Many if not all kids growing up are scared if not absolutely of the dark, including me.  Even now sometimes if I know I’m home alone and I hear a creaking floorboard, window shutting, or a bump in the dark, I still get a little cautious and at least look for something I could use as a weapon just in case.  The chances that someone or something is actually in the house to hurt me are very slim, but there’s still a chance and that gives me caution.  I know for a fact that people my age (23) are even STILL scared of the dark.  You can’t tell me after you turn off the lights downstairs you don’t run as fast as you can upstairs just to be out of the dark, it’s just unsettling to be in the dark.  But, why?
As it turns out, it’s not the actual dark that people are scared of, it’s the unknown.  When you cannot see into that dark corner of your closet, your mind starts imagining shapes, noises, and many other “scary” things.  It’s human nature to be curious so when you remove one way we can explore, like our ability to be able to see, it throws our senses into disarray which causes fear and panic.  Some individuals are way less prone to letting this panic overwhelm them.  To some, it’s the exact opposite and they have no way to calm down unless they regain that sense.  This fear acts as a checks and balances system to avoid reckless behavior such as running around the African safari at nighttime.  For a very large portion of humanities early days, we were not at the top of the food chain or even close.  Very quickly humans learned that many dangerous predators like to use the cover of darkness for hunting so they learned to avoid the nighttime for movement.

Studies have shown that darkness is actually good for us and not embracing it might actually be harmful.  Prolonged exposure to light before one goes to sleep suppresses the the sleep hormone melatonin which may increase risk of mood disorders, obesity, and sleep disorders.  It’s completely natural to be scared of the dark, but should we be any more worried about violent crime happening after the sun sets?  The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey shows us that most violent crimes occur just before 6pm and right  around midnight.  So though many people are afraid of the dark, crime statistics do not show that this fear is justified solely on the premise of their being more crime during the dark.

All in all, this is not me telling you that it’s completely safe to walk down that dimly lit alleyway just because it’ll take shorter, but it is me telling you that your fear of the dark is justified all the way back to the cavemen.  So fortunately, there will be no monsters hiding in the dark corner of your closet when you get home, but it never hurts to check and ease your conscience.

Sources:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/why-are-we-afraid-of-the-dark.html
http://gizmodo.com/why-were-afraid-of-the-dark-and-why-its-good-that-we-a-1448915260
http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/are-you-still-afraid-of-the-dark

There was a movie that came out a while ago called Wanted  where the characters in the movie could tap into their adrenaline and actually slow down time to complete tasks.  In the movie they also do an absurd amount of other ridiculous things that just simply wouldn’t work such as curve bullets, flip cars with no ramps, and survive falls and explosions that only Hollywood can dream up but that’s not what this post is about.

The main character in the movie undergoes particular training where his mentor tells him the panic attacks he receives when threatened is actually his heartbeat pumping at 400 bpm(which would kill you, thanks hollywood) which helps him to slow down time and focus only on whatever task he wants to accomplish.  You cannot just simply tap into your adrenal glands whenever you want to, you need a stimulant.

Adrenaline is a hormone produced by the body in high stress or high anxiety situations.  This hormone is part of the human body’s acute stress system, or it’s “fight or flight” response.  This happens by stimulating the heart rate, dilating air passages, and contracting blood vessels all of which helps increase blood flow to the muscles and helps move oxygen to the lungs.  Adrenaline is sometimes used as a medical treatment for certain conditions such as anaphylactic shock.  My question is, can we have the same effects by simply thinking or willing our bodies to do it?

The adrenal glands are roughly 3 inches in length and found directly above the kidneys.  Adrenaline is one of many hormones produced by these glands.  “Fight or flight” is used to determine the body’s reaction to certain stressful situations.  It is an adaption that allows our body to react to danger very quickly.  For example, dilating air passages happen when your body uses adrenaline which allows more oxygen into the lungs quickly which increases physical performance for short periods of time.  When someone experiences a potentially dangerous or harmful situation, the brain signals to the adrenal glands to release adrenaline into the bloodstream.  The body reacts instantly to these hormones which helps increase strength and speed and decreases the ability to feel pain.  However, these responses ONLY happen if triggered.  No matter how hard you try you cannot simply will your body to enter an adrenaline rush without some other form of stimulation such as a shot of epinephrine.  The brain needs a trigger for it to send the signals that the body is in peril.

