Author Archives: Andrea Marie Linn

Boys vs. Girls

Gender has always been an issue with common situations that we face. It is hard to say whether or not a boy is better than a girl or vise versa. Usually, it depends one’s opinion. It has been shown that since teachers are becoming more gender bias that more women are not as willing to have a leadership role in activities that they may participate in.

It has been noted that more boys are taking leadership positions in science and math class rather than females. A survey, taken by the National Education Association, concluded this when they interviewed 40,000 middle and high school educators. Newer teachers have been seen to have a gender-neutral view of leadership rather than educators who have been working for awhile. I think a study as to why this is the case would be great to find out. What is the reason for older teachers to have gender-bias views? It could be the way they were brought up or what they have seen happen around them. In the Huffingtonpost article, it stated that “confident” is a term typically associated with males, while “compassionate” is a term associated with women. I have to disagree immensely with this statement. I believe that girls can be just as confident boys.  I think that in the past the science and math fields were not as readily accessible to females as an area of interest or a means of employment. A 2011 report by the U.S. Department of Commerce found only one in seven engineers is female. Women have become more confident and comfortable in their abilities in these areas and are now able to stand up and do just as well or even better than the males. I think most words are gender-neutral. It is often just the way one person views the word themselves.  Some common gender-neutral words to describe a leader are: Collaborative, intelligent, conscientious, problem-solvers.

When a group of people were asked to listen to a description of a person and told it was a male they used descriptive words such as aggressive and assertive.  While the other group listened to a description of a person and was told the person was a girl, they commented saying, “bubbly” and “hard-working”.

I think the lack of attention that females are getting from their professors can hurt the confidence they may have in their ability to be successful.  One of the reasons why men are more “confident” is because they are getting all the praise when women are doing just as much work. It is extremely hard to focus on being gender-neutral sometimes but all in all it would be for the better and the outcome’s benefits would help both males and females. Discrimination should never occur. Women and men can work extremely well with each other sometimes so don’t be afraid to ask the person of the opposite sex next to you to work on a class group project together!

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/01/nea-girls-leadership-study_n_5910944.html?utm_hp_ref=girls-in-stem

http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/06/20/stem-fields-and-the-gender-gap-where-are-the-women/

Children’s Drawings

When I babysat for some of my family friend’s children, I would enjoy watching the kids color. But as I picked up the piece of paper, I would never know exactly what they were drawing. Whether or not they told me what they had drawn, I would praise them for such a creative design. A recent study showed that those with a “better” drawing will have a higher intelligence level when they are older. According to Dr. Rosalind Arden, a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, stated in a Huffingtonpost article, “Drawing is the end result of lost cognitive processes: Perception, focus, observation, attention, figuring out how to get a shape down on paper, and staying on task.”

7,752 pairs of four-year-old identical and fraternal twins were asked to draw what they thought a child looked like. It was graded on how well it realistically reflected human characteristics. Along with the drawing, they were given a verbal and non-verbal intelligence test. The researchers (or researchers in the future) should do this study with different ages and not just with twins. Maybe siblings could have a correlation as well.

A decade later, they were asked to do the same thing. The results of the study found that kids whose drawings got high scores at age four tended to score higher on the intelligence test at age 14. This could be just a coincidence. Chance is very likely in this situation. Over a period of years, a child could develop mentally and excel in school although it might not have seemed like that was going to happen when they were younger. The study also found that identical twins were more similar to each other than non-identical twins. Could this happen with siblings of different ages as well? What if the study found that later intelligence was influenced by genes? What if you had the genes, you would be more intelligent? Not always the case.

Not to worry though…Arden later on stated, “The correlation is moderate, so our findings are interesting, but it does not mean that parents should worry if their child draws badly.” Andrew Read often touches on the in class-the “safe enough to try” idea. Since there is no significant negative implications of encouraging children to express themselves creatively, I recommend that parents draw with their children for at least an hour a week! It will encourage positive attitudes and bring happiness to your family!

