In the past it was commonly suggested that while during pregnancy, women should just rest for the protection of themselves and their babies. There was even a set of guidelines published in 1985 by the American Congress of Obstetricians, which stated that pregnant women should keep strenuous activity to fifteen minutes or less.

Since then there has been a dramatic change in how doctors and scientists perceive exercise during pregnancy. Exercise is now thought to be great for the mother and the unborn child. Researchers are also now starting to look even more closely at how exercise can influence a baby’s health in the womb and how these effects might translate into protection from future health problems.”

One reason why women should exercise during pregnancy is due to hearth health. In 2010, a woman by the name of Linda May along with some of her colleagues gathered a group of 26 pregnant women. These women reported that they had been consistently exercising for three times a week for 30 minutes each. When the women reached 36 weeks they brought them into the lab and studied their and their babies’ heart rates. They noticed that compared to moms who were not regular exercises, these moms and their babies has lower heart rates.

The benefits of exercising while pregnant also last into a child’s life after birth. May and her colleagues also discovered “higher heart rate variability if they had exercised along with their moms in utero(Walker).”  These benefits can lead into healthier childhood years, in which they have more efficiently pumping hearts.

May suggests that a mix of aerobics and strength training during pregnancy is a good plan to keep yourself and your baby healthy during pregnancy.

Walker, Cameron. “Exercise During Pregnancy Benefits Mom—And Baby, Too.” Discovery Magazine: n. pag. Web. 22 Oct. 2014. <http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2014/05/08/exercise-during-pregnancy-benefits-mom-and-baby-too/#.VEpH2VXF_1U>.

A study published in the British Journal of Psychology, by a group of French scientists, shows that the more drunk you are the more awesome you perceive yourself. In the first study they conducted, they had drinkers at a bar rate how attractive they are. The more alcohol a person ingested the higher they rated themselves in awesomeness.

The second experiment consisted of a staged “taste test”, in which participants were given cocktails with alcohol and some without. Half of the group was told that they were given alcohol, while the other half was told that they were given a “mocktail.” The volunteers then wrote and delivered speeches in which they rated how bright, funny, and original, they considered themselves to be as orators. The team along with 22 university students compared the ratings, and the results were saddening. Apparently, “according to the independent evaluations (Carpenter)” none of them were actually drunk. However, just thinking they were drunk caused them to consider themselves more attractive.

I really did not agree with this experiment. Yes, their results are consistent with their hypothesis; however, because the experiment was so small, the results could be due to pure chance. In my opinion they could make the experiment better by expanding the number of participants and the length. Then they might have a clear conclusion that shows how the independent variable(the alcohol) positively affects the dependent variable(self-esteem).

Carpenter, Meridith, and Lilian Fritz-Laylin. “Drunken Attraction Is Put to the Test.” Discovery Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2014. <http://discovermagazine.com/2014/jan-feb/drunken-attraction-is-put-to-the-test>.

We have all been through it. We watch a sad movie, we get into an argument, or we go through a bad break up; then we try to alleviate our pain with comfort foods. For some reason it is a universal belief that by indulging in your favorite foods you can relieve some of your anxiety. However, this may be just a myth. After much research scientists found that this so-called comfort food makes you feel just as good as regular food would.

To find this conclusion they CONDUCTED AN EXPERIMENT OF COURSE! They had participants watch sad movies. After the viewing the sad films they had the volunteers eat “either a comfort food, an “equally liked non comfort food,” a neutral food, or no food and then measured how their moods changed.”

In another study they had to complete and online survey, in which they indicated their comfort food and a variety of “comparison foods.” About a week prior of taking the questionnaire, the participants watched negative films to induce bad mood. After, they were split into two different sessions. In one of the sessions the volunteers were served their comfort foods. The next session was broken into 4 groups. The first group was served regular food; the second group was served a neutral food; the last two groups were not given any food at all.

In both studies, the results showed that the comfort food does help in changing moods, but just as much as other foods or no foods. They concluded with the idea that people seek out their own foods while in negative moods and they continue to stand by this. When in reality it does not. So the next time you are feeling bad instead of stuffing your face with a whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s try eating something a bit healthier.

The independent variable in this study was a bit weak. I do not agree with them inducing negative moods, by films. I think the experiment would have been successful if it were more personalized.

“Accordng to Science, there’s no such thing as comfort food.” Discover Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2014. <http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2014/10/14/comfort-food-actually-comforting-food/#.VEpDRFXF_1U>.

I was searching through Discovery Magazine and I read this interesting experiment titled, “Sleeping Brains Understand words.” The experiment was conducted by a group of French neuroscientists. In the experiment “Volunteers were asked to perform a word categorization task: spoken words were played to them and they had to press a button with their left hand (say) if the word was a kind of animal, or press a button with their right hand if it was an object (Neuroskeptic).”
The twist to this experiment was that it was conducted in a quiet, dark room, so it could help the participants fall asleep. To actively continue the task while the participants were sleeping they had been connected to EEG machines “to record brain electrical activity” before the experiment commenced. Because of the EEG data they recorded while awake, neuroscientists were able to track whether they were using the right side of their brain or the left side. (This is important to know because the left hand is controlled with the left side of the brain and vice versa).
The awesome thing to note is that the sleeping brains produced the “correct responses to the stimuli”, or how an awake and active brain would respond. This led to the conclusion that the brain can perform a high- level language task while asleep.
After reading this article, I was utterly astounded. I started to wonder what other activities one may be able to purse while asleep. I wondered if listening to languages while asleep could affectively help someone learn a language. I also wondered if this could be an affective studying technique in general. If this turned out to be an effective strategy it could probably increase retention rates incredibly.
Neuroskeptic. “Sleeping Brains Understand Words.” Discovery Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2014. <http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2014/10/03/sleeping-brains-understand-words/#.VEnXxFXF_1U>.

