After having a long day of work or school, and have been out all day, a lot of people just want to take a nice long hot shower to just relax. Just let the hot water pour down, and relieve all stress and also get squeaky clean too! Then the moment comes sometimes when the hot water runs out, and that burst of cold water just comes and shocks your whole body. At that moment a person wants to get out of the shower, so whats up with cold showers?

It is said that cold showers can have a few benefits for people. One benefit is that cold showers can help the hair and the skin. Do you ever notice that sometimes when you get out of the shower that your skin can be a little dry?  When a person is in the shower “the oils in the skin softens, and when a person uses soap, the skins oils are stripped“(Howstuffworks). This also goes along with hair. I have been fascinated with hair for awhile now, and I have realized that when I rinse my hair out with cool water, my hair feels softer. This is because the cool water basically makes  the hair cuticle close which helps locks in the hairs moisture to make it feel softer.

Another benefit of cold showers are that it helps with blood flow in the body, and help with soreness. I read a study about why people should take showers after exercising which tried to show the benefits of it. In the study,” 360 people who did some type of exercise such as cycling or running, rested or immersed themselves in cold water after exercises. The researchers did seventeen trials. After the study, the researchers found that the cold water baths helped relieved soreness one to four days after  exercise”. (mercola.com). Third variables can always be a factor when it comes to this study  because since it is not experimental, there is always a chance for something else to be the causal factor for something to occur. Also being immersed in cold water and showering is different, so there can be a possibility that the outcomes of this study would come out differently. Also the study did talk about the different temperatures of the water which can also play a factor in the outcomes of the study.

Another benefit of cold showers is that it can increase alertness. Like I talked about at the beginning of the blog, when some people feel the cold water they immediately want to get out of the shower. If a person takes showers in the morning, and they are super tired, the  quick burst of cold water can make them wake up, and become more alert. (mediadaily.com)

For me personally, I do not really like the cold if I do not have to deal with it. I think cold showers are very uncomfortable, and I do not know how people do it. From the few benefits that I did read about cold showers, sure they’re pretty interesting but I’ll stick to my warm showers. The only time I do use cold water is for my hair, like I talked about earlier, but I could not bathe myself entirely in cold water.

Do you guys like cold showers?

sources:

http://www.medicaldaily.com/benefits-cold-showers-7-reasons-why-taking-cool-showers-good-your-health-289524

http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2012/04/27/cold-water-immersion-benefits.aspx

http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/cleansing/myths/hot-showers-bad.htm

I recently just read an article that was called “Oreos may be as addictive as Cocaine”. Once I saw that title I was very curious about “Milks Favorite Cookie”. This article included a study that was done with rats to see if this addiction was actually true. I found this title interesting, so I continued to read on about this.

This study was done by researchers from Connecticut University. The researchers basically wanted to see if the Oreo cookies were just as addictive as cocaine. After doing these studies the researched looked at how the rats behaved, and  also they looked at the effects  the cookies had on the rats brains.  So what the researchers did was that “they put the rats into a maze, and allowed them to have the choice of going to the part of the maze that had rice cakes, or to the side of the maze that had the Oreo cookies. After that first test, most of the rats went to the Oreo cookies, and not the rice cakes.” (times.com).”Then the  researchers conducted another test where the rats could go to a part of the maze where they would be injected with saline, or they could go to a part were they could be injected with cocaine or morphine. After that test, more rats went to the cocaine, morphine side rather than the saline side of the maze. “(Times.com).

Now at the end of these studies the researchers concluded that  the Oreo Cookie “activated more neurons in the rats brains “pleasure center”, than drugs such as cocaine”.(Times.com). The  pleasure center is basically the parts of the brain that react to certain acts of pleasure such as laughter, sex, drug use etc. (Howstuffworks). Since this was an observational study third variables can play a factor within this because there was nothing that was truly being controlled, it was all up to the rats to see which side they would go to in each of the tests.  I did have a question when it came to the second test. The rats had the choice of going to the side where they would get shot with either saline or cocaine or morphine. How would the rats have known what they were about to get injected with? I understand the rats could probably smell the Oreo cookie, which made them go to that side of the maze rather the rice cakes, but how did that work with the drugs? That is were I say chance could play a factor within this because I don’t understand how the rats could possibly know what was inside of those needles. I would also like to know how many rats were actually being tested because I wonder how many more rats went with the cookies and cocaine, and how much more of an effect did the cookies have on the rats brains than the cocaine had.

This study to me was very interesting, but would not change my mind about eating Oreo cookies at all. I think if a person really likes anything a lot,  there is always a possibility that they could get addicted to it. It is very hard for me to believe that the Oreo cookie could have the same or addicting factors as hard core drugs such as cocaine. If I had more information about some of the questions that I asked, that would give me a better understanding of the conclusion and also make this a more plausible study in my opinion.

Sources:

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/10/16/oreos-may-be-as-addictive-as-cocaine/

http://health.howstuffworks.com/sexual-health/sexuality/brain-during-orgasm2.htm

http://www.oreo.com/default.aspx

A few weeks back I did a blog post on eating chocolate in moderation and its benefits. After looking back, I wanted to find some of the studies that researched these benefits.