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/19/childrens-drawings-intelligence-study_n_5688396.html?utm_hp_ref=brain

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-28852471

Choking Under Pressure

Imagine you’re in a track race, you’re your school’s best hurdler and you are competing for the state title for the 400 meter hurdles. You are approaching the last 100 meters to your final hurdles. As you approach the last and final hurdle, your back foot gets caught on the hurdle and you fall flat onto your face, losing the first place title and the gold. You choked. Big time. Everyone has those moments when something doesn’t go as planned. It’s life and life happens. Choking commonly happens due to pressure of immense gains or losses that are at stake.

In a Huffingtonpost article, it turns out that being too attached to winning may be the cause of people choking. When you have high motivation you are more likely to choke where as  if you are loss-averse (meaning you hate losing more than you love winning) your chances of choking are a lot lower. It is all about how you frame the incentive: a win or loss.


Researchers look at the ventral striatum to explain this. An individual’s attachment to winning is key to how they perform under pressure. In an experiment, participants were asked to learn a game and play while betting money.  With gambling, the researchers could determine their level of loss aversion. Vikram Chib, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, stated, “We found that the way we framed an incentive — as a potential gain or loss — had a profound effect on participants’ behavior as they performed the skilled task. But the effect was different for those with high aversion versus low aversion to loss.” This study was only done with 26 people. There should of been a bigger control group to experiment on. How the participants reacted to their performance and them winning could just be by chance.

High loss aversion actually helped participants when they faced increasing losses unlike the loss-averse participants who had lower striatal activity, but that was only when the winning amount of money was $25. When $100 was at stake, they choked. During part of the experiment, MRI images were being taken. When both loss and gain incentives were shown, the ventral striatum activity increased with the magnitude of the stakes. What can we take from this? If you are someone who plays to win, try to avoid situations that are more in terms of what you could lose.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/07/why-we-choke-under-pressu_n_6096916.html?utm_hp_ref=brain

Could marijuana help with PTSD?

Different people have their reasons for why they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 7 or 8 out of 100 people will have PTSD at some time in their life. Whether it is anxiety, stress, flashbacks, etc., these things cause PTSD in many people. A new research published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, suggests that cannabis may help people who suffer from PTSD get relief. In order to see if cannabis could relieve some stress, scientists administered synthetic cannabinoids to rats after a traumatic event.

During this process, the rats went through electric shock which is considered their “traumatic” event. Some rats were injected with the synthetic cannabinoid compound while another control group of rats were not administered this compound. All rats were later exposed to traumatic reminders. Only the rats who were not administered the compound reacted to the shocks. According to a Huffingtonpost article, the rats with the injection did not show any signs of impaired extinction learn, increased startle response, changes in pain sensitivity and impaired plasticity in the brain’s reward center. Additionally, a well-controlled study covered in Science Daily concludes that patients who smoked cannabis saw an average of 75% reduction in PTSD symptoms. With no significant negative medical implications, this study further supports the idea that cannabis could be beneficial to PTSD sufferers.

Dr. Irit Akirav, who conducted the research, backs this research up with some of her own. Her new research suggests marijuana may be an effective intervention. The research on this topic is very new and preliminary. With the results of these studies and from what I have heard previous about the benefits of marijuana, I do believe it should be used. I found another article from Leafly where it helped clarify what exactly the cannabis does to help people with PTSD. The body stops producing enough endocannabinoids to fill receptor sites, and this is where the cannabinoids found in marijuana play a therapeutic role. It should be considered for medical purposes only because some people may say they have PTSD when they haven’t been diagnosed by a professional.

In 2009, New Mexico became the first state to authorize the use of medical cannabis for people with PTSD. The distribution of medical cannabis needs to be controlled. Those individuals who truly need it for medical purposes should have access to it.. Rats are very similar to humans in the way our bodies work, therefore with the results it could be quite true that it can have the benefits that was seen in rats. With these statistics, I think you should only uses cannabis if you are prescribed and use it wisely. You don’t want it to affect any other part of your body and create more problems. If scientists think it is safe enough to try, I think for the absolute best results would have to be trying with humans living with PTSD.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/22/cannabis-ptsd_n_6199254.html?utm_hp_ref=science
http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/PTSD-overview/basics/how-common-is-ptsd.asp
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140522104850.htm
http://www.leafly.com/knowledge-center/medical-resources/cannabis-and-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd

Does your sleep scheduling affect your memory?

