The short answer to this question is sometimes, but the real story is the effect that traumatic events can have in a baby’s development. To start off I’d like to define what constitutes a traumatic event; traumatic events include, but are not limited to: car accidents, natural disasters, sudden illness, death in the family, abuse/neglect, terrorism or witnessing violence. If an adult were to experience any of these events it would have a traumatic impact on their life and for babies the effect of traumatic events is often magnified.

Experiencing traumatic events before the age of 3 can cause physical and emotional developmental problems in babies. Babies who witness traumatic events often experience issues with mobility and managing or developing emotions. If the traumatic event was witnessing a family member dying or losing a primary caregiver to divorce, babies are more likely to have issues developing relationships and have separation anxiety. Further, in the first few months of a baby’s life they are especially sensitive to arguments between parents or issues with caregivers and they often feel like they caused the event because they don’t fully understand it. Traumatic events frequently lead to physical and emotional developmental problems in babies.

A major issue for babies who witness or experience traumatic events is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Babies will re-experience the trauma they suffered when they are older through dreams, sounds, smells, or sights. This can lead to issues sleeping, increased anxiety or irritability. However, what is really significant about the PTSD that babies experience it that when they are older they are more likely to remember the traumatic event that happened, than the good events that took place in their childhood.

While traumatic events hinder the physical and emotional development of a baby, they also cause a serious disorder, PTSD. However the question still remains can children actually remember traumatic events that occurred when they were babies? The answer to this depends on the child and how developed they are. For children who are a little older and more developed(around 6) they are likely to remember the actual event, while babies who are only a few months old are likely to experience more negative development effects, but do not remember the actual event. Scientists have determined that there is not a specific age at which children remember or don’t remember traumatic events, because every child responds to traumatic events differently and develops at different ages. 

Sources

http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Trauma_and_children_newborns_to_two_years

http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/120665/1/cmhereviewJan12.pdf

We all know that we normally wear dark colors to funerals and bright colors to weddings, but why? What is it about colors that communicate a message to others? Colors are such an important part of our world and society, from marketing campaigns to clothes to cars, it seems like colors are a major selling point wherever you go.

Red signifies power, passion, love, war, energy, and intensity. It is a very emotionally intense color which rises heart rate and metabolism. It has a high visibility and it found in many national flags. It is widely used to promote warning signs, energy drinks, and passionate love.

Orange combines the energy of red with the happiness of yellow, creating joy, happiness, and creativity. It gives the impression of heat without being as intense as red. It stimulates appetite and is associated with healthy foods. It is often used for promoting toys and food products. You will find it on many restaurant logos.

Yellow is also associated with energy, as well as intellect and happiness. It generates muscle activity and brain stimulation. You should avoid using yellow if you want to communicate stability and safety. Yellow is used most often on leisure items and children’s products.

Green says freshness, fertility, and natural. Lighter greens make you feel safe, and dark green is often associated with money and wealth. It is the most restful color to the human eye. You should use green for medicine packaging since it is a “safe” color.

Blue is the color of depth and stability, like the sky and ocean. It slows the metabolism and calms you down. It is a masculine color, deeply accepted among males. Avoid using blue to promote food, because it suppresses appetite. However, you should use blue for travel, cleanliness, or a high tech product.

Purple is the recognized color of royalty, power, and luxury. Purple is better for women’s designs.

Black symbolizes power, mystery, and evil. It denotes strength and authority, and also the unknown. It gives the feeling of perspective and depth, and can make you look thinner. Combined with more powerful colors, it mixes to be a great color scheme.

White is the symbol for light, pure, innocence, and virginity. These are all reasons that a traditional wedding dress is white. It is considered to be the color of perfection. It should be used to promote clean or pure products. It would be appropriate to use with medical products, salons, dairy products, and low-fat foods.

So, you can tell a lot about someone depending on the colors they choose to wear, and you can also use colors to your advantage to communicate subtle messages or make other people feel a certain way toward you. It’s all in the eyes!

http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html

Despite the incredibly advanced society that we live in with treatment for almost all of the threat posing illnesses, much of the world is not as fortunate and is victim to diseases treatable in other areas of the world.  It seems that people are as philanthropic as ever and are looking to solve the world’s problems of hunger and disease. The world’s donor countries have raise $12 billion over the past three years for the treatment of AIDS, Tuberculosis, and malaria.