In my last blog post about chocolate, I did talk briefly about two studies that I read briefly about that talked about the benefits of eating chocolate. One study was done in Germany and the other was done in Sweden.  Both of these studies were with women, were very large,  and long term, which means chance can play a role within this because the more people and a  longer time span gives the study the likelihood for something to occur, or also a third variable to be very high in this instance.  One thing that I also found that always came up when it came to chocolate and its benefits, were the flavonoids inside of the chocolate which is apparently whats giving the chocolate its good benefits.

I recently just game across another study that was also done in Sweden, that talks about how eating chocolate can help with the likelihood of getting a stroke for men, and wanted to look into it. This study dealt with 37,000 men. In the study, the researchers asked about the “participants eating habits, and also the health of the participants were monitored for a decade.”(BBCnews). “The participants were split into four different groups based on the amount of chocolate they had eaten. The bottom group ate on average, no chocolate during the week, and the top group ate 63 grams of chocolate.”,(BBCnews), and I assume the other two groups were just in between.  The researchers then compared the groups, ” those eating the most chocolate were 17% less likely to have a stroke during the study”. (BBCnews).

Now after reading this study I wondered about a few things. The researchers did ask the participants about their eating habits, so what if the participants who ate more chocolate had different eating habits, than the participants who ate less chocolate. This would be a third variable that can be taken into hand in this instance. I think the kind of diet that the participants had should have been more controlled as well because, I think diet could play a significant role as to why these participants had a less likely chance of having the stroke. Unless the researchers looked at exactly what the participants were eating, it is hard for these third variables to be ruled out. The study did said that the participants health was monitored, but was their a difference in the exercise, and eating habits of the groups? Also since this study was done over a decade , chance can also play a key role in this study, because the body changes over time, even though the amount of chocolate that the participants ate in these groups did not change, the body still does.  I would also like to know the health of the participants in each of groups, and see how similar each one was. What if a person in the less eating chocolate group, had the same eating habits, and health as a person in the  higher consumed chocolate  group?  When it comes to direct causation, for this study, it would be that eating more chocolate  can lessen the chance for a man to get a stroke. For reverse causation,  it would be that if a man has less of a chance to get a stroke, he eats more chocolate, but since this was a study done over time, it can be ruled out.  Since this was also a large study, chance also comes into play once again because there are so many people being observed.

Overall, this was an interesting study to me. I like how the researchers put the men into four different groups to show the chocolate consumption, which makes this part of the study more controlled, which gives the study a more organized touch. I would like to have had more information about the participants eating habits, and their health to see how big of a role they played when it came to the study.  This study is just one of many “chocolate and its benefits studies’ that I came across.After finding the information in my last post, and reading this study and others, I somewhat believe that there is a correlation between eating chocolate in moderation and good health but once again this can just be due to chance because, everyone is different, and maybe chocolate can help one person, and hurt another. This tasty treat is still a little mysterious to me.  Here are a couple more chocolate studies that I came across.

http://www.nordstjernan.com/news/education|research/2842/

http://www.escardio.org/about/press/press-releases/pr-10/Pages/chocolate-reduces-blood-pressure.aspx

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-19402143

As I started to pack for thanksgiving break, I came across some leftover candy that I still had from Halloween. I then thought a blog about candy would be pretty interesting to do. So as I searched the internet for some sort of topic I can write about for candy I came across a very strange article. The article was called ” Candy- gobbling kids may turn violent as adults”. (NBCnews.com).  So I thought this was an interesting thing to say about candy and kids, so I went on and read about it and looked at the study.

This was a study that was done by British experts who claim that children who ate candy daily grow up to be violent in some kind of way. ” British experts studied over 17,000 children born in the 1970s. Their conclusions were that “of the children who ate candies or chocolates daily at age 10, 69 percent were later arrested for a violent offense by the age of 34, and of those who didn’t have any violent clashes, 42 percent ate sweets daily”.(NBCnews.com).  After the studies were done, Simon Moore who was a part of these studies agreed that they needed more studies to be done to really prove this. The experts and Moore tried to “find more controlled variables that linked the candy to the violence such as the child behavior at home and also, the lifestyles that they were living”.(NBCnews.com). Moore concluded “that the candy could not be the blame for the children’s violence in their adult lives, but there could be a link, but it is just hard to say at this point in time”.  I Agree with Moore that in order to truly get to the bottom of this, more studies should definitely get done because this is a very interesting topic.

Since this was a study and it was an observational one.Third variables can play a huge role as to why these children became violent in their adult lives. Like Moore said ” parents who consistently bribe their children into good behavior with candies and chocolates could be doing harm to them”.(NBCnew.com). Also because since this was such a huge study it is more likely for a third variable to occur because there are so many people being studied that it’s more likely for something to be different. This also goes with the concept of chance playing a role in this study because anything could have occurred during the years in between of the childs life before ending the study. When it comes to direct and reverse causation I say that there could be a possibility, but in this case  I do believe like Moore said, “that more studies need to be done” (NBCnews.com). The direct causation would be that eating candy can lead to a person becoming violent,The reverse causation would be that a violent person eats a lot of candy, but it is actually hard to say that it could be reverse causation also in this instance because when it comes to a study being done over a certain amount of time reverse causation can be ruled out.  I will say in my opinion this was an “ok” study. When Moore talked about looking at the more controlled variables in the study, I believe they should have been doing that from the beginning to try and get a more accurate possible answer to this question. To go further into finding out if candy and violence could be a possible link, I think researchers should start off a little bit smaller with the studies. What I mean by that is,  when Moore talked about parents bribing their children with candy, I think that should be a study of its own.  This study would compare how a child acts when it must be bribed all the time with candy compared to a child who has to be bribed little or to none: seeing their personalities, and actions etc. The smaller studies could give more answers and lead up to better conclusions in my opinion. I do agree with Moore when he said ” this is an incredibly complex area”(NBCnews.com), because it is, and I believe that it is a very difficult link to match up with one another. Overall this is a very cool topic to think about when it comes to kids and eating candy.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/33091821/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/candy-gobbling-kids-may-turn-violent-adults/#.VG6svcnYEcw

