Many women like to put lipstick on before they go out, or when they go to work. But have you ever wondered what lipstick exactly is, other than a stick of color. Lipstick is defined as an oil-based cosmetic that is usually applied on the lips. Lipstick and many lip-glosses contain high levels of potentially dangerous metals.

Some dangerous metals that could be found in lipsticks are cadmium, chromium, aluminum, lead, nickel, titanium, copper are some of the potentially dangerous metals that could be found in lipstick. “We looked at nine heavy metals and found that all of them were present in most of the lipsticks, but not necessarily at really high levels, study author Katharine Hammond, a professor of environmental health sciences with the University of California Berkeley’s School of Public Health told The Huffington Post. “Low levels of metals may not create a risk, but as the exposure increases, the damage can increase.” Over the span of the female life, it’s pretty obvious that lipstick may be applied at least 100,000 times. And that is a potentially eye-opening number, applying all these potentially dangerous metals on their lips. The most terrifying part about lipstick is that it is applied on the lips and therefore has a high risk of ingestion. Ingesting these metals, could potentially lead to many different health risks. “”The metals that we were really most concerned about were cadmium, chromium, aluminum and manganese,” Hammond said, explaining that overexposure to each carries risks. Chronic, low level exposure to cadmium, for example, has been linked to serious kidney problems.

To learn more about the article above, follow the link:

A study done by the Environmental Health Perspective concluded that it varies with the frequency of use. Their experiment consisted of an in-depth analysis of lipstick, using a method called plasma optical emission spectrometry. The results of this study were shocking. Most of the products tested had metals in it, but concentration varied by brand. They concluded that the FDA should monitor the metals in lip care products, because the risks of health defects are evident, for the future if ingested.

The average rate at which female’s apply lipstick is twice a day, according to this article on Huffington post. And just in applying lipstick twice daily, women are at risk because they could be potentially increasing the amount of these deadly metals they consume daily. There is not believed to be a safe level of lead exposure, and studies have shown that women are actually ingesting lead, in some brands of lipstick. The FDA has since looked into this problem, and has concluded that the metals are at such concentration; it doesn’t matter if it’s consumed. But that could prove to be deadly. Just imagine the problems if an individual just ate a stick of lipstick. More studies must be done in which women who use lipstick on different frequency are tracked; that could help establish a correlation between lipstick use and health problems.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/toxic-lipstick-metals_n_3195547.html

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/121-a196/

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1205518/

Many people under estimate the importance of water in our lives. Many people drink water without knowing why we need water. Water is that flavorless, zero calorie beverage that we been drinking since we were born.

Water is the most important fluid in our body. Around 60% of the human body consists of water. Something even as small as a 2% drop in body water, could result in shrinking of the brain.

There are many benefits of drinking water. The more hydrated you are the better skin you have. Staying hydrated is a great way to deal with wrinkles. In our water supply, we have additional fluoride added to it, which is also a benefit. The fluoride will increase strength and bone density. The more water you drink, the more synovial fluid you have in your body. Synovial fluid consists of water, and the more water you have in your body, the more joint protection you have. Water is also essential for healthy brain function and helps improve cognitive function. Water suppresses appetite and makes the body use more fat for energy. For those tying to gain muscle water is key in their diet. Water helps form the structures of protein and glycogen. “Studies have shown that increasing daily water intake has shown to decrease the risk of colon cancer by 45%, reduce the risk of bladder cancer by 50%, and it may potentially reduce the risk of breast cancer. It is also believed that water may prevent kidney stones and urinary tract infections”. If water has the potential to reduce the chance of getting these horrific diseases the rational person should start drinking lots of water. But don’t drink too much water.

More about the information above could be read at this link:

It is assumed that the human body could handle drinking less than .79 gallons of water in a sitting. But after than, if one consumes more than .79 gallons of water in a sitting, he/she has chances of dying from water intoxication. A woman in California entered a contest to drink the most water for an undisclosed incentive. She drank so much water, that in hours she was found dead. And the cause of death was water intoxication. Well, now you may be wondering, how exactly does one die from consuming too much water? If one drinks water excessively it could cause their cells to expand to such extent that the tissues in the body appear to seem swollen. That causes an electrolyte imbalance in the body and leads to an abnormal pumping heart, and could allow water to fill the lungs. All the pressure in the body may cause tension among the organs, which could potentially lead to a painful death.

