It seems like common sense the question of walking versus running in the rain. I feel like everyone assumes that running will get you less wet compared to walking to the same spot, but a few times in my life I have had people tell me that you will get more wet when you run. Which one is really true and why is that one true?

In a video by Henry Reich, the creator is of MinutePhysics (his videos have been featured on PBS and NBC), he explains why someone would get less wet when running to a spot compared to someone who walks to the same spot. He explains it using a parallelepiped, a 3D parallelogram. He says that because a parallelepiped’s volume does not depend on it’s slant, no matter your speed while moving horizontally the same amount of rain will land on top of you. The equation he came up with is your total wetness = wetness per second x amount of time spent in the rain + wetness per meter x meters traveled. He concludes by saying that in order to stay drier, you must get out of the rain as fast of possible – aka run!

Then I found out that MythBusters tested the same thing. They had a controlled experiment at their indoor course. They controlled the velocity at which the water fell, the wind, the distance they go, and the speed at which they walk/run. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, the hosts of MythBusters, were the ones who went through the water. Each wore cotton overalls that are weigh before and after they go through the course. One at a time, they would walk, take the suit off to be weighed, and then repeat the same thing in a run. Each walk and run trial will be done twice, once with wind and once without. What they first found was that it is better to walk than run through the rain!

MythBusters Test

They actually went back and found out that because they used artificial rain in their original test, their results were actually a false positive. Their final conclusion was that it is in fact better to run in the rain than walk in the rain when you want to stay as dry as possible.

I really enjoyed looking up this topic because if the scientists that work for MythBusters can at first get it wrong, I do not have to feel so dumb for questioning it. This does also remind me of the Monty Hall problem because my intuition must be kind of lousy. The more I think about the Monty Hall problem, the more confused I get and the more I think about running versus walking through the rain, the more confused I get.

Luckily, I always have my umbrella in my backpack.

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/running-in-the-rain-minimyth/

http://mythbustersresults.com/episode38

Within the past couple of years it seems that smoking Hookah has exploded in our society, especially with younger generations. For those unfamiliar, hookahs are a type of water pipe that is used to smoke a specially made type of tobacco. The tobacco can come in almost an flavor imaginable; like chocolate, orange, and even cappuccino. Usually, smoking hookah is done it group settings too. I think all the flavor chooses and the social aspect are part of the reason kids in my generation have come to like smoking hookah so much, but I also think it is because many believe that smoking out of a hookah is safer than smoking cigarettes. When it turns out, it is not.

According to Tom Glynn, Ph.D. and director of cancer science and trends for the American Cancer Society, “hookah smoking is no safer than cigarette smoking.” In the article, published on Cancer.org on May 29^th, 2012, similar to cigarette smoke, hookah smoke has high amounts of arsenic, cobalt, chromium, and lead. All of which are known to be cancer causing. The smoke as well “generates heart-disease-causing carbon monoxide.”

Hookah smoke also has some health risks that you would not find in cigarette smoke. Because people usually smoke for longer periods of time while using a hookah compared to cigarettes, they inhale more smoke than a cigarette smoker would. Second hand smoke also becomes an issue. Sharing the hookah’s water pipe hose can also spread diseases. Hookah smoke may contain “charcoal or wood cinder combustion products, which can increase cancer- and heart disease-causing agents in the smoke.”

As someone who has smoked cigarettes and hookah before and never really thought about the damaging effects of hookah smoke, these results make sense to me. Smoking hookah is usually done in group settings, like someone’s home or even a hookah bar. The group setting allows for more second hand smoke and the longer you smoke, the more smoke you inhale from yourself, and the more smoke you inhale from the people around you. Sharing the hose make perfect sense as to spreading germs, especially during the winter when people seem to always be getting sick.

What this study did not mention was compared to the same intake of smoke of both a cigarette and a hookah, which one would be considered worse? Is the hookah smoke more damaging because of the way it is smoked or is the smoke still equally as bad as cigarette smoke? Part of the results of this study are observational. Researchers cannot prove that hookah smoke is worse than cigarette smoke and they cannot prove some of the damaging effects, as the same with cigarette smoke. What researchers can know for sure are what toxins or chemicals are in hookah smoke. Researchers can also rule out reverse causation. Developing cancer causing someone to smoke – unlikely. Research gathered can be compared to the research done about cigarette smoke but it does not give anything in terms of proof because both types of smoke are different.

Now knowing all this information, it does deter me from smoking hookah again. Everyone knows about the harmful effects of cigarettes but people need to become more informed about smoking hookah now too. The myth that hookah smoke not harmful could be doing real damage to people because of how ill-informed they are.

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/expertvoices/post/2012/05/29/hookahs-are-trendy-but-are-they-safe.aspx

http://www.hookah-shisha.com/hookahlove/

Growing up a lot of us believed in ghosts and slowly started to believe less and less. I, however, have never believed more in ghosts than I do now.

The house my family currently lives in is haunted, or so I believe. We are the fourth family to live in it and one man actually died in the house! Not from anything scary though, he had a heart attack. A man also shot and killed himself in the field in our backyard, some 40 feet from the house, because the cops were coming to get him to bring him to jail. I know these incidences offer zero in the terms of explanation but they help in my belief of there being supernatural beings in my basement.