I feel that country to country to aid is important. If one country has excess, while another is still in development (which is obviously always the situation) then the able country, barring any major misunderstanding or conflict between the countries, should provide aid in any way possible. Nowadays there are major donating foundations. At the same time, there are a select few of extremely wealthy people that are charitable. Bill gates is one of the more humanitarian and charitably active people. In 2007, Bill Gates set an initiative to completely eliminate malaria by donating $4 billion a year for the fight against AIDS, TB, and malaria. In recent years, global aid has been helpful. With the help of more widespread insecticide nets, sprays and drugs, malaria deaths have dropped to about 650,000 per year compared to one million in prior years. 

Charitable donations will hopefully continue to grow in future years. Selfishness with money is not an option; money funds research which is the ultimate answer to the worlds problems. In the meantime, money has its uses and makes the distribution of medicine and preventives readily available to those in need. Global Medical Brigades and Doctors Across Borders are examples of the many foundations that are committed to aiding through action as opposed to monitory donations. 

(1)

            With the impossible standards girls feel the need to live up to and the growing rate of obesity, everyone is constantly looking for the next big thing to help weight loss.  I have heard people say before that green tea is good for weight loss and have seen it being sold in stores like GNC, but never saw any evidence backing up everyone’s claims. 

            Researchers of Penn State in the College of Agricultural Sciences experimented on mice the effects green tea would have on their weight gain patterns while also having a high-fat diet.  Mice fed the compound found in green tea (EGCG) had 45 percent slower weight gain than the control group who had a high fat diet without the green tea compound.  They also concluded that the mice fed the green tea supplement showed a 30 percent increase in lipids that suggest the tea limits the body’s ability to absorb fat, making it enhance the ability to use the fat instead of storing it (1).  A problem that could have altered these findings is how relatable they are to humans.  They stated a person would need ten cups of green tea daily to intake the amount the mice used in the study.  They also only focused on already obese figures; resulting in little legitimate evidence on the effects green tea could have on people who are a healthy weight.

            In a second study, they said green tea didn’t only slow down weight gain in mice, but reduced their weight by 49%.  They also claimed that the rats injected with green tea extract daily showed a loss of appetite and reduced their food intake by 60 percent after a week.  This alone led to a 21 percent weight loss in the rats.  They gone on with stating the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed green tea increased metabolism by 4 percent.  They claim adding 3-5 cups of green tea a day can help drop extra pounds and give people the energy they need to want to exercise.

            This second study was trying to prove it would increase weight loss, but consisted of many flaws and has been put beside a much better study method stating it does not increase weight loss, but slows down weight gain.  The first study consists of a control group and a group being tested with the green tea extract.  They also informed us of how much extract the mice were receiving and the amount that would be equivalent to for a person to take.  The second study never even mentions having a control group.  They also never claim how much extract is being injected which could result in exaggerated results.  By not having a control group in the second study, it makes it nearly impossible to say they have made a legitimate claim with so many possible third variables.  One third variable they mentioned they didn’t even take into consideration for the significant weight loss in the mice.  They said after a week they were only eating 40 percent as much food as they were before the extract was being injected.  The tea could have kept their metabolism constant (not necessarily raising it) when the body’s natural functions would quickly slow down the metabolism on it’s own if someone were to take in less than half of what they use to ate.  If humans were also given this unknown amount of tea extract, it looks as though it could give them possible eating disorders, rather than healthily improve weight loss.  Since the first study found no signs of loss of appetite and stated their amounts were equivalent to ten cups of tea a day, the second study could be related to a fad diet, which is extremely harmful to the body.  Taking in well over ten cups of tea a day and eating less than half of what you use to?  Doesn’t really sound like a healthy way to lose weight when you put their findings into perspective. 

    (1)  http://news.psu.edu/story/154848/2011/10/04/green-tea-helps-mice-keep-extra-pounds

    (2)  http://www.greenteabase.com/green-tea-benefits-weight-loss/

    (3)  http://www.myessentia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/green-tea.jpg

    (4)   http://a57.foxnews.com/global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/Health/2009/July/660/371/640_skinny_fat_jeans.jpg?ve=1 

I have noticed and many would agree that global warming is an increasingly debated topic. It is becoming more apparent that the government is taking it seriously by the amount of regulatory legislation being passed. To my satisfaction, climate-related carbon taxes are being imposed on some of the countries biggest oil corporations such as ExxonMobil- the most profitable corporation in the nation.