I recently watched a television show where a couple was in a long distance relationship, and they’re relationship got even stronger because of it.  I wonder if the saying is really true though, ” does absence make the heart grow fonder”?

After doing some research online, most people agree with this, and I actually had a hard time finding a study that really says that it does not. The one study that I did find that agreed with the saying had ” 63 heterosexual couples in their early twenties, where most of the long distance couples were separated for 17 months typically because of different schools. Researchers asked the couples to fill out ones weeks worth of  daily online surveys regarding the quality and quantity of communication they had with their significant others”(USAtoday.com). “In the end the researchers found that the non long distance couples communicated more with text message, and the long distance couples had fewer interaction but they communicated more with phone calls and face time.  The researchers concluded that the long distance couples felt more committed to one another and felt more intimate with one other”(usatoday.com)(cnn.com)

Now with this study I see that there can be a lot of other reasons why the long distance couples could have had a better relationship than the other couples. Since this study was an observational one,  third variables can be at hand.I believe a lot of these conclusions also have to deal with the person and the couple themselves and what they prefer. Some people actually prefer to have a lot of space for themselves, and not have to worry about their significant other hovering over them all of the time, but others can be the complete opposite. I also think when it comes to this study that it should be a lot bigger. Maybe their conclusions would have came out a lot more differently if the used couples other than heterosexual couples, and more couples. The “study did say that all of the couples had some sort of ties to Cornell University”(USAtoday). and so they were either students or they’re partners were, but does this mean that all of the couples were all in the same kind of environment? Maybe some couples had the stress of school upon them, which then took a toll on their relationship.  Maybe age played a role with these conclusions. Who knows maybe fifty year old long distance couples versus fifty year old couples that aren’t long distance were not as happy with their relationships.

When it comes to this topic I believe a lot of thinking can be taken into hand and that not one answer can come from this topic.I think for the study to be more direct maybe more things should be the same, even that is kind of hard to do. For example the couples need to have been in the relationship for the same amount of time. Like many observations, a lot of other variables can be taken into hand as to why the long distance relationships had a better relationship. For example I think technology also plays a big part into this study. The study did say the couples that were not long distance communicated with one another through text message and the long distance couples communicated more with phone calls and face time. What if the couples that were not long distance couples could not call or face time their significant other? What if the long distance couple not call. text, face time there significant other at all, how well would their relationships work then? I think technology could be some what of a plausible mechanism, because it seems to be what is really make the long distance relationships really work. Chance of course can always be taken into hand as well because it could just so happen be that those certain long distance couples just had overall better relationships as the other couples.

Overall like I said I believe when it comes to the topic of  “Does Absence Make the Heart Grow Fonder” it really has a lot of reasons why it can and cannot work. I do not think there can be one direct answer to that because it all depends on the person, and what they prefer when it comes to a relationship.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/20/long-distance-relationships-2013/2568295/

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/17/living/relationships-long-distance-benefits/

A few weeks back I did a blog post on why some people itch, and some of the causes because of it. I wanted to find out a little bit more information about it so I did a little bit more digging.

Just to give some basic information about itching again, itching occurs when the skin is irritated by different things such as dust particles, dry skin, or skin diseases.  I did find other information from an article from NBC News , that also talks about how itching is caused by how our brains process itching, and what tells our brains that we are itchy, but I am going to get into that a little more with some experiments that I found.

The experiments and observations that I found were all conducted by   Dr. Zhou- Feng Chen who is the director of the Center for the Study of Itch at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis(Wustl.edu).  The first observation that I found was Dr. Chen trying to see if  the “GRPR(Gastrine- releasing Peptide receptor)  which is a pain sensing gene is also an itch receptor. Dr. Chen found this when looking at the different genes in the spinal cord.  Dr. Chen found that when mice with and without the GRPR gene were exposed to something  that made them itchy, the mice with the gene itched more than the mice that did not have the gene. “(wustl.edu).  Since this was an observation, direct causation is always a possibility, where that the GRPR gene is what causes the mice to itch more, but is it the same way with reverse causation? Can more itchiness cause the GRPR gene? I personally do not think so, I do not think itching can cause a gene.  When it comes to chance it is also possible as well, because what if it just happened to be that some mice can get itchier that others? What if there  was something else that was making them itch at the moment?