When we entered college we knew that we’d be staying up studying and doing homework late at night. During those late evenings or early morning hours, who hasn’t gotten those cravings for this delicious poki sticks or insomnia cookies to help up finish studying for exams or doing our assignments. I don’t think many people would continue to do it if they knew that eating at irregular times can actually affect your memory.

Christopher Colwell, a neuroscientist at the University of California in Los Angeles, conducted an experiment using mice on this subject. Colwell stated, “Since so many of us are showing disruption in our sleep-wake cycle, we’re wondering if we could use the timing of food as a countermeasure.” He did just that.

Colwell realized every mouse was the same weight, slept the same about of time, and ate the same amount of food when he took some mice and aligned them with the correct sleeping schedule and then took the rest and changed there sleeping schedule (sleeping during the night). Mice are nocturnal so they normally sleep during the day and wake up and run around during the night.

In the first experiment, the researchers tested the memory of the mice by putting the mice in a box with two different objects and let them in the box to get comfortable. Yet once the feeding schedules were changed, they placed them back into the box, but this time there was one familiar object and one new one. The animals spent more time exploring the familiar object rather than the new one suggesting they never encountered the new one in the first place. This same experiment happened where mice were shocked on their feet in a certain chamber to create fear.

Another experiment was documented in a Live Science article, the mice froze in fear when they were in a similar chamber to the one that shocked them. Even though they never experienced a shock there, the familiarity of the chamber scared them. The purpose of the experiment from this article was to create a false memory in the mice. Susumu Tonegawa, a neuroscientist at MIT said, “Humans are very creative. As a byproduct, we form false memories.”

A third experiment was conducted to create fear in the mice. They conditioned them to feel fear when they were in a certain location. The mice with the shifted eating schedule froze less often in the location that the normal-scheduled peers. According to the research, this evidence suggests that odd eating and sleeping schedules affect the animal’s memory of scary situations.

There can be numerous of third variables that can come into play with this experiment. Something may have gone wrong and their is always a possibility of chance that the mice came out the same weight, got the same amount of sleep, etc. I don’t think the experiment was conducted very well to really compare mice to human sleeping schedules. If the findings were, in fact, not due to chance, it is possible that a third variable such as knowledge influenced the results. Maybe one mouse, or human, just really doesn’t have good memory or isn’t as smart as another. Showing that the animal spent more time exploring the familiar object did not correlate back to how it could affect your sleeping schedule. As long as you are getting enough sleep, there shouldn’t be a difference in memory.
On the contrary in an article on the website, azumio.com, it stated that your eating habits can affect your sleep.  The article noted that if a human eats between the hours of 7 pm and 5 am, our digestive system is affected and can lead to digestive problems.  The article also addressed the fact that caffeine and alcohol can affect not only your digestive system but your sleep as well and thus have an affect on your memory. “It is particularly important to watch what you put in your body in the hours leading up to bedtime. Some bedtime snacks will actually help promote sleep.  The natural sedative, tryptophan, is an an amino acid component that is a necessary ingredient for the body to make serotonin.  Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that makes us feel sleepy”.  Some foods such as oatmeal, almonds, and dark chocolate contain tryptophan.

As I stated earlier, I don’t think many people would continue to eat poki sticks and insomnia cookies late at night if they knew that eating at irregular times could actually affect their memory.  My conclusion and hypothesis would be to suggest to college students this winter:  Eat some warm oatmeal topped with crushed almonds and shave chocolate as a treat to increase your memory.

Sources:

http://www.livescience.com/38430-mice-implanted-with-false-memories.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/25/eating-late-memory_n_6218344.html?utm_hp_ref=science&ir=Science

http://www.azumio.com/how-food-affects-sleep-tips/index.html

Family Fights

It is quite unpleasant when you witness family members fighting right in front of you. It can be intimidating and scary for those who are watching. The act of aggression and high volume can be damaging to some people but according to a study published in the journal Human Communication Research says otherwise. The research done suggests children who are exposed to arguments at a young age or during their childhood will be better able to handle conflict they may face later in their life.