More about the information above could be read at this link under the subheading, Can I die from drinking too much water?

Water is very mysterious. The body can take up to 15 gallons of water per day, and has many benefits, which could help the body function efficiently. Although most our body consists of water, don’t let that trick you in to drinking water religiously. The amount of water you drink should be monitored. Too much water consumption in one sitting could lead to terrifying consequences such as death.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/behar12.htm

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/weik46.htm

Have you ever wondered what the difference between natural sugar and sweetener is? Today this topic is actually heated because both have advantages and disadvantages, but choosing the right one is the problem. Many people that like to watch calories, usually prefer to take sweetener because it will have a less calories than its counterpart with sugar. We’ve all heard many say, sugar is bad for you. But have we wondered how bad the sugar substitutes are?

Artificial sweeteners are a common substitute for natural sugar. Many use it in order to reduce their weight by increasing their daily caloric deficit. Many, to control blood sugar levels also use it. People with diabetes tend to have sweetener to use it as a substitute to sugar, because they believe taking natural sugars will drastically change their sugar levels.

There are eight different types of sweeteners; Aspartame, Sucralose, Saccharin, Stevia, Acesulfame K, Neotame, Monk fruit, and Cyclamates.

Aspartame is found in some of the common sweeteners such as Equal and Nutrasweet. Statiscally aspartame is 220 time sweeter than sugar.

Sucralose is found in Splenda, and is 600 time more sweeter than sugar. It’s also found in common items the average person purchases such as fruit juices and gum.

Saccharin is found in Sweet ‘N Low and Sweet twin sweeteners. It is known that Saccharin is somewhere between 200 to 700 times sweeter than regular sugar. This type of sugar substitute is found in many diet soft drinks.

Stevoa is a plant based sweetener and is made from the plant Stevia rebaudiana. But Stevia as a sweetener is not used much in the United States.

Acesulfame K is found in the Sunett and Sweet One, sweeteners. The most common use of Acesulfame in the United States is to sweeten low-calorie beverages.

Monk Fruit is a fruit that grows in central Asia, and the extract of this fruit is used as sweetener. Monk fruit is around 150 to 200 times sweeter than sugar.

Cyclamates is a sweetener that is 30 times sweeter than sugar. But Cyclamates have been banned from the United States because it was proven that it causes bladder cancer among animals.

The most common person knows that more sweet is never better, neither in taste nor for prosperous health. The human body cannot digest artificial sweeteners, so for years scientist have wondered, that if it can’t be digested how could it cause diabetes? Experiments were performed on humans and lab rats. Depending on the microbes in the mice and human bodies would show an increase of blood sugar for a short time after having artificial sweeteners. Over time, high blood sugar levels from the excessive consumption of artificial sweeteners could potentially lead to diabetes. “The magnitude of the differences were not just a few percentages. These were actually very dramatic differences we saw both in the mice and in the human settings, said Eran Segal, a study co-author who is a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute”. The study consisted of 400 people who were all given sweetener than tested upon; researchers found that those that consumed more sweeteners had a more difficult time monitoring their own blood sugar. Among the 400 participants, 7 of them didn’t consume much artificial sweetener in their daily lives. So during the study their blood sugar level spiked drastically. The mice that were given artificial sweetener also saw increases in their blood levels. And as I mentioned before having blood sugars high consistently over a period of time leads to diabetes.

More about the following study could be read at this link:

In another study done among mice concluded that aspartame causes tumors in the urinary tract. This study consisted of 108 rats, over the duration of 2 ½ years. 60 rats were placed in the experimental group, which consisted of 30 males and 30 females. The remaining 48, (24 males and 24) females were placed in the controlled group. The scientists then gave NutraSweet sweetener to the mice to ingest. The males were given Nutrasweet proportional to 13 cans of diet soda, and the females were proportional to 14 cans of diet soda. After the duration of 2 ½ years, 67% of the female rats in the experimental group developed tumors, and 21% of male developed tumors. Since this experiment was done on mice it is difficult to know how the outcome would turn out if humans participated in the study.

