Last year, a man checked into the Navy Substance Abuse and Recovery Program for alcoholism treatment, but that’s not all he got. The Navy serviceman had been using his newly purchased “Google Glass” in the two months leading up to his admission–for an average of 18 hours a day. He took it off only to sleep and reported feeling irritable when he wasn’t wearing the device, and even described having dreams as if he was viewing them through the window of the glasses. He was treated for withdrawal symptoms and for IAD (internet addiction disorder), a highly contested condition among scientists over whether or not it exists. Unlike alcohol or drug addiction, there is no chemical component or intake–but can an “addiction” to the internet be as strong?

The question lies in whether or not one can truly be addicted to the Internet, or if constant internet use is a symptom of another underlying disorder, such as depression, anxiety, or impulse control disorders. It can be compared to food addiction/compulsive overeating stemming from depression–you are not really addicted to food, but you eat to help control symptoms of depressive disorders. IAD is not yet classified as it’s own disorder by authorities such as the American Psychological Association or the American Medical Association, but as our daily lives are coming to rely more and more on connectivity, more and more research is being done. A 2012 study (that brought attention to many major new outlets) scanned the brains of people “diagnosed” with IAD (based on the answers given to questions such as “do you feel the need to use the Internet with increasing amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction?”), and found reductions in the volume of white matter, or the areas of the brain where connections are made. These brain alterations actually mirror the brains of people who are addicted to drugs like heroin. However, the results of this study are preliminary and should be used only as inspiration for further research. The sample size was extremely small (17 adolescents) and the “diagnosis” of having internet addiction was based on self-reported surveys (not to mention that as this disorder is not yet classified, there are no universal medical standards for making such diagnoses).

It wasn’t until 1956 the American Medical Association recognized alcoholism as an illness, and as we know from class, it took decades for the negative effects of cigarettes to come to light. While staying on the internet all day won’t give you lung cancer or liver cirrhosis, it may be prudent of parents to limit their children’s internet time in order to develop healthy habits of restraint.

It’s estimated that 1 out of 68 children will develop a disorder on the autism spectrum–disorders of which we are not certain of the cause, have no cure for, and are occurring more and more frequently (in 2012 that statistic was 1 out of 88). Autism is a disability that has begun to touch more and more people in my life, so I decided to investigate what research was being done on the causes. Theories as to the cause of autism range from genetic to environmental to a combination of the two, but recent studies are reporting a correlation between air pollution to the development of autism during childhood. A study done by researcher Amy Kalkbrenner examined addresses of pregnant women who would later go on to have children with autism and compared them to records of air pollution in their area at specific weeks of their pregnancy. She observed that women in their third trimester of pregnancy were more likely to go on and have children with autism if they were living in areas with high levels of pollution as opposed to their fresh air counterparts. The study provides a piece of evidence to the hypothesis, but the actual pollution particulates/chemicals in the women were not specifically measured or identified (which would make an interesting study given a large sample size and long period of time), so to say “air pollution in general causes autism” is both premature and inadequate answer to the question of what causes autism.

While the study is observational and only one correlation (and certainly not causation) to the idea that air pollution causes autism, another (experimental) inquiry was done to attempt to answer the same question. Researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center exposed mice to levels of air pollution typical to mid-sized US cities at rush hour two weeks after birth (for four hours each day for two four-day periods). Examining the brains 24 hours after the last exposure, they found that excessive inflammation caused damage to the brain cells and prevented the lateral ventricles from developing properly. They also investigated the effects 40 days and 270 days after, and found that the stunted development was in fact permanent, and the mice in all three groups had elevated levels of glutamate (an observation seen in humans with autism). While this study doesn’t prove that pollution causes autism any more than the latter does, it does provide some empirical insight into the effects pollution has on the developing brain. It’s enough to have a future pregnant me slightly concerned–but more conclusive studies would need to be done for me to camp out in the countryside for nine months.

How many times has the following situation happened to you:

You’re talking to a friend and suddenly wonder what time it is. You casually glance down at your watch and then look away, only to find seconds later that while you did look at your watch, you still have no idea what the time is.