‘It is said when people itch, it also brings a sense of pain to the skin as well.  When the skin starts to feel pain, pain signals are going up to our brains and not the itching signals.’ (wustl.edu.)  When the body feels pain, serotonin  which is a neurotransmitter, is sent out and tries to ease the pain.  According to Dr. Chen ” But as the serotonin Spreads from the brain into the spinal cord, we found that the chemical can “jump tracks” moving from pain-sensing, neurons to nerve cells that influence itch intensity”(wustl.edu). He is basically saying that the serotonin plays a part in increasing the level of itchiness that people have. To prove this, Dr. Chen did another study with mice. “So what he did was that he bred mice that were not able to produce serotonin, and he then injected the mice with a substance that should make them itch, and compared them to mice with the serotonin, and saw that the mice without the serotonin did not itch whereas the other mice with it did.  After that he then injected the mice without the serotonin with it and did the process over again and found that the mice started to itch.” (wustl.edu). Dr. Chen found that when itching”,this gives off pain signals to our bodies which then makes people itch even more”. (wustl.edu.) This was a controlled experiment which I think was conducted fairly well. Reverse causation could not play a factor in this because the itchiness could not cause the serotonin in the body. No third variable could be concluded because if conducted correctly Dr. Chen only had one variable being changed which was the Serotonin being put into the body of the mice. Chance can also be ruled out because the experiment was controlled.

The next experiment that Dr. Chen conducted went with the one above , but taken further. Knowing that the serotonin plays a part in itchiness Dr. Chen wanted to see if he could “interfere with the communication between the serotonin and the nerve cells in the spinal cord that dealt with itching directly.”(wustl.edu).  To do this he wanted to see if he could “isolate the receptors that are used by the serotonin so he could activate the GRPR gene that I talked about earlier which is the neuron that  mainly transmits itch.”(Wustl.edu).  Dr. Chen is basically trying to see how all of these things work together. “To figure this out Dr. Chen injected mice with a substance that makes them itch,then gave mice compounds that activated various serotonin receptors on nerve cells( the serotonin is what was making the mice itch worse). He then found that a receptor called 5H1A which was the one activating the GRPR neurons.(the one that made the mice itch.)  After he found that, he then proved this by blocking that receptor and found that the mice then began to itch less.” (wustl.edu).  In the end Dr. Chen found that” serotonin activates the  GRPR nueron through the 5H1A receptors”.(Wustl.edu). I thought this was a very well conducted experiment because after finding the certain receptor that was activating the GRPR neuron Dr. Chen checked this” by blocking out the receptor to see if the mice were still itching as much and they were not”.(wustl.edu) This I believe helped him get a more direct answer to his question because he proved his answer in another way instead of just concluding that the serotonin activated the neuron.

So basically with all of these observations and experiments, when it comes to itching a lot of it has to deal with ours brains and the different signals that our bodies tell us. I think Dr. Chen did a good job at trying to find this out when it came to his observations and experiments. With each of them,  it led to finding something  new to help with his questions about itching and how it comes upon us. I will say that when it comes to his observations and experiments, the size of his studies would play a part in his conclusions. I wonder how many mice he actually used in order to find out that” the serotonin activated the neuron through the 5H1A receptors”(wustl.edu), but I think in this case it would not really matter because the body of a mouse can not really be any different from another when it comes to certain things such as the neurons and all. Also, since this was a controlled experiment Dr. Chen had a say in everything that when on, what he changed and what he did not, that is also why third variables can be ruled out as well, because the possibility of something else being the cause of the activation is very slim to none. Overall like I said I believe these observations and experiments were conducted very well, and  I did learn more about why people itch.

http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/22023.aspx

https://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/27606.aspx

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14910412/ns/health-livescience/t/why-do-we-itch-blame-your-brain/#.VBeVumP4JKM

A lot of people including myself loooovvveee to eat chocolate! Chocolate can come in so many different varieties. You have dark chocolate, you have white chocolate, you have the classic chocolate, , you have chocolate with nuts, chocolate with fruits, triple chocolate, double chocolate, just so much chocolate! Did you ever think about if certain chocolate can actually be good for you. That if you eat it, you don’t have to feel as guilty after?

Well the one chocolate that is said to actually be good for you is…………DARK CHOCOLATE!!!

Dark chocolate and almost every other chocolate contains cacao. Cacao is a seed or bean  that comes from a cacao tree. These trees are usually in south America. Cacao is the basis of chocolate. Even though on its own, it has a very bitter flavor to it, the chocolate that we know and love today would not be able to be made without it.  So whats in dark chocolate that makes it good for you? One difference between dark chocolate and other chocolates is the high amount of Cacao it has inside of it. That’s why it is not as sweet as chocolates such as milk chocolate, and white chocolate. Those chocolates contain more milk, sugar, and butter, the unhealthy stuff.

So what else is important about this cacao bean?  The cacao bean contains a thing called flavonoids. I talked about these in recent posts before, but flavonoids are antioxidants. Antioxidants are pretty much nutrients for the body, that help fight against things that can weaken the body. What can eating dark chocolate do for the body? It is said that dark chocolate can give the body good cardiovascular benefits. According to “Womans Health mag” “there was a Swedish study done with with over 31,000 women and the results showed that out of the the woman who ate one to two servings of chocolate each week cut their risk for heart disease by a third”. (womanshealthmag). There also was another study done in Germany  where it “showed that eating a square of dark chocolate a day lowered blood pressure and the risk of a heart attack and stroke by 39″. (Womanshealthmag). Now with these studies these conclusions could be reasoned out by chance. Also I think there could possibly be something else that is helping lower the levels in these studies. Maybe the dark chocolate is working with other parts of the body to make these things possible. I did read an article about gut bacteria that talks about the gut bacteria and the dark chocolate work together in helping out the body. Apparently” the gut bacteria breaks down the components in the dark chocolate and turns them into anti- inflammatory compounds.” (mercola.com). These compounds are good for a persons heart.