More about this study could be read at this link:

In conclusion, there is not a clear link between artificial sweeteners and diseases among humans.  More experiments must be performed in order for a correlation to be evident among the science community. The first study concluded that most participants had their blood sugar levels spike and that could potentially lead to diabetes in the long term, but in the short-term the evidence is not there. In the second experiment most of the mice regardless of gender developed tumors. But mice are different than humans, therefore humans may not have the same affects compared to mice.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007492.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/17/artificial-sweetener-diabetes/15777225/

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/15/this-artificial-sweetener-shown-to-produce-cancer-in-rats.aspx

Growing up, we’ve all have these great candy-like multivitamin. But as a kid the concept of eating a multivitamin is just great because it’s almost like candy. But now what is the incentive of taking multivitamins? Well, our bodies need some essential vitamins and minerals from our diet, but sometimes it’s very tough to get in all those vitamins and minerals everyday. And when you start missing an essential vitamin or mineral, the human body starts to develop a deficiency.

A multivitamin is a pill, which consists of several vitamins and minerals our bodies need to function healthily. When we start to slack on our diets, multivitamins come to the rescue. Although multivitamins are no replacement for a balanced diet, they do help us sustain a healthy lifestyle. “That said, it’s better to get these nutrients from sunlight (in the case of the hormone, vitamin D) and whole foods. “Our healthy diet goes so far beyond what a pill can offer — known and unknown,” says Zaretsky, pointing to the fiber and phytonutrients that foods contain and pills lack.” It’s always a better idea to get vitamin and minerals naturally, rather than just abusing the pill. “Just because [a multivitamin] doesn’t do everything for all things, doesn’t mean you can’t consider all of its effects, said Dr. Michael Gaziano, chief of the Division of Aging at Brigham and Women’s Hospital”. Whenever general multivitamin studies are done the sharpshooter problem is always evident. So many factors are put in perspective that it is evident, that the multivitamin will not help reduce the risk of every disease, such as heart disease. “Study found daily multivitamin use for an average of 11 years had a modest effect on preventing cancer in men over age 50. Older men who took a multivitamin long-term had an 8 percent lower risk of cancer compared to those who took a placebo”. Looking at this statistic, it is evident that a multivitamin does have a positive impact on the human body. A multivitamin may not help improve the chances of reducing all diseases, but then again it is a supplement. The fact that it helps a few diseases makes an impact and should change the perspective of many.

Nowadays the problem is many have come under the influence, that multivitamins don’t actually work. And the supplement companies are just selling placebo pills. A study done by Chinese researchers go on to prove the importance of a multivitamin’s function in an active body. Chinese researchers took samples of male military personnel after a rigorous military training event. After this training event most men showed signs of overtraining, including increased thyroid function, decreased adrenal, testosterone, and immunological functioning, Then the personnel were put into two groups, one group received a basic multivitamin and the other group received a placebo. After a span of a week, with the aid of a good diet, those receiving a multivitamin saw improvement on in immunological function as well as conserved mental constraints such as fatigue, anger, and general mood.

More about this study could be read at this link:

To conclude, it is evident that multivitamins do have a positive impact on active individuals. When our bodies fail to get all the vitamins and minerals, a multivitamin will fill that gap. Many people still argue that multivitamins don’t work, but no one has ever overdosed on vitamins, so the rational person would chose to take vitamins. Multivitamins may not help in every aspect to help overall health, but the few aspects it helps in, should make the rational person to start taking multivitamins regularly.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/should-you-take-a-multivitamin_n_1725380.html

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/research-you-can-use-3-cutting-edge-studies.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/mixed-results-multivitamin-benefits/story?id=17645048

Whey Protein as a Supplement:

When people take the first step in changing their lifestyle, they decide to get a gym membership. The only thing going though their minds, when they start hitting the gym more religiously is, “how can I develop gains more efficiently?” Well, to help achieve gains many people turn to whey protein, to help establish intensive muscle growth.