What about this one:

You’re in the HUB to meet up with friends for lunch. Scouring the seats, you still are unable to find them among the sea of students, even though they’ve let you know they are there. You keep looking around and it finally takes one of them to come up to you: “We were waving and you were looking right at us! Why didn’t you come over”?

Both of these situations happened to me today, as they have countless times before. I always thought I had a pretty good memory–did I see the time or my friends and just automatically forgot? Or did I truly not register what the time was or where my friends were, even though the answer was literally right in front of my face?

I’ll let you know right off the bat: I do have a good memory. Those situations are examples of a phenomenon called “inattentional blindness”, or a complete failure to register what was directly in front of you. For decades it wasn’t certain if people weren’t actually processing the information or if they were experiencing “inattentional amnesia” (or quickly forgetting), until a 1999 study was conducted that involved the use of functional imaging of brain waves with MRIs. They found that, “when attention is fully engaged with other material, the brain no longer differentiates between meaningful words and random letters, even when they are looked at directly”. To make it clear, the researchers are not insinuating that the subjects physically could not see the letters in front them; rather, they were blind to the attributes that allows us to distinguish between random letters and actual words.

So what about the friends example–people and large moving objects are quite different than written characters. Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris are psychologists who study this phenomenon through (very entertaining) experiments. Many of you have seen a video of one of their studies on inattentional blindness (and if you haven’t, watch it now):

When your attention is distracted by another task, we fail to perceive even large objects/changes in our surroundings (like gorillas, background color changes, or the sudden absence of objects). Another really entertaining test from Simons involves giving directions to strangers (I’ll let you watch it):

The man in the video has no idea that the person who started giving him directions is not the one who finishes them because he is already preoccupied with another task: trying to follow directions.

No matter how well of multitaskers we (notably those of my generation) assume we are, we cannot always trust our brains to capture every aspect of a situation or problem, especially when we are preoccupied with other tasks. A practical and high-stakes example of such a situation? Having a phone conversation while driving. The risks of texting while driving are obvious, as you are physically taking your eyes off the road and looking at your phone–but as a result of inattentional blindness, talking on a hands-free device can prove just as dangerous. Indeed, a report by the National Safety Council found that “estimates indicate drivers using cell phones look at but fail to see up to 50 percent of the information in their driving environment” due to this phenomenon.

So therein lies the mantra of SC200: “Your intuition is lousy”.

After Dean Larson’s lecture on our universe, it got me thinking about life outside of our planet. If we truly are the only life in the universe, it’s crazy to think just how serendipitous our existence is, and how many events and changes had to take place to get organisms on this planet as complicated as they are. But just how serendipitous was it? If the world were to begin again, would life as we know it evolve in the same way?

In biology class, we learned all about evolution and natural selection: organisms with advantageous traits outlive and outproduce those without those traits, allowing the dominant characteristics to be passed on to offspring and gradually build a more efficient organism.  Those advantageous traits often come about as a result of random genetic mutations, so it seems like the answer to the question of how life on earth would evolve a second time would be that it would drastically different–after all, those genes that randomly mutated couldn’t possibly mutate in the exact same way every time over billions of years. However, thanks to an unprecedented study by Harvard physicist-turned-biologist Michael Desai, the idea that life would evolve in the same manner again may not be as radical as previously thought. His lab has been growing hundreds of strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a common form of yeast, in identical environments. Every 12 hours, specially designed robot arms move the strains of yeast to new environments, keeping only the strains that have grown to most efficiently over the previous time increment. They repeat this process over 500 generations, and compare the colonies’ final fitness. They also sequence the genomes of the colonies throughout the process, in order to see whether or not small genetic mutations affect the overall fitness outcome of the final generations. The results show that no matter the exact genetic pathway the generations take, they all reach the same end result. The importance in Desai’s study is the scale. Similar experiments have been done (and with differing results), but those scientists were only able to examine a few strains of yeast from a single originating source. His background in physics and statistics allowed him to systematically develop a method to put his experiments on such a large scale by tracking 640 lines of yeast that all came from the same parental yeast cell.