I’m sure you have all experienced some sort of adrenaline rush before when playing sports, playing outside, driving, even playing something not physically harmful as video games can trigger adrenaline rushes.  Everyone is different and everyone’s bodies reacts to certain events differently but unfortunately humans cannot yet tap into their adrenaline reserves to slow down time and start curving bullets, although that would be awesome…

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-adrenaline.htm
http://www.yourhormones.info/hormones/adrenaline.aspx
http://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Epinephrine-%28Adrenaline%29.aspx

Pretty much since I can remember and I’m sure you all can attest to this, but I have heard or been warned about the effects of global warming and how it will ultimately be earth’s downfall.  Taking a closer look, that may not necessarily be the case.

In the last 650,000 years there have been 7 cycles of glacial advance and retreat with the last ice age just over 7,000 years ago which marked the beginning of human civilization.  In the past 1,300 years the warming trend is very likely to have been induced and is currently proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented before.  There has been a lot of evidence for the rapid climate change that is quite compelling such as how the global sea level has risen 6.7 inches in the last century.  However, that rate has nearly doubled in the last decade.  Since the industrial revolution, the acidification of the oceans has also increased by about 30 percent.  This is from the result of humans emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Another way we can tell that the Earth has been warming is by seeing the thermometer records from all over the world over the past century and a half.  The Earth’s average temperature has risen more then 1 degree Fahrenheit and over twice that in parts of the arctic.  Now this doesn’t mean that temperatures haven’t differed among regions of the globe or different seasons just for being in different parts of the world but if you average out the temperatures over the course of a year, you can easily see the temperatures creeping up.

Obviously we cannot go back thousands of years to tell the temperature of the world although we do have a way to get some insight on our past, trees.  Trees store information about the climate that they live.  Every year, trees grow thicker and form new rings.  In the years where the weather is warmer and wetter, the rings grow thicker.  This helps us study just precisely where the weather has been fluctuating the most.

Many critics argue that global warming isn’t a real thing and we shouldn’t worry about it.  I’m not going to tell you what to believe but I will ask you to at least look at the facts.  The Earth is heating up.  It’s not heating up at a pace where we will ever be affected in our lifetimes or even our childrens children lifetime but that doesn’t mean at some point during mankind’s existence it won’t become a factor.  So, do your part and recycle when you can, don’t litter, and overall just keep your conscience clean by preserving and protecting our beautiful earth as best as you can.  One day it will matter.

Sources: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-real/
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/global-warming7.htm

I’m sure you’ve heard the quote “I can smell your fear” at least at some point in your life.  Now, can something that literally has no smell, be smelled?

Kevin Richardson is a South African lion tamer who has been accepted into these lions pride as one of their own.  Kevin claims if they killed him, “I would do it all over again.”  How does he do this?  He shows no fear.

Mammals have 2 distinct olfactory systems.  The main one is involved with the conscious recognition of smells and depends on the nose’s ability to detect airborne molecules.  When you smell something, you’re breathing in molecules which bind to the olfactory receptors in your nasal passages.  Emotional states such as fear, are not typically known for being able to generate scent-laden molecules.  The other scent detecting process is known as the accessory olfactory system.  Beginning in the vomeronasal organ, which is above the soft palate of the mouth, highly specific smell molecules are detected and transmitted to the accessory olfactory bulb where they are collected and processed.  Instead of being able to detect airborne molecules the accessory system is designed to “read” the messages of communicative chemicals emitted by animals known as pheromones.  Pheromones transmit information concerning territory, aggression, and most prominently reproduction.  However, pheromone communication is only possible between members of the same species so it is physically impossible for any animal to actually “smell” another animals fear.

Instead animals sense of fear depends more on behavioral clues rather than on olfactory signals.  This is also true for humans because 99 times out of 100 you are going to see, hear, or even feel an act of aggression before you smell it.  So unfortunately, no it is not true that fear can be “smelled,” but that doesn’t mean there are other ways for fear to be read on someone or something.

Sources:
http://news.psu.edu/story/141321/2005/03/16/research/probing-question-can-animals-really-smell-fear
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/dec/04/smell-fear-research-pheromone

Growing up I’ve heard from my parents, my friends parents and other sources in my life that drinking one glass of red wine a day with dinner is actually very healthy for you and your heart. Its even been advertised in the media as a means of combating heart disease.  Do you believe that?