According to the Human Communication Research article, conflict is pervasive in satisfying and dissatisfying relationships, but conflict is more frequent, severe, and stressful in dissatisfying relationships. In a Communication Studies article, , there are two kinds of families: pluralistic and protective. Pluralistic refers to families with open and unconstrained discussions that involves all family members. Protective families emphasize obedience with little concern with conceptual matters. Children of these families are easily influenced from outside authorities. Dr. Lindsey S. Aloia, a lecturer of communication at Rollins College, stated, “Because these experiences increase a person’s internal ability to adapt to conflict, desensitization is reflected in a diminished physiological reaction to conflict interactions.”

Even a professor from our very own university, Dr. Denise Solomon, decided to study this topic as well. She and Dr. Aloia took fifty college-aged couples and discussed with them their relationship with their partner and their childhood experiences with aggression. Also, the couples had to discuss a point of conflict with their partner. Before and after the study, saliva samples were taken to determine their baseline level of the stress hormone cortisol. This hormone (cortisol) is released from the body in response to stress. In the Huffington post article, it stated, “The people whose discussions involved more conflict tended to show higher levels of cortisol afterward. But the increase in cortisol levels tended to be smaller in people who indicated that they had been exposed to higher levels of familial verbal aggression in childhood.” Conclusion of the study: conflict experiences can be beneficial.

I am going to have to disagree with this research and study conducted. I do not believe that experiencing or even being involved with conflict experiences can be considered even some what beneficial. When you have parents or siblings fighting in front of you, that can scare you and make you become afraid of certain parents. For example, if your father starts fights with your mom, that can give someone the idea that men can be aggressive and short tempered. Violence can also be a factor where someone can hurt another or will be afraid of getting hurt. The experimental nature of the study and its quantitative measures of hormone level make it believable, but the sample size and the possible response bias from people indicating their own experience with family aggression make it less believable.


I would also question whether the researchers in the college-aged couples study considered measuring the emotional intelligence of each individual in the study. Since emotional intelligence is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and in others, would an individual’s level of emotional intelligence (EI) be another factor in whether or not a couple was satisfied or not satisfied with their relationship versus conflict.

According to care.com’s website, fighting should not be seen as “normal.” It teaches kids that fighting and arguing is OK, when it is not. Dr. Tina B. Tessina agrees,”Fighting in front of kids also raises the anxiety level in children because it threatens their secure home environment. Children who see their parents fight or argue worry about divorce. They also do not learn healthy, effective negotiation skills.” In my opinion, I do think the sample size of the study should have been bigger. It is hard to figure out how things work in relationships and every relationship is different with people who have all different kinds of past experiences with their family. Do you think past experiences would have an affect on how parents handle fights or how kids react to them? What if they kid is responsible for their parents fighting? As far as I’m concerned, parents should take their fights somewhere else in order for the family to keep a safe and happy environment for their kids.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/30/family-fights-new-study-children_n_6220090.html?ref=topbar

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10510979709368491

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hcre.12049/full

https://www.care.com/a/fighting-in-front-of-your-kids-and-why-you-need-to-stop-1011221507
Book: Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Authors: Travis Bradberry and Jena Greaves, 2009

Mimas

Saturn has various moons orbiting around itself, but one of them seems to be sticking out more than others. In a Huffington Post article, “After carefully examining Mimas, we found it librates — that is, it subtly wobbles– around the moon’s polar axis,” Radwan Tajeddine, a Cornell research associate in astronomy and lead author of a new study in the journal Science said in a university news release.

These measurements allows scientists to indicate the satellite’s  insides. The wobble indicates there could be something lurking beneath the surface, possibly an ocean. Then again, maybe not: Tajeddine’s team believes a “weirdly shaped” rocky core could also produce the same wobbling effect. Could it be home to an underground body of water? If so, it would be lying about 15 to 18 miles underneath the moon’s surface.

But some scientists are already dismissing the theory.

“It’s really hard to understand how an ocean could survive for billions of years inside something as small as Mimas,” Francis Nimmo of the University of California, Santa Cruz, told New Scientist.

It will be extremely hard to us to tell whether or not there is an ocean underneath the moon. We don’t have to right technology or equipment to make the journey to Saturn. It would have to be a major priority to NASA for this to happen. Saying that, we will only be able to hear scientists’ opinions on this theory.