Is this applicable to more complex organisms like humans? That remains to be seen. But the data Desai and his lab have collected are compelling enough to warrant more research on the matter, because it also indicates that evolution at the genetic level and level of the entire organism overall may not be as connected as scientists have thought. The idea that “fitness evolution follows a predictable trajectory even though sequence-level adaptation is stochastic” is especially important as geneticists are looking into specific gene mutations as they relate to human susceptibility to diseases–it may be equally as important to examine how greater numbers of individual mutations affect each other and the organism overall.

Maybe life isn’t just happenstance. We can’t know for sure whether or not if the earth started over we’d have the same organisms that we see today, but Desai’s findings really make you wonder…

We’ve all been there. Wide awake, ready to go– and then you see someone yawn. The espresso in your hands and 10 hours of sleep in your system is irrelevant: you yawn back. While you may not be tired, yawning seems to be contagious. Scientists aren’t exactly sure why this phenomenon occurs, but there are quite a few theories out there, ranging from psychological to physiological. But the argument that seems most prevalent is that yawning in response to seeing another yawn is actually a form of empathy.

To explain why yawning is contagious, it is crucial to understand certain physiological entities called mirror neurons. These mirror neurons are neurons which send a signal both when an animal performs a specific action and when the animal observes the same action being performed by another animal. A 2012 study measured brain activity (using MRI) as the subject was shown videos of people yawning, and they found that as the subject viewed the tapes, certain regions of their mirror neuron systems (MNS) showed increased activity (and in turn, resulted in yawns by the subjects). These mirror neurons are thought be responsible for allowing us to empathize with others, and thus making us reciprocate certain actions of others. Another study was conducted in which dogs were shown videos of humans yawning or making indistinct mouth movements. They found that the dogs would return with a yawn after seeing humans yawn, but not when they viewed the random mouth movements. This may explain the relationship between dogs and humans–if dogs can indeed empathize with humans, it explains why they are considered to be “man’s best friend”. So do all humans yawn contagiously? No–interestingly, studies have concluded that children who fall on the autism spectrum do not exhibit contagious yawning. Children with autism, who often have difficulty expressing empathy, so the recognition that they do not experience contagious yawning is further evidence to support that yawning is linked to our ability to empathize.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFdiU86s_88

Nearly everyone has heard of the Ebola epidemic that has been raging in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea for the better part of a year. Maybe not ten months ago when it first came to attention, but almost certainly as of last week, when a man was diagnosed in a Dallas hospital with the disease after recent travel to the region. I stumbled across the video above, and it really made me want to write a companion to my blog on mass panic and epidemic hysteria, putting the concept into the context of Ebola.

Ebola is not a disease like the flu. It is contagious only after the patient begins to run a fever and show symptoms, and can only be spread through contact with blood or bodily fluids, unlike the flu which is primarily transmitted by droplets in sneezes or coughs and can be contagious before the symptoms set in. It’s not to say that Ebola isn’t a dangerous disease–it is. There still isn’t a vaccine or cure, and it hasn’t yet been contained. That being said, the differences in public health infrastructure and culture between the endemic countries and the US could not be more different. Sierra Leone and Liberia have experienced major domestic warfare in recent years, and there is little government outside of the capital cities. Family members are most often the ones taking care of their ebola-stricken loved ones: combining that close proximity and lack of education about how ebola spreads (many believe that the disease is a curse from God) creates a high risk environment. Burial practices are also contributing to the spread of the disease–in many cultures, physical contact such as touching, washing, and kissing the deceased is common, and if the person has died from ebola, their body still carries the virus and is contagious.

So why is our media so focused on ebola? Why in the video does Elisabeth Hasselbeck insist there should be concern and panic over this disease, while the epidemiologist calmly explains there really isn’t anything to worry about?

I believe that, similar to the Monty Hall dilemma*, people don’t want to be wrong. Though the probability of mass secondary cases of ebola developing in the US are slim, the consequences of someone getting ebola are still so severe (since I’ve started writing this, the Dallas patient has died) people are willing to take unnecessary precautions. As improbable as it might be, people still are in the mindset of “just maybe“, or “this could be the exception“, and public health officials in Dallas are warning that the anxiety of this potentially-present disease will likely cause more damage than ebola ever will. Epidemiologist Larry Brilliant puts it, “they failed to diagnose Ebola, they diagnosed zero out of one. Over the next four weeks we will diagnose 1,000 out of zero. We’ll diagnose everybody with Ebola”. A pileup of hysterical cases in Dallas ERs could be disastrous, taking doctors away from patients who truly need their care (or in an unlikely scenario, exposing more people to ebola should another isolated case come into the hospital).