Atherosclerosis is a process in which blood vessels begin to lose their natural ability to, relax. Smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes also help contribute to this process.  Both the alcohol and the polyphenolic compounds found in red wine maintain healthy blood vessels by helping to promote nitric oxide form, which is the key chemical that helps to relax blood vessels.

During a study of 13,825 over the course of 12 years at the Copenhagen City Heart Study, men and women were divided into 2 groups with one drinking alcohol and the other not.  The results were that the subjects who drank wine had half the risk of dying from coronary heart disease or stroke as compared to those who never drank wine.  Those who drank beer and spirits did not experience that advantage.  In 13 other studies involving 209,418 participants, research showed that a 32% reduction in risk of atherosclerosis came with red wine intake while only a 22% from beer.  Having 1-2 drinks of any alcoholic beverage a day has been suggested to help increase survival rates in a variety of different population groups.  Middle aged men and women benefit most from this as moderate alcohol consumption reduces the risk of developing atherosclerosis disease.   Even patients with a history of heart attack diabetes all benefited drastically.

Saying that it is healthy for you to drink alcohol is not true.  There are many other factors to consider when labeling something as “healthy.”  However drinking 1-2 drinks a day has been proven to help reduce the risk of heart disease by 30% in middle aged men and women so I’ll let you make the call.  

Sources:http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/wine-how-much-is-good-for-you
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/111/2/e10.full

Have you ever been doing something and literally one second later completely blanked and not had a clue what you were just about to do?  Ever tried to think real hard about what it was to no avail?   Tried thinking about an event that happened in your past that you know happened but can’t really pinpoint the details? I’m not sure about you guys but this happens to me entirely way too much.

There are 2 primary memory systems in the human mind.  One being short term memory which is the “working” memory that holds information about a few limited things that we are currently thinking about.  The other is long term memory which can hold massive amounts of memory and information over a lifetime of thoughts and experiences.  Short term memory provides sharp detail about a few things that we are presently thinking about while long term memory doesn’t always provide as sharp a memory and usually is just the gist of what we saw happen.

In a recently published study by cognitive neuroscientist Timothy F. Brady of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he had an experiment where he showed subjects over 3,000 pictures of different household items (backpack, stapler, pencils, etc.) and then shortly after would show them 2 pictures and the subject had to say which item they had seen.  The subjects did exceptionally well with a success rate of around 90%.  This is thanks to the long term memory being able to store away the images and thoughts going through your head while looking at the pictures you were told to remember.  If it’s not fuzzy, why do we still forget things?

Some explanations of this are retrieval failure, interference, failure to store, and motivated forgetting.  Retrieval failure is also known as the decay theory which basically means if you are not constantly trying to access a specific memory, you’ll simply forget it forever.  There are 2 different kinds of interference, proactive and retroactive.  Proactive is when an old memory takes the place and makes it more difficult or impossible to remember a new one.  Retroactive is when new information interferes with your ability to remember old memories.  Failure to store is when some information you are trying to retain is simply not important enough for you to remember.  It is simply not significant enough.  Last but not least there is motivated forgetting.  There are 2 kinds of motivated forgetting, suppression, a conscious form of forgetting and repression and unconscious form.  Sometimes we actively try to forget memories, especially ones of traumatic or disturbing events of experience.  When we have memories that we try to avoid and not think about for extended periods of time they turn into fuzzy generalizations of what actually happened.

It’s never fun to be that guy who is constantly forgetting things and always has to be reminded for even simple tasks but in my experiences over time I have experienced 4 concussions and have been told it will only get harder with time.  However I know I am not alone in the struggle to remember your name even though we just met, or to remember to take my cell phone with me, or to turn off the lights before leaving.  Next time, someone you know forgets to do something, don’t snap at them or be rude, just do the only thing you can and attempt to remind them again!

Sources:

http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/tp/explanations-for-forgetting.htm
http://www.psychologistworld.com/memory/forgetting.php
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-we-forget-things/

My names Corey Lyman.  I am 22 and am from Baltimore, Maryland and I am interested in a degree in either criminology or education.  I took this class because honestly I just needed credits filled.  I do not plan on having much to do with science for my future because I have always found it challenging.  This is what happens when you type random guy into google.