Saturn's moon Mimas. The large Herschel Crater dominates Mimas. Cassini. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/17/mimas-saturn-moon-ocean_n_6001420.html?utm_hp_ref=science

Creepy Creature

A fisherman recently caught a weird sea creature in of the coast of the SIngaporean island of Pulau Ubin. The fisherman said, “I know that area has a lot of seaweed, so I thought that was what I had hooked up,” 53-year-old Ramlan Saim told Singapore’s English-language newspaper The Straits Times. “But then when I put it on the boat it started to move like an alien.”

The bizarre creature is recognized as a basket star, an invertebrate related to the starfish. Doesn’t quite look like one to me! Basket stars start out with five arms,  from which smaller appendages sprout over over time. The creatures can re-grow their limbs — which have small sharp hooks on them to capture prey — if someone or something breaks them off. Imagine if humans could regrow their arms!

Discoveries like this make me so curious to know what other creatures are out in the world that we haven’t found yet an

d are spending years upon years searching for. I hope we find a creature soon that could help us with even a little problem that is very popular in the world. That’d be awesome.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/18/alien-sea-creature-basket-star-singapore_n_6005084.html?utm_hp_ref=science

Stay away from sugary drinks!

We all enjoy a refreshing cold soda once in a while. But others enjoy this delight more than others on multiple occasions. Although soda is deliciously tasty, we all know that it is bad for you. With extreme amounts of sugar in each can, it can put damage on your health. Diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are prevalent from drinking too much soda. But does only drinking too much soda cause these symptoms. What if I told you that even one soda a day can harm you?

It all has to do with telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of our chromosomes. Previous research has shown that telomeres tend to shorten as we grow older, and this new study suggests that drinking soda hastens the process.

Shorten you telomere length because of drinking too much soda can be related to smoking effects as well.

For the study, the researchers measured telomere length in DNA taken from 5,309 healthy men and women between the ages of 20 and 65 and then looked at how much sugar-sweetened soda each person reported drinking on a regular basis. The data were from the years 1999 through 2002.

The researchers found that the telomeres of people who reported having an 8-ounce daily serving of soda showed that the people’s biological age was older by 1.9 years, TIME magazine reported. Drinking a daily 20-ounce serving was linked to 4.6 more years of biological aging.

Even though soda intake and shorten telomeres does not mean that they are related. A study would need to be conducted to prove in fact that shortening of telomeres are because of drinking too much soda. So stay away from the calorie packed pop is you want long telomeres!

Source:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/21/soda-age-faster-telomeres_n_6015132.html?utm_hp_ref=science

Are you a face-ist?

Some people would say that other people in the world judge people based on their facial features; the way they look like. Sometimes, these opinions can be used to make important decisions for a job, organization, etc. Judging people based on their looks isn’t something we should do on a daily basis. It is not giving the person an equal opportunity for them. We think about the superficial things in life and based our opinions off of that.

Dr. Christopher Olivola, lead author of the paper and a marketing professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, said in a written statement, “This is a troubling human tendency that needs to be corrected, or at least mitigated, because faces are not valid predictors of a person’s traits.”

Olivola conducted surveys where people are asked to look at pictures and study others’ facial features. According to the Huffington Post, “ These studies linked certain appearances to significant social outcomes, indicating that people have a consistent positive bias for some facial features and a consistent negative bias against others independent of age, attractiveness, ethnicity, or gender.”

The research suggests that based on your facial structure, you could be trustworthy or not. Higher cheekbones and high eyebrows go with the trustworthy personality.

I don’t think that there is anyway to really analyze this situation. Everyone will be giving their own opinion on whether they think that person it attractive, trustworthy or etc. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but everyone has a different opinion from the next. Researchers could try to find out if something in the brain is related to the choosing of the “more attractive” person. For example, what certain features are more appealing than others to people when they are considered “attractive.”

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/23/faceism-facial-trait-bias_n_6028034.html?utm_hp_ref=science

 

face grid

What caused the ‘Man on the Moon’?

Many people use the term “man on the moon” referring to the dents on the moon that have made a shape similar to a man’s face. At first, people thought an asteroid created this massive basin. Oceanus Procellarum is the scientific name for the basin that lies on the lunar surface, but many people will recognize the basin by the name: “man on the moon.”