Well many wonder, “What exactly is whey protein & what does it do?”

Whey protein, is a complex protein found in milk. The most common milk comes from cows; and whey protein is found in cow’s milk in very small amounts (usually around 1%). And is a very fast absorbing protein, better than most other protein sources such as fish, eggs, chicken, etc. When your body first absorbs whey, it aids your muscle cells grow, replace, and repair them for a better recovery.

Well, that makes you think, is whey the only option or are there other sources of protein that help me accomplish the same thing? There are other source of protein you could take, such as plant protein, but whey is the most effective. Whey is the fastest form of protein that our body absorbs. “According to registered dietitian Jeffrey Volek, Ph.D., a high-quality whey protein supplement will begin to appear in your bloodstream about 15 minutes after you drink it. Jim Stoppani, Ph.D., states that whey delivers most of its amino acids to your muscles within 30 minutes. According to Kollias, it takes approximately 90 minutes after drinking a whey shake for amino acid levels in your bloodstream to peak, although they will begin to rise before an hour has passed” This is key, because amino acids are the building blocks of protein, they help the body efficiently pursue protein synthesis.

Our bodies need 21 amino acids to function effectively, and a healthy body makes 12 amino acids naturally. And the remaining 9 must be consumed through the foods we ingest. When protein is an effective source to consume the other 9 amino acids that the human body needs to function efficiently.

Although there are many advantages of taking whey, it’s not for everybody. Ingesting too much whey has a chance of increasing the risk for calcium loss and osteoporosis. And since whey is derived from milk, people with dairy allergies should refrain from using whey and look at plant protein powder. And another problem that since whey is a supplement, it’s not approved by the FDA, and therefore should be used at own risk.

A study done by McMaster University, researched whether post-exercise protein synthesis differs by the amount of protein taken. The participants in this study consisted of 8 young men, and they were put into two groups. One group was given a whey protein shake, which consisted of around 25 grams of protein. The other group was given a smaller doses of protein around 2.5 grams, so it simulates the ingestion of milk. The participants did 8 sets of 8- 10 repetitions on a leg extension machine. The study concluded that when a large amount of protein (whey protein shake) is consumed after a workout the rate of protein synthesis is increased, rather then drinking smaller doses of protein in intervals, such as milk.

More about this study, and another study conducted by the U.S could be read at this link:

Another study conducted on the U.S Marines also came to a conclusion that whey protein helps build lean muscle and sustain a healthy lifestyle. The study consisted of 387 U.S. Marines put on whey protein during basic training and the rest of the Marines were given a placbo. When basic training was completed, the Marines were examined and the protein-supplemented group had stronger immune systems, “with 33 percent fewer medical visits than the Marines given a placebo, or a carbohydrate and fat supplement. Marines taking the protein supplements also experienced less muscle soreness and had 28 percent fewer medical visits for muscle and joint problems”. This study was published in 2003 in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

More about this study, and other similar studies could be read at this link under the subheading “Do Whey Protein Supplements Work?”

In conclusion, it is evident that taking whey protein is an essential in order to effectively gain muscle. Although isn’t the only method it is the most effective. Whey protein helps gain lean muscle and help sustain a very healthy lifestyle by strengthening our immune systems. Whey protein is the most fastest absorbing protein, and will help increase muscle mass. But whey is a supplement, and therefore exercise and a healthy diet is needed in order for whey protein to help gain lean muscle. But whey is not for everybody, and also is not approved by the FDA, and therefore should be used at own risk.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/286181-how-fast-does-whey-protein-powder-work/

http://www.isagenixhealth.net/whey-in-large-doses-after-exercise-brings-bigger-gains-in-muscle-and-strength/

http://www.livescience.com/45120-whey-protein-supplements.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110818132225.htm

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/willbrink3.htm

Creatine Monohydrate As A Supplement:

What exactly is creatine?