So dark chocolate seems like pretty beneficial chocolate. Some of things dark chocolate is good for is that it is said that dark chocolate can lower blood pressure, improve blood flow, its a lower  calorie snack, and help a person lose weight because its more filling,   and it can possibly help with brain function. For some of these facts about dark chocolate they have not been fully proven. I think it would be a pretty cool experiment to try and find out what dark chocolate can really do. I think an experiment like this could be not as difficult. There is always that possibility that the dark chocolate can affect each person differently, and it would be pretty interesting to see what happens. I think people would actually love to be in these experiments because, if I was asked to eat a certain amount of chocolate of course i would!  I personally love dark chocolate, and its pretty cool to see what it can do for me.

Here are tasty ways and forms that dark chocolate comes in! 🙂

http://authoritynutrition.com/7-health-benefits-dark-chocolate/

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/benefits-of-chocolate?page=4

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/03/31/dark-chocolate-health-benefits.aspx

http://www.livestrong.com/article/522112-health-benefits-of-raw-cacao-nibs/

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/lifestyle/2012/07/antioxidants-in-a-nutshell/

Almost everyone has heard this saying ” an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, but is this really true? If you eat one apple a day you never have to go to the doctors anymore??

Apples are fruits that can come in different colors, and semi different flavors. You have so many different kinds of apples. Apples range from Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Gala, and many many more. My personal favorite kind of apple is the Granny Smith apple because I like the little bit of tangy flavor that it has. So with all of these different kinds of apples how in the world can they keep you from not having to go to the doctor?

Apples contain many different things that really benefit a persons health. One of things that an apple contains is Pectin. Pectin is a form of fiber. What fiber does for your body is that it helps wit a persons digestive system, and it is said that fiber can also help lower a persons blood pressure. Another good aspect of an apple is that it contains Quercetin. Quercetin is a flavonoid. Flavonids are basically compounds that are found in different fruits & vegetables that contain antioxidants that are good for the body. (oregonstate).Quercetin helps decrease the risk of getting certain cancers such as lung and breast cancer.  A lot of the antioxidant and cancer decrease properties of the apple actually comes from the apples skin.

Many people don’t really like the skin of the apple, but that’s actually one of the most important parts of the apple. Researchers at Cornell University say that the apples skin contains phytochemicals. According to them ” the cooperative activity of these phytochemicals, they argue, has health benefits that are superior to those found in single compounds like vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta- carotene, which have been widely studied for their antioxidant activities”. ( WebMD).  Also these Cornell Researchers also did a small study when it came to the apples skin. They took an apples extract  from the skin and treated a colon cancer cell with it. The researchers found that when they extracted 50 milligrams of the apples skin extract and put it into the colon cancer cell, that it decreased the cancers cell growth by 43%. They did the same thing  with the extract from just the apples flesh, but with that extract the cell growth was decreased by only 29%. (WebMD.)  The researchers did the same study with lung cancer, and positive results with apples extract came out as well. There is a possibility that this was due to chance as well.

So what else do these supposedly doctor preventing fruits do?? According to “Howstuffworks.com” apples can also act as a “toothbrush”. It is said that Apples help clean a persons teeth, and also help kill off bacteria in your teeth to help with cavities, and other bad bacteria roaming around in a persons mouth. (WebMD.). Wow these apples can keep the dentist away too?? Another good aspects of the apple is that it contains Boron. Boron is a nutrient that can give a person strong bones.

So getting back to a saying that almost everyone knows.. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. I would say that this is true and false at the same time. I do not think that eating one apple a day can completely keep you from having to go to the doctor. Going to the doctors is very important, because health problems can pop up at any time. Yes I will agree that an apple can reduce health risks, and might allow a person to go the doctors LESS often, but I do not believe an apple a day can completely prevent a person from having to go to the doctors. I personally do not like the doctors so if this were completely true, I would eat three apples a day! I do eat apples often, and do like the healthy benefits that I get from them.

Whats your favorite kind of apple??

http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/health-myths/an-apple-a-day.htm

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20000621/benefits-of-eating-fruit?page=1

http://www.uamshealth.com/?id=12428&sid=1

http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/healthy-eating/fact-or-fiction-an-apple-a-day-keeps-the-doctor-away.html

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/f-w00/flavonoid.html

You ever wonder if you can drink that water that is falling from the sky? I mean its right there.Can’t you just take a cup a fill up, or just open your mouth up and quench your thirst?

By definition rain is “water that is condensed from the aqueous vapor in the atmosphere and falls to earth. ” (Dictionary.com). We see it falling from the sky all of the time. If you live in an area that usually as more rainfall you would see it more often of course. Before the rain hits the ground it passes through the air of course. As the rain passes through it could obtain some of the things that are in our air, or just some things  that are located around. What are some of these things?

Depending were a person lives there can be acid gases in the air. Acid gases are gases that come from different factories, power plants like when people are burning different fuels. When these gases are in the air, this can cause what we call acid rain. Acid rain also contains  nitric and sulfuric acids.(Nat geo). These acids form when the acid gases mix with the water and the oxygen in the air.  This acid rain actually effects  some aquatic animals, soils, and trees.