I am an advocate of natural gas because of the fact that it emits the least amount of carbon of the nonrenewable resources and I support the passage of this legislation. Oil companies are now inadvertently forced to switch over to the natural gas business to avoid paying the carbon tax. I am also supportive of the policies focus on consumers. As a result of the tax, the price of oil based products, mainly gasoline, are going to spike deterring consumers from purchasing the product. I do not think there is a more effective way to regulate carbon pollution then this. The thing that motivates these corporations to carelessly reek havoc on the environment is the exact thing to target in efforts to stop them. Money.

In this day and age, climate change is a reality and we are well aware of who the culprit is. It should no longer be acceptable for greedy corporations to suck up money from the ground with no regard for the toll that these activities are taking on the environment. Future generations are going to pay the price for our actions and the government should continue to regulate carbon emitting activities. Though companies are largely to blame, we also must admit that we are equally contributing to green house gas emissions: Every time it is a little cold in our house we turn up the thermostat as opposed to putting on a few more layers; every time we  leave a room the majority of us turn of the lights infrequently.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/business/energy-environment/large-companies-prepared-to-pay-price-on-carbon.html?permid=10667056&_r=0

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101156628

            I am taking the class English 181b which is an adventure lit class offered at Penn State where we venture to places that connect with what we our learning in class. Our latest field trip was to the State College sewage treatment plant, University Joint Association, where we were given a tour by the manger, Art, and spoken to about how the plant works.

            I will fully admit that I was nervous about going; I fully admit to being a girly girl and spending an hour or so touring the place where all people’s waste from this area goes sounded smelly and unfortunate. Now I am not going to lie, it smelled, not unbearably, but I actually found the tour very engaging, the sewage treatment plant is actually doing many high tech things.

            The first building we ventured into was where the sewage water was being filter through these tubes (each tube worth about $1,000) that had a sort of microfiber inside of them that cleaned/strained the water that went through it. In the back of the room there is a computer set up that monitors all the machines in the plant and actually controls all of them. During our tour we were shown how they monitor how clean the tubes are, that there number on the screen when said 15 must be changed. When he was showing us the middle section was showing the number 14 so he said that meant tomorrow they would need to be changed (meaning almost $90,000 worth of new equipment would be used tomorrow). This is not all that the water goes through he said it also is it with ultraviolet light to separate the particles and previously to what we were seeing it had already been strained between solids and liquids and went through machines that used processes such as light and chlorine to separate the water (this is clear because it went from mucky brown water to clear).

            One could tell that Art was very proud of what they were doing at the plant. During the beginning of the tour he was prefacing what he was going to show us and he said that the plant is allotted 9 million gallons but due to regulation they are only allowed to dump 7 gallons into the river. They needed to figure out what to do with the rest of the of the waste they had. This is when they hired engineers to create a way to turn this waste into water that could be used to within the community. Currently the plant’s water they produce is feeding the stream at the bottom of their property as well as the wetlands on their property and that’s not all. The water is being used in local hotels pools and for dishes and laundry machines. He also spoke of a few other different places using their water lines for example the gold course uses their water to water the courses grass.

            Since this is before I had seen anything the plant does my first thought was I am never, ever swimming in that pool. As we went through the tour though I saw how clean this water really was getting; he even said that it is actually cleaner than the water we actually use in State College, but it is plain and simple that people just cannot get past that it is poop water and therefore do not want it to be classified as drinking water.

            When I shower or do the dishes or use the restroom to me that water and the waste I am producing was just gone. I never thought about the fact that it had to go somewhere, and that it was someone’s problem to deal with. Even if I had though I now I could have never guessed how much science has gone into making our sewage benefit the environment and be safe to reuse. Art said that they even have 2 million fresh gallons of water stored in case of emergencies, such as if the fire department needed to pull water from it.

            He walked us down to the river that their water was feeding to and gallons and gallons of water was being pours into it, which opposed to the wetlands where it was almost just a constant trickle feeding into it. There plans for the future is to expand, apparently there is a stream next to IHOP that goes dry during the summer season, last year people had to save the trout in it because there was not enough water for them to survive, and they want to pipe and keep that stream active. In that direction they also want to create a wetland with their excess water; he says everything they are doing is in attempt to give back to the community and environment.

            The thing I thought that was really interesting that he was that through looking at the sewage in State College he can actually infer life at State College. He said Christmas day is the day when sewage produced is the lowest; he also said that breaks he can tell how many people left because the numbers drastically drop. Laughing he said he can even tell when it was a particularly fun night at Penn State! How weird that our sewage is telling our story!!