Creatine is a naturally occurring amino acid, which is not only found in our bodies, but also all the red meats which many choose to consume.  In the body creatine turns into creatine phosphate, which helps produce ATP (energy). Which is then used in muscle contractions. 

The average individual takes creatine for 3 reasons:

• Strength jolt
• Boost testosterone levels
• Muscle growth

More about these three reasons could be read about at this link:

Why creatine though? Once your body has burned through all the ATP (energy) in your body, creatine gives that extra push to do one more repetition. Although creatine is naturally occurring in our body, and ingested in meats like beef, taking a creatine supplement could help increase muscle mass quickly.

But I wonder does creatine actually work?

“Belgian researchers reported in a 1997 issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology that untrained individuals taking creatine following a 10-week weight-training program increased their one-rep max on the squat by 25% compared to those that were on the placebo.”

“A 1998 study by University of Nebraska (Omaha) researchers found that trained collegiate football players taking creatine while following an 8-week weight-training program gained a 6% increase in their one-rep bench press strength, while those taking a placebo experienced no strength gains at all.”

More about creatine and these studies could be read at this link: under the creatine boosts muscle strength subheading

Looking at the results of these experiments, it is evident that taking creatine is giving individuals a noticible strength jolt because they are lifting more than they did originally. Although chance may be a factor in these experiments, third variables are not evident because in the study done by the Belgian researchers, the individuals that partook in the experiment were untrained individuals. Which means their nutrition, supplementation were not controlled. But it’s the contrary for the study done by the University of Nebraska. The football players all had controlled nutrition and supplements.

Many that have taken creatine, and did not get results argue that it does not work. But it should be understood that creatine is a supplement and therefore a good diet and high intensity workout are a must in order to see any type of gains.

Well what exactly does creatine do in your body?

Creatine increase the size of muscle fibers disregarding muscle growth due to protein synthesis, although creatine does aid protein synthesis. Creatine also increases the amount of water and blood going to your muscles. Therefore, your body’s muscle cells will expand, making you look more muscular. But many call the expansion of muscles due to creatine “fake muscles”. But that is where they are incorrect. Yes, I understand that creatine makes you look like you have larger muscles then you actually do. But than again, due to your muscles taking in more water and blood as a result of creatine, it helps you do more repetitions. Which then results in an increase of muscle cell diameter, which leads to an increase of muscle mass. And also that is why creatine must be used in a cycle, eight weeks on, four weeks off. During the four weeks off, you will loose all the extra water weight you have been carrying around, due to creatine use. But creatine should be limited to eight grams a day during the eight-week cycle. Excessive use of creatine may lead to kidney malfunction.

In conclusion, it is evident that creatine does help promote the healthy growth of lean muscle. Although creatine is not the answer to gaining muscle, because diet and exercise must be monitored in order to make any sort of physical gains. Creatine is a supplement that would be recommended if your trying to gain some lean muscle mass, if you ready to put in work and control the third variables such as nutrition, workout plan.

*Do not use if you have pre-existing kidney problems

More about creatine monohydrate could be learned about on this link:

http://examine.com/supplements/Creatine/#summary8-5

http://www.jimstoppani.com/home/articles/creatine-primer?preview

http://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/supplements/6-reasons-you-should-be-taking-creatine

Have you ever wondered what you are actually eating? It something to think about, before I buy anything from the grocery store I always look at the ingredients, so I know of all the cool things i’m eating. Most of the food we eat is FAKE FOOD.

Most of the items the average household has in their freezer consists of fake food. I define fake food as anything that has not been grown naturally,has preservatives in it, and is made mechanically. Most frozen foods have so many preservatives, and such quantity it is literally destroying your body. Even if you think your going healthy and pick up some frozen vegetables, chances are it will consists of many preservatives and also be grown using genetically mutated seeds.

Another horrifying item that many families buy on the daily is baby formula. “94 percent of all soy is GM. Meanwhile, 88 percent of the corn fed to cows contains GMOs, meaning that such organisms are part of the food chain that ends with milk being produced and fed to infants” (Avoid). Wait now lets analyze this, baby food only consists of soy and milk, so babies are being fed poison, when they are no longer dependent on breast milk.