As said before depending on where a person lives, different things can be contained in rain. The air can be polluted  all the time. For example a person might not want to drink rain water when they live around a radioactive plant, or a volcano. (Chemistry about). Dust is always flying around in the air so, of course if its in the air, it is possible for it to get into the rain water. If a person is trying to collect rain water, they also have to think how they are collecting it. For example if they have a bucket and just have it on the ground, the rain is falling from some kind of building or home, that might not be a good idea. Buildings and homes have some sort of bacteria on them. For example birds, and other animals use the bathroom a lot. The animal droppings have lots of bacteria inside of the, that can cause many problems in the human body.

So can we drink rain water? Yes we can, but with caution.  As said before,  rain can be contaminated with so many different things, So can we make the rainwater safe for us to drink? Actually…. you can! People actually collect rainwater for themselves to you. In some states it  is actually illegal to do that because the state may consider the rainwater state property. Kinda weird. Some people boil the water to try and get germs out of the water. Some people use Cisterns. Cisterns are” underground containers used for storing and containing water”(merriam- Webster).  Also people use rain barrels.  Usually after people store the rain water that is when they try to filter the water in order for it to become safer to drink. It is said that storing rain water helps the environment out as well, and can just be  another good source of water if handled right.

So rain can contain lots of things. So do we really want to drink it?  In my opinion a few drops shouldn’t really hurt you. I do  think its a good idea to try and make the rainwater safer to drink, before gulping a cup down.  There are a lot things in our air polluting  it and making it kind of gross. We already have to breath in this air, but do we want to drink it too?

http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/private/rainwater-collection.html

http://chemistry.about.com/od/waterchemistry/fl/Can-You-Drink-Rain-Water.htm

http://www.clean-air-kids.org.uk/acidrain.html

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/acid-rain-overview/

http://www.rainsaucers.com/blog/2013/03/19/can-you-really-drink-rainwater-is-it-potable

http://www.harvesth2o.com/rainwater_safe.shtml#.VD7aQRb4I2w

http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/private/rainwater-collection.html

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rain

Almost everyone usually uses a microwave just to heat up something quickly, and not have to wait for the stove, or oven to warm. The microwave is just  a lot faster, and for us college students, the microwave can be our best friend. So here is the question…. should you be really using the microwave?

By definition a microwave is ” an electromagnetic wave of extremely high frequency “. (Dictionary.com). Basically a microwave is a usual household item used to cook, defrost, and recook foods, or to heat up some kind of drink. Some of the things we commonly think to put in microwaves are, popcorn, TV dinners, soups,  left over restaurant foods, etc.  So before the microwave was invented what did people use to heat up and cook their food?? Well that’s easy, they all used stoves, and ovens.

Whats a stove oven?

By definition a stove oven is ” a chamber or compartment, as in a stove, for baking, roasting, heating, drying etc.”(dictionary.com). So basically a stove oven is used for cooking, heating, and baking, kind of just like the microwave. Some of the only differences between a microwave, and a stove oven is that the stove oven is bigger, it may take longer to cook depending on the food, and where the heat source from the microwave, and stove oven is coming from. That’s the big difference. So where does the heat source come from in these microwaves, and these stove ovens?

For microwaves to heat food the microwave contains a magnetron. A magnetron is basically the source of the microwaves radiation, and the heat source. This magnetron gets the microwave to be at the right frequency so the can be heated directly.(darylscience).

There are two types of stove ovens, gas and electrical. With gas ovens the heat comes from the gas fueled burners that are inside of them, and with electric stove ovens the heat comes from the electric coils, and the electrical energy becomes heat energy for the food basically.

A lot of people I know today actually prefer to use a stove oven over a microwave. But why is that? A lot times I hear that “the radiation that the microwave produces is bad for you”. So what does this mean? Whats so harmful about a microwave?

Microwaves use electromagnetic energy to heat the food.  Microwave radiation is also what heats up the foods. When your are  exposed to  the high levels of this, this can cause cataracts because the lens of our eyes are very sensitive. This why you shouldn’t stare at the microwave.

According to medical daily.com a microwave can ” zap the nutritional value of your food and health leaving you susceptible to develop health complications due to continuous microwave use”.(medicaldaily.com) So how do microwaves do this? The water molecules that are inside of the microwave rotate all around the microwave, and inside of the food. When this happens the molecules that are inside the food change which lead to the nutrients inside of the foods to change as well.(medicaldaily).  When heating food in  the microwave when it is wrapped in plastic , or in plastic containers  this can release carcinogens into the food. Carcinogens are basically a substance that can cause cancer.  These carcinogens can be found in the plastic or the plastic containers that the food is in, and can get into the food which will get into your body, that then can release possible toxins that are harmful to the body.

It is also said that microwaves can change the make up of a persons blood. A Swiss clinical study reports that there were blood changes in the people who participated after eating milk and vegetables that were heated in the microwave.  In the study their were 8 people who ate and drank milk and vegetables that were heated in the microwave. The study showed that” the red blood cells decreased while the white cell levels increased as well as the cholesterol levels, and the conclusion was that the non-ionizing radiation of the microwave can affect changes in your blood and your heart rate”. (medicaldaily.)