The United States must immediately institute strong travel restrictions or Ebola will be all over the United States-a plague like no other!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2014

Overall, the media seems to be inciting more panic than actually educating people on the fundamentals of ebola and how it spreads. The focus isn’t on how drastically different west Africa is from Dallas, Texas, but rather how we could be looking at “a plague like no other!”, as Donald Trump likes to put it. While vigilance, especially at international hubs like airports is important, Americans need to learn more about and understand the disease that has the media buzzing.

*In which people, despite a decreased statistical probability of winning, will still tend to stick with their first guess to avoid the sinking feeling of getting it wrong after switching and having been right the first time.

Orson Wells’ famous “War of the Worlds” broadcast is one of the most well known examples of mass panic in America
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/war-worlds-75th-anniversary-gallery-1.1500528?pmSlide=1.1500517

1998. In a school in McMinnville, TN, a teacher reported smelling gasoline and began to develop nausea, dizziness, and a headache. The school was evacuated, but students and staff began to complain of similar symptoms. They were loaded into ambulances, but once they arrived to the hospital most symptoms had disappeared (though 37 were admitted to the hospital, with doctors ultimately not finding any physical cause of their symptoms). After the school had been inspected and cleared by the local fire departments and OSHA, it reopened about a week after the incident. That day, 71 more people were sent to the hospital, complaining of the same symptoms (to which doctors still did not find an organic cause).

Some statistics from the reports done afterward:

186 students and staff were reported sick. Of those 186…

-25% reported a fever (only one actually had one, 100 degrees)

-65% reported a strange odor, described by over 30 words such as “burning”, “sweet”, and “sewer gas”

-69% were female, 31% were male

The feelings that these people experienced–dizziness, nausea, headaches–were likely real (that is, they weren’t lying to just get attention), but there was no mysterious gas. This is a classic example of of mass epidemic hysteria, and similar cases have been reported throughout history and the world. Are these just anecdotes? Possibly. But the related concept of “crowd” or “herd” mentality have been extensively studied by psychologists (and has a particular importance in the field of behavioral economics). Jens Krause of the University of Leeds conducted a series of experiments in which groups of people were asked to walk down a hall, with some people in the group secretly given more detailed information about where to walk. They were not allowed to communicate. He found that in all cases, the more informed participants were followed by the others. Says Krause, “We’ve all been in situations where we get swept along by the crowd, but what’s interesting about this research is that our participants ended up making a consensus decision despite the fact that they weren’t allowed to talk or gesture to one another. In most cases the participants didn’t realize they were being led by others.”

Few studies have looked at the possible precipitating factors behind mass contagion panic, but Leslie P. Boss in a review of Epidemic Hysteria speculates that causes could be “boredom, poor communication, production pressures, and physical stressors”. There is still more research to be done.

Cases of mass hysteria are not especially common, but due to increased technology and thus greater connectivity to what’s going on in the world, it could prove to be an issue.In the wake ofdomestic terrorist attacks, people are more likely to react with physical symptoms in response to finding white powder in envelopes or smelling a mysterious odor on public transportation. . Often, people are torn between following their gut instincts and the possibility that they’ve been exposed to ___ –but current events on their minds can help the remote possibility win out. Even if you’ve never experienced this phenomenon, think about it on a smaller scale: you’ve probably heard that WebMD is notorious for causing self-diagnosis and false panic in people who attempt to find out what’s wrong with them. When an idea is planted, it’s often hard to unroot, especially when it comes to your personal safety.

October 31st may still be a month and a half away, the weather outside and copious amounts of candy on display at Target certainly makes it feel like Halloween is almost upon us. And that means the return of one of my favorite TV shows, The Walking Dead. The adventures of Rick and friends across post-zombie-apocalyptic Georgia provides viewers with a horror-thriller that, while may get a scream or two out of us, ultimately can be rationalized as fictional and impossible, and thus not very scary. But zombie-like situations are not fictional in nature.

While Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani doesn’t affect humans and turn them zombies, biters, or walkers, this zombie fungus does exist and affects ants in rainforests. It infects the ant, causing it to stumble around and convulse. Penn State entomologist David Hughes and colleagues wrote in a 2011 BMC Ecology paper that “While the manipulated individual may look like an ant, it represents a fungal genome expressing fungal behavior through the body of an ant”. Ultimately, it will cause the ant to bite down onto the main underside vein of a leaf (not normal ant behavior) and triggers atrophy in the pincers of the ant, resulting in a literal “death grip” where it will be unable to let go and die a few hours later. Within a few days, fungal stalks will grow out of the ant’s head, and mature until spores can be released and rained down on more unsuspecting ants on the rainforest floor. Most commonly found in Brazil and Thailand, the fungus is not unique, however, and has been reported around the world. Implications of this zombie-fungus are mostly isolated to agricultural concerns, so don’t worry that the moldy cheese in your fridge will take over your mind (though you may still want to throw it out).

http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/zombie-ants/

Alzheimer’s, as many of us know all too well, is a horribly debilitating disease that gradually consumes the sufferer to the point where they are unrecognizable. It becomes exceedingly hard to care for an Alzheimer’s patient as their disease progresses due to the of the amount of supervision needed to keep them out of harm’s way, as they often don’t remember where, when, or who they are. My grandfather, for as long as I knew him, suffered from Alzheimer’s, and towards the end it was too much for my grandmother to handle by herself, so my family decided that a nursing home would be the safest option for him. Most have been to a nursing home at some point, whether it be to visit a loved one or to volunteer, so most of us remember seeing the communal TVs playing Wheel of Fortune re-runs, the cafeteria serving soft foods and wheelchair-accessible everything. For the most part they’re nice, but there’s a certain undefinable depressing-aspect to them.

          Hogewey  in the Netherlands hopes to change the monotonous, institutionalized reputation that is associated with nursing homes here in the United States. Also known as “Dementia Village”, everyone in the revolutionary care center has a form of dementia; but unlike ordinary nursing homes, Hogewey boasts a grocery store, theater, parks, hair salons, and a restaurant, staffed entirely by trained caregivers. Residents live in dormitory-style rooms and are free to wander the village as they please, going about their lives in a way that is both safe and familiar to them. The community aims to keep patients active , whether it be through different social clubs to everyday errand-running and chore-completing in an independent way (though the residents are always watched and will always be given assistance when they require it). In addition, the staff tries to make the resident’s home environment familiar and homey through an approach  that brings the person back to their formative years (50’s through 80’s decor is prevalent) with variety of themed-decor rooms such as “religious” with many crosses or “art” with different paintings.

Dementia village hasn’t been without controversy, however. Some critics say that it’s immoral to deceive the residents into thinking that their nurses and caregivers are their neighbors, grocery store cashiers and hair dressers. Personally, I would much rather put my parents in a community like Hogewey than in a traditional nursing home because it would allow them to go about their lives in the most normal and independent way possible, given the circumstances. What do you think–is it unethical to not be 100% honest to people suffering from dementia if it is to their benefit?

Isabel van Zuthem

Lake Geneva, Switzerland http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1375267/Switzerland-holidays-Lake-Geneva-watery-wonder-attracts-stars.html

Estimated 563 AD Tsunami Progression http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1072732/rockfall-ad563-sent-13-metre-tsunami-across-lake-geneva