Lastly, America’s third most bought item, soda. It mostly consists of high fructose corn syrup which is 99% of the time genetically modified variants of sugar. So it’s usually guaranteed that soda will consists of HFCS. And the HFCS is made from corn; almost most the corn we eat is genetically mutated.

Research done by the Institute for Responsible Technology, proves that when animals are fed different GM vegetables they will die very quickly and have many risky health conditions. You could read more about this at: http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers/65-health-risks/1notes. If all these defects are occurring when animals ingest GMO’s, just think about the what a toll it could be currently taking on humans.

Although not much is known about GMO’s yet it is a risk a rational individual is not willing to take. Not much testing between the correlations of human health conditions and GMO’s have been done. The only evident assumption I can make is due to GMO’s allergy’s are no very common in the United States.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/11/21/foods-give-up-avoid-eating-gmo/#!fullscreen&slide=1585612

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers/65-health-risks/1notes

Are you drinking coffee to get you day started? Turn to coffee to get “waken up” may not be the best option for the long term. The risk of ingesting caffeine out weights  the benefits of it. When the average person is asked: What does caffeine do to the average human? They would reply it gets their day started. Although that is true, the question is what bad can it do?

Well there are many ways an individual could get access to caffeine. I take caffeine in pills, and I usually take double the recommended amount to get that extra alertness. But many chose to get there dosage from either energy drinks or coffee.”More than 4 cups of coffee linked to early death” (Harmful). The Mayo clinic conducted an observational study among men who drank at least 240ml of coffee a day had a 21% increase in a early death. But this study might not be very precise because the study conducted was only done with men so there is a definite gender bias. And the study was conducted with volunteers which make the study have a response bias because not everyone in the specific demographic of this study that could have participated, had taken part. Those that volunteered, did so by choice. There are also third variables involved in this study because the study also goes on the explain that those that took caffeine excessively were avid smokers and did not partake in much fitness.

To conclude, although research has shown that caffeine is bad for the human body and could lead to an early death, due to the different type of biases incorporated with the study done by The Mayo Clinic it is hard to determine if the effects would be different when the female gender is used, different races, and even economical & geographical demographics.

http://www.caffeineinformer.com/harmful-effects-of-caffeine

Why are breast cancer rates on the rise?

Back in the day, cancer didn’t have such a great impact because not many people actually got cancer. Well many people don’t exactly know what breast cancer is. Well, breast cancer originates in the breasts from abnormal cells and has the potential to spread anywhere in the body.

One of the biggest factors is a very common one: Stress. Nowadays everybody is complaining about the amount of stress they have. “The demands of our lives with increased stress, little time to relax and not enough sleep leads to increased levels of stress hormones which lower our immune response and raise our blood sugar”(Cancer). High blood sugar not only raises the risk of breast cancer, but any cancer in general. But there is not a strong correlation between stress and cancer; there are third variables involved such as a smoking and eating. Smoking cannot only increase chances of lung cancer but also for breast cancer.

In a observational study done by the American Cancer Society, they came to the conclusion of “The rate of new cases was 24% higher in smokers than in nonsmokers and 13% higher in former smokers than in nonsmokers”(Study). And those women that started to smoke before the birth of her first child is more prone to be exposed to breast cancer in her near future. For those who are overweight, they also have a higher chance of getting breast cancer because they have more estrogen in their bodies, whether male or female, which has also been concluded by ACS. And that leads to the accelerated growth of estrogen-responsive breast tumors. Another factor is breastfeeding. Those female that chose not to breastfeed their children or those who have no children at all are putting themselves at a higher risk of getting breast cancer. Although most studies have been inconsistent about the relationship between breast cancer and breastfeeding, what would the rational person do? I don’t know, you tell me?

So remember, take home points of the day

• Keep stress to a minimum
• Don’t smoke
• And breastfeed (females only)

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk

http://www.integrativecanceranswers.com/why-are-so-many-women-getting-breast-cancer-10-surprising-little-known-reasons/#.VC-IxSmwLX5

How does one die naturally?