A geophysics professor from MIT, Maria Zuber, disagrees with the statement that an asteroid created this basin. A team from MIT and NASA have found out that ancient volcanic eruptions are now the cause for this gigantic basin.
GRAIL, NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, has been used to reveal the actual shape of the basin. If an asteroid had hit the moon, it would of left a circular shape, but with GRAIL’s help, we are able to see that the the basin is more of a square or rectangular shape.

Zuber later explained that a large portion of magma would have bubbled from the interior over flowing onto the moon. With such contrasting temperatures, rift valleys and strings shape or feature were made onto the moon’s surface.

“How such a plume arose remains a mystery,” Zuber said in the article. “It could be due to radioactive decay of heat-producing elements in the deep interior. Or, conceivably, a very early large impact triggered the plume. But in the latter case, all evidence for such an impact has been completely erased.”

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/man-in-the-moon-mystery-solved_n_5919612.html?utm_hp_ref=science

nasa moon crater

Sleepy Decisions

I’m sure I could speak for mostly all of the college kids out there: we love our sleep. Although we don’t get many hours of sleep due to school, jobs, organization, and other activities that we are involved with on and off campus. For me personally, any time that I have some free time (even if it’s only a half an hour) I will take a quick nap to try to rejuvenate myself and try to catch up on the sleep that I have lost from previous nights. Yet, when we sleep our brains don’t shut off completely. We have become adjusted to waking up to common sounds that we what to wake up to such as our names, an alarm clock, or specific sounds. Other sounds that are more irrelevant we ignore and continue to sleep.

A study was done where participants were asked a list of categories of words that they heard and had to click right or left. The participants were allowed to fall asleep during this process, which most of them did. Scientists were then able to monitor EEG electrodes that were place on the participants heads. According to the article, “Once they were asleep, and without disturbing the flow of words they were hearing, we gave our participants new items from the same categories. The idea here was to force them to extract the meaning of the word (in the first experiment) or to check whether a word was part of the lexicon (in the second experiment) in order to be able to respond.”

With access to brain activity motors, they were able to see whether someone was prepping a response toward which side. This proved their brains continues to prepare for right or left responses according to the meaning of the words. Interestingly enough, they participants could not recall what happened while they were asleep.

Some questions I will leave you with: What can be achieved through a sleeping brain dealing with processing? What happens when we begin to dream? Can outside interferences affect the dreams?

What do you think?

Sources: http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/17/your-brain-actually-makes-decisions-while-you-sleep/

You Look Like Your Dog

Scientist seem to believe that some people actually look like their dogs! Comments like this is very common for Huffington’s sports columnist Jordan Schultz and his wife. They have been told they are spitting images of their two dogs. They love it!

According to an article on Psychology Today, “Our own face is something which we are quite familiar with. We see it in the mirror every morning as we shave, put on makeup, or comb our hair. We see images of our face thousands of times each year as we pass by various reflecting surfaces in the environment. Science, therefore, suggests that, as in the case of everything else that we have seen many times, we should be rather fond of it.”

Sadahiko Nakajima, a psychologist and researcher at Japan’s Kwansei Gakuin University, says, “There’s not just evidence to support the notion that humans their pet dogs look alike but also why that’s so.”The eyes are said to be the reason for this notion. Nakajima used photographs of owners and their dogs simply to look at their eyes. His findings found the dog owner physical resemblance valid.

Nakajima conducted another experiment where 500 people were shown two sets of photographs displaying pictures of real dog-owner pairs. The other set showed random pairings of people and dogs. There were different types of pictures that the participants were assigned to. The pictures included no-mask, eye-mask, mouth-mask, dog-eye-mask, and eye-only. Participants were then asked to select the one picture where the dog and owner physically resembled each other.

The results were astonishing. Many of the participants match the pictures up correctly, up to 80%! Accuracy fell when either the humans or the dogs were blacked out; around 50% either when the human’s eyes were blacked out, or when the dog’s were. These results suggest that eyes really do have the power to connect the dog and its owner physically.  Nakajima concluded, “The results clearly show that individuals make decisions on dog-owner resemblance primarily by comparing features of the ye region between dogs and owners.”The reason for this is the so called ‘mere exposure effect,’or the idea that a person might choose to get a dog who looks similar to themselves because of a preference for the familiar.