As we discussed in class,  “Things are explained only by reference to natural causes and events (Methodological Naturalism). Supernatural explanations are not part of science. Thus we set aside the question of whether God had a hand in it. Science is godless in the way that plumbing is godless.” – Unscientific America Mooney and Kirshenbaum (2009).  That does not mean I cannot believe in the supernatural. Live Science says that one reason is because there is no specific definition for ghosts. They also state that “if ghosts exist and can be scientifically detected or recorded, then we should find hard evidence of that – yet we don’t.”

On multiple occasions I have taken pictures and videos of what I believe are of a ghost in my basement. I was under no type of influence and fully awake each time.

(If swearing offends you, you might want to mute the video. Sorry!)

It is very hard to try and convince people that you might have a ghost in your basement so I have done my best to test everything I could think of:

• I have used different cameras so it would not be because of my phones camera having something wrong with it
• I have used lights to try and reflect shadows off of different parts of my basement
• I have gotten pictures or videos on different nights
• I have had multiple people in the room with me
• Also the room in my basement does not have any windows

I do not believe in the use of Ouija Boards and their supernatural powers because upon very little research, shows that the Ouija Board makes use of what is called the ideomotor effect. The ideomotor effect, as defined by PudMed.gov, “suggests that actions are represented by their perceivable effects.”

Now I know that there are many other things that could be causing the orbs or shadows in my basement but through everything that I have done to try and show that they are not there, I still believe. I know my views on this are very biased but nothing in my basement could ever prove that ghosts or supernatural powers are in my basement but I would willingly open my basement to someone, someone obviously qualified and with a background check, and have them give me answers as to why these things keep showing up in my basement.

(Please ignore my younger sister and her friends)

(All the pictures and videos were provided by either myself or my sister and were all taken on different occasions.)

For those of you interested – here is a link to buildings at Penn State that are said to be haunted.

http://paranormal.about.com/od/hauntedplaces/ig/Haunted-Colleges-and-Universit/Penn-State-University.htm

http://www.unscientificamerica.com/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20822210

http://www.livescience.com/26697-are-ghosts-real.html

Class lecture – 9/2/2014

In today’s world, it is hard to find a sports field that is not made of artificial turf. Even my somewhat small high school in Minnesota – our main field that all our sports teams and gym classes use is made of turf. Many people don’t think twice about artificial turf. Most places that install turf simply think of the money they might save but should that be the only thing that people worry about while deciding to install turf?

An investigative study done by NBC shows that there may be a link between artificial turf and cancer. The reason there might be a link is because of what artificial turf is made of. Between the fake blades of grass is what is known as “crumb rubber.” Crumb rubber is shredded truck and cart tires and contains all the same chemicals you would find in the tires. The International Agency for Cancer Research labeled four different carcinogens found in crumb rubber: arsenic, benzene, cadmium, and nickel. All of which are not considered farm full at low exposures. (A carcinogen, as defined by MedicineNet.com, is a substance or agent that causes cancer.)

Picture provided by NBC shows the crumb rubber used in artificial turf fields

NBC’s study focuses on a link between soccer goalies and cancer, mainly blood cancers. If you think about it, soccer goalies are the players who are diving and sliding around the turf the most. Yes, many other sports cause players into the turf as well but most other sports that involve turf use mouth guards, which help keep a player’s mouth shut and make it difficult for crumb rubber to get in their mouth. Soccer goalies do not wear mouth guards.

How Safe is the Artificial Turf on Your Child’s Sports Field? by NBC (video)

The NBC investigation brought light to Amy Griffin, a University of Washington soccer coach, who has compiled a list of 38 American soccer players, 34 of which are goalies. Griffin compiled the list after two of her goalies were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

First and foremost, no research has linked cancer to artificial turf. The Synthetic Turf Council states that the evidence that has been collected shows that artificial turf is safe. All studies that have been done have all been observational and because researchers cant prove that artificial turf does in fact cause cancer you cannot assume that correlation means causation or the possibility of chance. One thing that can be ruled out is reverse causation.

Could artificial turf and causing cancer be like smoking and developing cancer? By that I mean, could the effects not be evident until a certain number of years? Who knows. One thing that does need to be done is continued studies on this subject and testing of crumb rubber by non-biased organizations. If such questions continue to come up without any reliable results, why not start using other forms of rubber? Like a high school in Washington plans to use recycled tennis shoe soles. I also believe this could have someone to do with the lack of information and science surrounding this topic. Like we discussed in class, people used to believe that blood letting was safe and now we look back and cannot believe that they did that. Will we look back at artificial turf in disbelief that we used to play on it?

What this NBC investigation makes people do is think more about whether or not they want their children playing on artificial turf. As of right now there isn’t any data that directly supports the claim that artificial turf can lead to cancer but that doesn’t mean there never will be.

For myself, I grew up playing mostly indoor sports and barely had to deal with turf but that does not mean I will never develop some for of cancer. There are so many cancer causing things in our world today that I don’t think I would keep my children from playing on artificial turf, as of right now.

http://www.syntheticturfcouncil.org/?page=FAQs

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=2625

http://www.iarc.fr/search.php?cx=009987501641899931167%3Ajwf5bx4tx78&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&sa=&q=carcinogens#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=carcinogens&gsc.page=1

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/how-safe-artificial-turf-your-child-plays-n220166

Class lecture – 9/25/2014

Hi everyone! My name is Bria Donnelly and I am from a small farm town in Minnesota. My intended major is broadcast journalism. I am taking this course to fulfill a gen ed requirement and this seemed like a science course that was less like a typical science class and I liked that! I am not planning on majoring in science because I took AP chem in high school and ever since then I have hated science. I love Penn State hockey too!