alzheimer’s patients. These problems tend to make other cognitive issues, such as memory lapses and changes in behavior, worse.” This doesn’t mean all concussions cause Alzheimer’s, but with advances there could be ways to prevent it.

These studies, although strictly observational, do provide some intel on how concussions affect the brain over time. Unfortunately, experimental studies are not ethical if you gave people concussions to do studies. The studies also require much time. Alzheimer’s doesn’t develop until much later on in life. One study that should be done is the correlation between people who had concussions and if they later developed Alzheimer’s. Here is another study having to do with former NFL players and concussions.

Although these studies are promising, many more need to be done to prove that this correlation does lead to causation of Alzheimer’s. Do you think these studies are worth looking into and what are other ways we could do experimental studies?

Video Games May Lead to Worse Grades

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Many video games are educational. Many video games are fun. The problem is that when these games are abused and played much too often, they can have a negative effect on kids. In a recent study, 64 boys ages 6-9 were used. Half were given a Playstation 2 right away, and the other half was promised it after 4 months.

After four months it was found that “the boys who received the video-game system immediately spent more time playing video games (39.3 minutes versus 9.3 minutes) and less time (18.2 minutes versus 31.6 minutes) in after-school academic activities.” But, the new gamers had lower reading and especially writing scores. “Teachers also reported more learning problems.”

As interesting as this study is, it is strictly observational. No variables were cancelled out leaving third variables as well as reverse causation. The students may have resorted to video games because they were doing worse in school than other students. The group that played more may not have fit in with their peers as well as the other group and play video games to use up their spare time. Or this study was all chance and the new gamer group was simply not as smart as the other group.

To summarize, this study has a very high chance of being inaccurate. They need to conduct a much more experimental study to eliminate variables and reduce the percentage that it could be chance. How could they go about doing that?

Does Boredom Lead to Drug Use?

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In a study, researcher Bruce Alexander created a Rat Park. His hypothesis was that rats that abused drugs only used them due to poor living conditions. In previous studies, rats were put in small cages and linked to self-injection devices. They would keep taking morphine until they died. Originally, this meant that “The rat’s behavior is simply controlled by the action of heroin (actually morphine, to which heroin is converted in the body) on its brain.” Time and time again this study proved true, meaning that these drugs were highly addictive and should not be used.

But Bruce wasn’t sure about this study. His curiosity is what sparked this interesting study. He put “16-20 rats of both sexes in residence, an abundance of food, balls and wheels for play, and enough space for mating and raising litters.” There was also plain tap water and morphine wlaced water in the park. The result went along with his hypothesis. The rats mostly chose plain water.

This study was experimental and observational. The rats in the cages had various variables cancelled out, such as exercise on the wheels and socializing. The study showed that when the rats were given peers and activities to due, they would choose them over the morphine. Even rats the were given morphine for 57 straight days tended to drink the plain water.

This study applies to society because people in poverty who feel caged in with nothing to do, may be more likely to turn to drugs to make their lives more exciting or to distract them from their miserable lives. This comic summarizes the study fairly well.

In all, I found this study to be quite interesting. Unfortunately, much more studies need to be done to prove this hypothesis. Correlation does not equal causation. There may be some third variable such as peer pressure that causes rats to either take the drug or stay away from it. We do not want to generalize this study like we did in the ’50s and ’60s with previous studies about the caged rats. What do you think they could to do cancel out more variables and make this a more experimental study?

Do Video Games Make Kids Socially Awkward?

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You see it all the time. Kids walking through the hallways and they look like zombies. I saw it more at high school then at Penn State since you have to been dedicated to school work to get into here. But there would be a good amount of kids who you could just see that they felt uncomfortable to do anything that had to do with social interaction. Their shoulders would be hunched and they would be standing stiff as a board, especially if they were talking to girls.

I always wondered if there were studies done to prove or bring heavy evidence to the table that video games effect kids this way because I feel that it is pretty evident. I am not talking about kids that play every once in a while. I am talking about those kids that barely talk to anybody throughout the day because all they can think about is going home and playing video games into the early morning.

In this study,they tell how, “They got more depressed, they got more anxiety, and they had greater social phobia and they got worse grades in school,” he said. “That seemed to be a consequence of the video game addiction rather than a predictor of it.”

This was a study of more than 3,000 kids in Singapore, which I find to be pretty compelling evidence. I hope that this information gets out, so that parents will know the effects of letting their kids play too many video games.

SiOWfa13: Science in Our World

Certainty and Controversy