This photo are shocking:

Sources: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201308/do-dogs-look-their-owners

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/18/people-look-like-their-dogs-study_n_5838278.html?utm_hp_ref=science

Your Body, Your Right.

Many children, teens, and even adults deal with gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is described as one having physical characteristics on one’s gender but there is a strong identification with the opposite gender and desire to live as and become the opposite sex. A male or female approaching puberty become terrified about the upcoming body changes they will begin to experience. Women are afraid of growing breasts and developing a menstrual cycle while men are nervous for growing facial hair and an Adam’s apple.

Many doctors now recommend puberty suppression to children. Puberty suppression has only been around for around twenty years beginning in the 1990s. The Center for Expertise on Gender Dysphoria at Amsterdam’s VU University began a protocol that uses gonadotropin which releases hormones. These hormones would block normal hormones causing secondary sex characteristics to develop.

This may sound dangerous, but puberty suppression is considered reversible. Some adolescents can undergo normal puberty but it may be delay. However, in cases where GD persists, hormones are administered around the age of 16 and the gender-reassignment for surgery may be performed later at the age of 18.

Dr. Annelou de Vries conducted a study involving 55 young transgender adults who had puberty suppression when they were teenagers. These adults were assessed three times in a six year period: before staring puberty suppression, at the time that cross-sex hormones were introduced, and at least on year after gender-reassignment surgery. Psychological adjustments and subjective well-being were tested. The results: all adults were satisfied with the outcome and their physical appearance. Researches stated, “GD was alleviated and psychological functioning had steadily improved. Wellbeing was similar to or better than same-age young adults from the general population. Improvements in psychological functioning were positively correlated with post surgical subjective well-being.”

These hormones would definitely help one with they emotions on their physical look as well as emotions. If they look good, they will be more happy. If puberty suppression is the only way they feel like they will be able to feel happy with the outcome of a sex change then I say go for it! You have to do what makes you happy and if this is what makes them happy they are entitled to do so. Some criticize puberty suppression as child abuse but that should only be considered if the child is being forced to undergo suppression against their will. They have to agree with the surgery 100% and are not forced into something they don’t want to do. If they agree with the surgery and they surgery goes well, they will be living a long, happy, and satisfied life.

 

 

 

Sources: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jack-drescher/puberty-suppression-for-t_b_5823698.html?utm_hp_ref=science

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/gender+dysphoria

Do Migraines Lead to Parkinson’s Disease?

We have all had those days where we get those massive headaches that just seem to not go away. Migraines are very common within people. According to an article from CNN News, “Migraines are the most common brain disorder in both men and women, according to the World Health Organization, and one of the top ten most debilitating conditions.”

Those who suffer migraines with aura double their chance of developing a common movement disorder, Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease creates problems with nerve cells that produce dopamine. Muscle rigidity and tremors are common side effects of this disease. A study was done where 5,000 people were followed for 25 years and were asked questions about any migraine symptoms and later Parkinson’s disease symptoms. All the participants were from the ages of 33 and 65. When they were asked about the Parkinson’s disease, many were linked to a disorder call Restless Legs Syndrome based on the participant’s self diagnosis. Dr. Michael S. Okun, national medical director of the National Parkinson Foundation stated, “The patients in this study were not carefully examined and definitely diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.” He also continued to say, “Head trauma and other neurological issues can manifest with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease and future studies will need to better control for these factors.” Dr. Okun believe that more research need to be done before any conclusion is made.

The connection between Parkinson’s disease and migraines are very low. There are some factors, such as previous head injuries or shared genetic risk factors, that would increase they chance of someone getting a migraine and Parkinson’s disease. Dopamine is needed to help Parkinson’s patients that can also help with migraines. “Another theory is that in migraine sufferers there seems to be a higher deposition of metals, such as iron, in the brain and specifically in areas important to movement,” said Okun. “Some experts believe that this metal deposition may place patients at risk for diseases like Parkinson’s.”

There needs to be more research on this subject in order to conclude that migraines can increase your chances of getting Parkinson’s disease. A study dealing with dopamine may help if researchers believe that dopamine can contribute to helping those with migraines and Parkinson’s disease. They can use this research to answer that question definitely.