When it came to the Swiss study I think there could possibly  be other reasons  (third variables) that could be the reason for the change in blood. Also I don’t think this can be truly a conclusion about microwaves because there were only two types of foods used. Maybe depending on the food the change in blood could occur. Or this conclusion can even just be due to chance. I our day in age, when it came to cooking our own food, we usually jump right to the microwave. I use the microwave all of the time, and I am a pretty healthy person. I would say that maybe its always good to change up and use the good ole fashioned stove oven once in awhile. To answer the overall question, in my opinion I think its ok to use microwaves. Its like the same thing with almost anything, there are usually risks that come with it.

What do you guys prefer microwaves or ovens?

Sources:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stove-versus-microwave-energy-use/

https://alintaenergy.com.au/savewithgas/blog/oven/how-does-a-gas-oven-work

http://www.darylscience.com/Demos/MicrowaveOven.html

http://applianceassistant.com/Range-Stove-Repair/How-Electric-Ovens-Work.php

http://www.medicaldaily.com/microwaves-are-bad-you-5-reasons-why-microwave-oven-cooking-harming-your-health-250145

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/waves/magnetron.html

http://www.fda.gov/radiation-emittingproducts/resourcesforyouradiationemittingproducts/ucm252762.htm#About_Microwaves

During the holidays or any time of the year, everyone loves making cookies with their friends and family.  While your baking you soon come in contact with a bowl full of cookie dough, an empty bowl, and spoon filled with cookie dough later on in the process. You always try and sneak that little bit of cookie dough into your mouth, but then your parent tells you that you can’t eat it because it will make you sick.  You don’t eat it because you always listen to your parents, but does cookie dough really make you sick? How come you can eat cookie dough when its in ice cream?

What are some of the main ingredients that are in cookie dough? Well depending on the cookie, their can be lots of things inside of it, but what are the ingredients that almost every kind of cookie dough must contain? These ingredients are butter, margarine, water, milk, flower, baking powder, sugar, and eggs, but as said before these ingredients can always change depending on the kind of cookie. So what is the ingredient that can make you sick? That ingredient is the eggs that are inside of the cookie dough? But why? What could an egg possibly do to make one sick?

It is said if a person eats too much cookie dough they could get a sickness called Salmonella.  What is Salmonella? By definition “Salmonella infection is a common bacterial disease that affects the intestinal tract.” (mayclinic). This type of bacteria usually comes from human or animal feces. A person can get this bacteria usually from water or food. So in this instance the salmonella poisoning in the cookie dough will come from the eggs.

How does the egg get the Salmonella bacteria inside of it?

The egg can get this bacteria inside of it in a few ways. The first way is by just the hen sitting on the egg. The bacteria comes from the feces and so while the hen is sitting on the egg, the bacteria can actually get through the eggs hard shell and get into the inside of the yoke. Also the hens ovaries can get this bacteria inside of it, and even before the eggs hard shell is even made the bacteria can already be inside of it, but this is a very rare instance.

The symptoms of salmonella can start 12 to 72 hours after the food or water has been consumed into the persons body.  When a person as salmonella they can endure diarrhea, fevers, stomach pain, and dehydration. All of these things can last up to 4 to 7 days.

So getting back to cookie dough…. How much cookie dough does a person have to eat in order for them to get salmonella?  Well some say that eating cookie dough isn’t actually really bad for you because its very unlikely for eggs to actually have Salmonella know a days.L.V Anderson from Slate.com says that she has consumed an estimated amount of 360 eggs in her lifetime from licking bowls, and eating batter, or cookie dough when baking, and she says she has never gotten Salmonella. Even though it is possible for an egg to have salmonella if the hen has it, their are protocols that help prevent this. Actually in Pennsylvania in particular,” The Pennsylvania Egg Quality Assurance Program actually tests the hens when they are pullets(immature) to see if they have Salmonella, and they also keep the eggs refrigerated to help prevent the bacteria as well.” (Slate.com).  Paul Patterson, A professor at Penn State says that ”  The poultry industry wants to get their hands around this because they were losing shares”. (Slate.com). He also talks about many families who farm are worried about their eggs and don’t think they are safe with this bacteria. ” Pennsylvania succeeded in reducing the portion of SE infected hen houses from 38% statewide to 8%”(Slate.com) Many states  now vaccinate the hen houses to make sure the bacteria does not get around to the hens. Since there was a big Salmonella outbreak in the 1990s preventions have become a lot more strict when it comes to Salmonella. ” The Centers for Disease control say that when they took the data from the 1990s outbreak they say that today 1 and 20,000 eggs are internally contaminated with salmonella”.(Slate.com).

So how can we eat cookie dough in ice cream?

The cookie dough that we find in our beloved cookie dough ice creams, are made with processed ingredients, and most the time no eggs  which makes it perfectly safe for us to eat.

So back to the question. Can cookie dough really make you sick? I would say yes and no.  I am saying this because many people have eaten cookie dough or some kind of batter with uncooked egg, and has not gotten sick or has gotten sick. So there are two sides to this question. This really all depends on whether or not the egg is contaminated with the Salmonella bacteria. So if one wanted to conduct an experiment basically the main factor would be the salmonella contaminated egg. For me personally, during the Holidays I’m always taking a few bites and licks from the cookie dough batter or even cake batter, and I have been perfectly fine. This might be different for other people. I will say if a person eats too much cookie dough in general they will get a stomach ache for awhile, but that’s too much of anything.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/salmonella/basics/definition/con-20029017

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/food-poisoning/tc/salmonellosis-topic-overview

http://www.scienceiq.com/facts/salmonellachickeneggs.cfm

http://www.scienceiq.com/facts/salmonellachickeneggs.cfm

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/03/salmonella_and_raw_eggs_how_i_ve_eaten_tons_of_cookie_dough_and_never_gotten.1.html

You see this big word and wonder what the heck could this mean??