As I was engaged in one of my many YouTube marathons, I came upon a video that talked about skin lightening. Apparently a while back, Nigerian pop star, Dencia, had her skin bleached or lightened, and is now the face and owner of a skin correcting cream named “Whitenicious.”

After seeing this video I was utterly baffled As I searched more and more, I found that using skin lighting treatments is actually a common practice. Some of the most famous celebrities such as Nicki Minaj, Tamar Braxton, and Rihanna have had skin lighting treatments performed on themselves. One celebrity named Vera Sidika said she had her skin bleached, because “her body is her business, and she knows that she would make more money light skinned rather than dark skinned.”

Not only is it popular among famous people, but in India and Africa many woman partake in this process. “According to a report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in June 2012, 77% of women in Nigeria use skin-lightening products.(Economist).” Since then these rates have continued to increase. This is such a common practice; because there is a belief that the fairer you are the more likely you are to succeed in economic, social, and business endeavors. For example in an article I read it said, “about 7 out of 10 men are most likely to pick up a light shaded girl compared to a dark shaded girl, if both of them stand the chance of being equally beautiful (Bemah).”

The agenda of most skin lightening treatments is to decrease the level of melanin that the body produces. For those who do not know melanin is a pigment produced by cells called melanocytes. Melanin is also a very useful protective agent that protects against the harmful rays of the sun. The more melanin you have the darker your skin is. Skin lighteners or bleachers contain active ingredients that reduce the amount of melanin in the skin (WebMd).

I think that if the rate in which more people are using these products does not slow down, then we will see an extensive increase of different skin diseases in the darker population. Also, since some of these creams use harmful products such as mercury, there will be increased levels of mercury poisoning (webmd).

“Beauty in Nigeria: Lighter Shades of Skin.” Economist. N.p., 28 Sept. 2012. Web. 9 Oct. 2014. <http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2012/09/beauty-nigeria>.
Bemah, Abenah. “Why do Black women bleach.” Afroeuro. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Oct. 201.4. <http://afroeuro.org/magazine/?p=3199>.
“Skin Lightening Products.” WebMd. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Oct. 2014. <http://www.webmd.com/beauty/face/skin-lightening-products>.

I was watching a show on MTV and for some reason the different entertainers and comedic personalities were discussing different sexual topics. The topics varied from the preferred types of contraceptives to the Big O all the way to the G-Spot.

Now I am not the most sexually experienced person. The most experience I have comes from reading romantic novels and talks with my sexually adventurous friends. However, when the topic on the G-Spot came up I started to wonder. The G-Spot, named after German Psychologist Grafenburg, “is an area in the front wall of the vagina which is alleged to produce an extremely intense orgasm when stimulated (Free Dictionary)” My question was if there was a magical- spot in the vaginal canal “rumored” to send women over the edge, then why were so many women constantly left unsatisfied or unable to reach orgasm through just vaginal penetration?

After a little searching I found a study conducted by researchers at King’s College in London. In the study, the researchers used over 1,800 female twins. They hypothesized that there is no genetic factors that show that G-Spots really exist, but “environmental or psychological factors may contribute to whether a woman BELIEVES that she has a G-Spot (Landau).”

The lead study author, Andrea Burri, supplied the women with surveys. In these surveys they were asked if they thought they had a G-Spot. They described it as a “small area the size of a 20p coin on the front wall of your vagina that is sensitive to deep pressure (Landau)”. The researchers discovered that about 56% of the participants believed that they had a G-Spot (by using twins they were able to cancel out the genetic correlations). The participants were also asked if they were able to achieve orgasm during intercourse, but only 30 percent answered yes. The 30 percent result showed that some were confused by the question, because the purpose of the G-Spot is to induce orgasm.

Debby Hernbenick, a research scientist at Indiana University, concluded that the clinical definition given in the experiment is too specific, and does not take into consideration the size and location that some women perceive their G-Spots to be. Hernbenink says, “It’s not so much that it’s a thing that we can see, but it has been pretty widely accepted that many women find it pleasurable, if not orgasmic, to be stimulated on the front wall of the vagina(Landau)”.

One important thing that the study did find was that the women who reported to having G-Spots were on average more extroverted and opened to experiencing new things. Burri concluded through these correlations that there were psychological components to the G-Spot.

Landau, Elizabeth. “Finding the G-Spot:Is it Real?” Cnn. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/01/05/g.spot.sex.women/>.
TheFreeDictionary. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2014. <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/g-spot>.

Hi, my name is Nadiyah Owens and I was born and raised in West Philadelphia.  I am undecided in the College of Communications, but I am thinking about going into public relations. I am taking this course because my adviser recommended it to me. I like science and think it is a very interesting subject; however, I am not majoring in it because it does not excite me.