 

Sources: http://www.webmd.com/parkinsons-disease/default.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/17/health/migraines-parkinsons/index.html?hpt=he_c2

Your Face is Unique

Everyone is different. Different hair, face shape, skin, or eye color. We all have different features about us that make us well…US. Researchers use “identity”signals to distinguish others from the rest of the world. A new study suggests that evolution has favored humans with certain, distinctive facial features. These facial features help people recognize each other and be recognizable. If everyone in the world looked the same, it would be extremely difficult for others to recognize you. The world would be in a giant bubble of confusion. You wouldn’t know who is your family members, co-workers, and friends.

Scientists have found the most distinctive features are on the “triangle region”of a person’s face. The triangle region consists of anything between the eyes, mouth, and nose. Researches determined that natural selection enhancing facial variation. After looking at the triangle region, scientists moved to genomes of more than 1,000 people around the world. Dr. Michael Nachman, a population geneticist and professor or integrative biology stated, “Genetic variation tends to be weeded out by natural selection in the case of traits that are essential to survival.”

Scientists have linked these features to how animals distinct themselves from other animals. Certain calls, marlins, eggs, and other are signals animals use to find out who they are associating themselves with. it acts as a sign of territory and signal dominance. This goes for humans as well. If someone sees someone they believe can hurt them or their loved one, of course they are going to do anything to protect them. If one looks like the other, they tend to look out for each other the most. Humans use their eyes more than scent to recognize others. Dr. Michael J. Sheehan stated, “Clearly, we recognize people by many traits—for example their height or their gait—but our findings argue that the face is the predominant way we recognize people.”

When we meet someone new the first thing we notice about them is their facial feature. Some people, but not all, tend to judge people on their facial distinctions. But don’t mind that! You were made a unique individual that is not like everyone else. Not just with facial distinction but also with personality. You eyes could be your best facial feature and everyone will love those beautiful eyes!

 

Sources: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/18/human-faces-unique_n_5837910.html?utm_hp_ref=science

Keyboards Influence the Naming Of Babies

Naming newborn babies are a big deal to new parents. Could computer keyboards really determine how parents name their children? You encounter many different names in your life, but some names happen to be more commonly used and known around the world. Is the “QWERTY effect” real?

A new study believes the involvement of computers contribute to parent’s decision on picking their child’s name. According to an article in the Huffington’s Post, “Parents ten to select baby names that can be easily typed on the right side of the QWERTY keyboard.” Many parents ten to choose names that contain letters from the right side of the keyboard. Names such as Liam, Noah, Lola, and Violet are popular names this year and use letters mainly from the right side of the keyboard. But why?

We unknowingly choose these names. Co-author Daniel Casasanto, a p psychology professor at the University of Chicago, stated, “It doesn’t mean that suddenly everyone is naming all of their babies with letters from the right side instead of the left. This is an effect that works unconsciously and can only be detect statistically. ”Researchers studied naming statistics with names of children born between 1960 and 2012. 1990 was the beginning of the QWERTY era, which was also when computer keyboards became popular around the world. Researchers concluded that because most humans are right-handed, therefore parents choose baby names on the right hand side of the keyboard. We used our dominant hand to do most things in life with ease. People associate that side with positive things, which would include their child’s name.

I agree with most of this article when it states that your dominate hand can influence what you do. Yet, I do believe that chance exists. Maybe many parents just happen to choose names from the right side of the keyboard and it so happened to be in the same year as many other parents. They are billions of people in the world, therefore it can be hard to calculate if the majority of parents named their children from the right side of the keyboard. Also, the parents that were in this study could have been all right-handed. I believe more left-handed people should of been in the study in order to get  better and more accurate findings.

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Sources: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/qwerty-effect-baby-names_n_5822960.html?utm_hp_ref=science

First Blog Post!

Hi! My name is Andrea Linn! I decided to take this course because it was one of the few classes left to choose from for one of my gen eds. Since this class is made for non-science majors, I thought this would be the perfect class! The topics that will be discussed in class are very interesting to me. I am not planning on being a science major because science never really intrigued me in high school. Although I got good grades and understood the concepts in my science classes, I didn’t like it enough to make a career out of it. I am majoring in communications,  particularly broadcast journalism, in hopes of becoming an entertainment news broadcaster.

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