Have you ever wondered why one cannot be immortal? How cool could it be to live forever, but have you ever thought how exactly the cycle of life works? Deaths nowadays occur usually from mortifying diseases such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. But how exactly does one die naturally

Well your killing yourself right now by breathing, yeah well don’t stop breathing just yet. “Oxygen can break down the very cells that make up our tissues and organs, our bones and blood. It can damage DNA and critical enzymes.”(Oxygen). Oxygen is doing the opposite of what, the natural function of our body is supposed to do. Our body is supposed to reproduce cells that help repair our tissues, maintain the immune system, and sustain the healthy function of our vital organs.

Excessive breathing can slow down how our body takes in vital nutrients, and the receptions of critical hormones such as testosterone, and insulin. Both are very vital for the basic function of the human body. Testosterone is need to develop male reproductive tissues and promotes masculine characteristics. The function of insulin in the body is to control blood glucose levels. The amount of insulin the body produces naturally maintains the healthy function of the liver, and fat and muscle cells. Oxygen also produces radicals that damage the basics of human life and substances that are essential to the human body such as DNA, proteins and lipids.

Well now you might be wondering what the process it like? The process is called oxidation. Oxygen is the reason we age and the reason we die. It’s the slowest acting poison that all humans are exposed to.

Oxygen is Killing Us

Beware the Dangers of Oxygen

Do Stars Twinkle?

Sometimes when I look in to the sky, I see many objects twinkling, some are planes and some are stars and planets. Stars are something that amuses me because some night the amount of stars in the sky just makes the night seem sort of bright.

Growing up we have all become aware of the controversial song: “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. That made me wonder, what are stars and do they actually twinkle.

Stars consist of many basic elements that are found on the periodic table: helium and hydrogen. In fact a lot of helium and hydrogen because the more mass the star has, the more gravitational force it has. The core of each star performs nuclear fusion, which is when two or more atoms collide to create a larger atom. And during the end of the star’s life, it collapses by its own gravitational force, when the star runs out fuel.

“Stars twinkle, I mean scintillate, because as light passes down through a volume of air, turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere refracts light differently from moment to moment” (Stars). Anything outside our atmosphere will seems to twinkle, when we look at it from our planet, but if you were to look at a star from outside our planet, let say from outer space the stars will actually not twinkle at all. The only reason we see stars “twinkling” is because of the distortion of light, when light travels through the star. When light hits the star, due to the layers of which the star consists of, the direction of the light is bent, and it seems as of the star has moved location, which to the human eye appears as twinkling.

Since the Earth’s atmosphere is turbulent, all images viewed up through it tend to “swim.”…  When a star’s single point in object space fails to map to at least one point in image space, the star seems to disappear temporarily.  This does not mean the star’s light is lost for that moment.  It just means that it didn’t get to your eye, it went somewhere else” (Twinkle). Scientists use the word astronomical scintillation when they refer to the so-called twinkling we see. The farther the star is from Earth’s atmosphere, the more they twinkle. That is exactly why planets don’t twinkle. They are close to the Earth’s atmosphere and are very large in mass; very seldom can we see a planet twinkle.

So have we been living in a misconception our whole lives due to the song “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, well it depends on how we see it. We may be able to agree with this controversial song, that stars do indeed twinkle. But the extraterrestrial life living in outer space may as well disagree and claim this song is bogus.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/twinkle.html

Why Do Stars Twinkle?

I took this course because I needed to get a science credit to graduate. While I was looking at the different science courses SC 200 caught my attention. This class was not like any other science class such as chemistry or biology. The content in this class is more like using science to explain question we ask ourselves everyday. My advisor during NSO also recommended this class because I was not a science student and many other students gave great reviews of this course.

I’m not a science student because I’m not very interested in all the time it takes in order to be a science student. I’m interested in finance at the moment so I can complete my four-year degree at Penn State, so that I can attend law school in the future.

–Dutt Patel