When you hear “tsunami”, you probably think back to the 2004 Sri Lankan disaster, or more recently, the Japanese earthquake and subsequent catastrophic waves. Coastal cities near areas of intense seismic activity have been the poster-children for tsunami disasters–which is why I was surprised when I saw this article discussing how Swiss officials are now preparing for a tsunami-related disaster. Switzerland, best known for its watches, alpine scenery, and neutrality is a completely landlocked country, which poses the question of why officials in Lucerne are now factoring tsunami-preparedness into their emergency plans. The areas in and around Lake Lucerne and Lake Geneva, large lakes amongst the Swiss alps, as well as others such as the more local Lake Tahoe in California, have occasional seismic activity given the mountainous geography around them, and have actually had a (scattered) history of Alpine tsunamis. Scientists from the University of Geneva have found compelling evidence suggesting that in the year 563 AD, a massive rockfall on the opposing side of Lake Geneva triggered a enormous wave that destroyed the communities living along the shore, and stretched all the way to the city of Geneva, resulting in multiple casualties. They describe present day Geneva being susceptible to tsunamis given the high water levels relative to the city’s elevation and it’s position on the lake itself, the shape of which greatly amplifies the destructive power of large waves. Given the small number of reported cases of destructive alpine tsunamis in recent human memory, the chances of one occurring sometime soon is low, especially one that would affect a largely populated area. So the question has to be asked. Should we put money and resources towards preparing for a disaster that, if it does occur, will be catastrophic but has a very small likelihood of happening? Or should those resources go towards solving other societal problems such as hunger and poverty that clearly result in more deaths per year than obscure alpine tsunamis?

No matter how tough and resilient we tell ourselves we are, everybody has “those days”–especially those of us who are new to this whole “college” and “independent” thing. The somber combination of drizzling rain, sad songs and heavy-heartedness can turn on the waterworks in a blink of a tear-filled eye, but that’s okay–everyone needs a good cry now and again. But why do we? Why do we cry when we are overwhelmed by emotion, whether it be happy or sad?

Did you know that you’re always crying? Well, sort of: our eyes are always creating basal tears, which help lubricate the cornea and keep out pesky dust specks. We also have reflex tears, which are triggered in response to physical stimuli such as the chemicals that are released when you chop an onion, or when you go to rub your eye after forgetting that you just ate that Chipotle burrito full of jalapeños (I think we’ve all been there). These contain more antibodies to fight off potentially infection-causing microorganisms. Finally, we have our emotional tears, the ones most often accompanied by less than attractive face-reddening, hitched breathing, and, if being brought on by negative emotions, overall hot-messing. Not only are these tears different than basal and reflex tears in their chemical makeup (they contain more protein-based hormones like leucine enkephalin, a natural painkiller), but they actually have unique structures depending on what emotion has brought them on. In 2013, artist Rose-Lynn Fisher decided to use her photography skills and a microscope to capture what different tear stains looked like, from the laughing-until-crying ones to onion-chopping ones to tears of pure grief. The results are stunning (check out the full project here).

Rose-Lynn Fisher

So back to the question: why do we cry when our emotions get the better of us? Is there a particular evolutionary advantage to it? Possibly. According to a TED-Ed by Alex Gendler, strong emotions can make us feel out of control, and emotional tears are released (along with the other “hot-mess” physical reactions) to stabilize our thoughts . No one is precisely certain why these tears help, though many scientists believe it may be to try and elicit a sympathetic response from those around us (though I’m sure most of us frequent-flyers have felt the opposite of sympathetic when hearing a baby cry). Crying reveals our vulnerability, notably during our early childhood when we are at our most helpless. Like I mentioned earlier, these tears also contain leucine enkephalin, a stress-induced hormone that is a naturally-occurring painkiller, and may help with physically making us feel better.

www.gifbay.com

So all that’s left to answer is the emotion question–I know that I cry when I’m feeling blue, but what about when I’m overjoyed? According to Neuroscience blogger Jordan Gaines, your hypothalamus cannot tell the difference between emotions–all it knows is that it’s receiving a strong signal from your amygdala, which is responsible for registering your emotions. After the hypothalamus gets this signal, it activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn increases tear production in your tear ducts. So whether it be your wedding day, seeing your loved ones after a long time away, or a death of a beloved pet, you can blame your hypothalamus for that salty stuff that runs down your face and ruins your make-up.

Hi everyone! I’m Bella Fordyce, and I’m a freshman from Chicago currently in DUS. I’m in this course and I’m not a science major for the same reason: I like science in the general sense, but when it comes to applying math and equations my level of enthusiasm for it plummets. Math and I don’t get along, so a science gen-ed that doesn’t involve it sounded pretty great! I hope everyone has a good semester! 🙂