Black Friday shoppers are always a sight to see. With their raging emotions to grab the best deals from their competitors they spring into animalistic action. Consumers suddenly drop all of their morals and sometimes literally fight to the death for that Best Buy TV that’s 500 dollars cheaper than before. But why to we do this? What sparks in our minds that make us think like acting like barbarians is okay. I believe that the important variable to consider is the environment. A scientific study on the craziness of a black Friday shopper concluded that there is a switch in our brain that is turned off when participating in these activities. “Consumers process information in two ways: high-level abstract and low-level concrete forms of thinking. With high-level abstract information processing, consumers consider things like the overall effect of the product, such as the brand value. At low-level concrete processing, however, consumers look at details such as how cheap the price is”. This study was a beneficial learning for me because it aided in a psychological concept of black Friday. Our brain plays a major role in how we interpret situations and this study provided support in the hypothesis that depending on where we are and what were doing we take on a specific role. 

            Another website provided the fact from an observational survey that “44% of respondents said they’d mostly be purchasing goods for themselves on Black Friday”. This fact didn’t support my original thinking because I proposed that a confounding factor in our animalistic ways on black Friday is because we are hunting down gifts for our loved ones so we have a greater motivation to snag them more.

            The main purpose of these studies though is to help people learn ways into not acting like savages when partaking in Black Friday experiences. Frankly, this behavior has a domino effect; once one person cracks another does, and then so on and so on. So how do we embrace our inner classiness during these shopping rampages? One option is to know the store’s promotions and their tactics to not end up in such situations. If you are aware of a stores hot deals but are also aware of equal deals that may not be as promoted you may save yourself from a fistfight in Wal-Mart! Another option is to avoid the chaos all together. Now with Cyber Monday deals arising people can stay in the comfort of their own homes while still obtaining door-busting savings. So be smart and process information on a higher level rather than lower and beware of your surroundings. 

Although it seems like a rather elementary concept, the science behind popcorn popping is actually quite interesting. What makes this delicious treat come out of small, hard kernels?

Each popcorn kernel is special, and contains oil, water, and starch. It is surrounded by a hard outer coating that keeps it all together. When heated, the water inside wants to expand into steam, but the coating prevents it. The hot oil and steam make the starch like a gel, making it softer and more moldable.

When the popcorn reaches a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius, the pressure inside is enough to burst through the popcorn hull. It actually turns the kernel inside-out. The pressure expands the proteins and starch inside the kernel into a foam like texture.

Of all the types of corn grown all around the world, popcorn is the only one that can pop. This is because it’s hull is the thinnest out of all types of corn.

Americans consume more than 16 billion quarts of popped popcorn per year. Get popping and enjoy this scientifically delicious treat!

http://chemistry.about.com/od/foodcookingchemistry/f/how-popcorn-pops.htm

http://www.popcorn.org/ForTeachers/TeachingGuide/WhatMakesPopcornPop/tabid/88/Default.aspx

http://www.popcorn.org/ForTeachers/TeachingGuide/FromSeedtoSnack/tabid/87/Default.aspx

One time or another in your life, you have an impending task you want to get done as soon as possible and then you look at the clock, or out the window, and conclude that maybe you will have time to do this task tomorrow. Possibly you have felt like me and had so much pent up anxiety about a task that you cant possibly start now while your mind is racing and you are more concerned with what happens if you DON’T complete the task. The feeling I am referring to is the dreadful procrastination. Procrastination is the act of putting off certain tasks with the hopes of completing them at a later time. There have been speculations that procrastination could be linked with anxiety and depression.

The heartbreaking thing about procrastination is that it is a full circle disappointment. You’re anxious and have little confidence starting the task. You continue to put off the task until the very last minute and when you finally complete the task, instead of a feeling of accomplishment, there are just feelings of guilt and anger for wasting so much time. 

A more scientific approach taken from Amy Spencers <a href=”http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/life-strategies/time-management/procrastination-00000000055281/“>article<a> is

“The prefrontal cortex is a newer and weaker portion of the brain. It’s what allows you to integrate information and make decisions. “This is the part of the brain that really separates humans from animals, who are just controlled by stimulus,” says Pychyl. The prefrontal cortex, located immediately behind the forehead (where we tap when we’re trying to think, dammit, think), gets the job done. But there’s nothing automatic about its function. You must kick it into gear (“I have to sit down and write this book report!”). And the moment you’re not consciously engaged in a task, your limbic system takes over. You give in to what feels good–you procrastinate.”

 It is possible to combat procrastination however it takes time to train your brain (not everyone is the same). There are ways to combat procrastination such as breaking up your work and engaging with those who inspire you to take action.