You ever see someone just playing with their hair? fiddling with it? Pulling it?

Trichotillomania is actually a Hair pulling disorder. According to mayo clinic Trichotillomania is a disorder that ” involves recurrent urges to pull out hair from the scalp, eyebrows or other areas of the body despite trying to stop.”(mayo clinic). This disorder can be a minor one and for some people it can become a very serious condition.  When this disorder becomes a serious one it can cause people to have bald spots on their heads or just a complete loss of their hair in places such as their eyebrows and eye lashes.

According to web Md they say” that this type of disorder is called a impulse control disorder”. (Web Md). An impulse disorder is basically a disorder where a person cannot resist to do something to themselves, and sometimes what they are doing can be very harmful to them but it does not matter to them.  Some kinds of impulse control disorders can deal with drugs, alcohol, eating disorders etc.

Getting back to trichotillomania, some say it is hard to say what the true cause of this disorder is, but many say it can be caused from stress. When a person becomes too stressed out, they might want to find a way to calm themselves down, and try to relieve the stress a bit. Some of the symptoms that a person shows if they have this disorder “are repeated hair pulling,  feeling relief after pulling out the hair, having just the urge to pull,  chewing hair, or eating hair, hair is beginning to thin, bald spots.” ( Web Md.). According to mayo clinic when a person has trichotillomania they can be either focused when they pull their hair or the hair pulling can be automatic. This pretty much means when a person is focused they try to find a certain piece of hair to pull, a particular one that they will  take the time out to search for then pull. When a person is automatic they just pull any hair that they can, not thinking about the kind of hair or anything. Some of the problems that come with this order not only with hair loss etc, is self esteem problems. Many people with this disorder tend to become depressed and upset, because of how they look after the hair pulling. With this disorder, sometimes a person really cannot control themselves and this can lead to the self esteem problems, by the way person feels about how they look.

My roommate actually thinks that she has this disorder so I talked to her about it.  She says she believes she does it because of stress, or when she is just bored. She says shes been doing this for years and never noticed for a long time until she realized that her hair was breaking off, and becoming very short.  She says she tends to pull her hair from certain parts of her head. She pulls from either the two sides of her head, or the back of her head, and that’s where hair is actually the shortest. I believe she is somewhat of a focused hair puller then. One day I just observed her without her knowing just to see what she was doing. I observed one night when she was studying for a test, when she was just watching tv, and when some of our other friends were over. On the night she was studying for her test she was pulling hair for about 30 minutes on and off. On the night she was watching television, she was pulling her hair around the time when a commercial came on. On the night we had other friends over I saw that she really didn’t pull her at all. These were just observations, and from them I realized that when she was more occupied with things she liked such as watching her show, or talking with our friends, she didnt really pull her hair. When it came to studying for her test, or just being annoyed by a commercial, I saw that’s when she pulled her hair the most. So basically stress, or being bored is what I believe is causing her to pull her hair, and being occupied with something she likes makes her not pull or do little pulling to her hair. Occupying a person with something else is what a lot of people say will help them not have the impulse to do certain things, but on the other hand what if the persons disorder is so bad that there really isn’t any way to control it?

I know for myself personally I can find myself messing around with my hair. Most of the time I do it when my either really needs to be done, or when I  just get my hair done. I believe  its kind of hard to diagnose some people  with this disorder because, a lot of people just touch their hair, and twirl their hair around, but I think when they really start to pull their hair to the point of a bald spot, or hair problems that’s when it can be really diagnosed.

Overall Trichotillomania is a very interesting disorder to me. The next time you start to touch your hair, see exactly what you are doing to your hair….

http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/trichotillomania

http://psychcentral.com/lib/what-are-impulse-control-disorders/0001161

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/trichotillomania/basics/symptoms/con-20030043

Whether you just want something quick to eat or you are a starving college student who can only afford the yummy tasting noodles. Well these noodles might be a good tasting and cheap meal for you, but how good are they actually for you or are they a destroyer to your body?

Ramen noodles are a Japanese soup that contain noodles and sometimes vegetables.   The noodles are like a Chinese style wheat noodle. The noodles are made with processed wheat flower. Now a person may think “oh wheat, that means it should be pretty good for me”, but they are missing out on a word “processed”. Processed foods are not always the best thing for a person.” The reason is because processed foods are food that chemically and artificial substances have been added to them. “(authority nutrition).  It is said that processed foods such as burgers fries, etc are one of reasons why many Americans and people all across the world are becoming so overweight. Most of the processed foods are quick and cheap to get so that’s why people are so attracted to them.

Getting back to the noodles and the processed wheat flower they are made of, according to nutritionist J.J Rinne ” the processed wheat flower your gylcemac, or have a higher Glycimic index and increase the risk of things such as diabetes” (news channel 10). Now this just one of the aspects of the noodles that are said to be bad for you, but their is also the flavor packets that are also a part of this. On the back of a Ramen Noodle package the amount of Sodium is 910 milligrams. That’s a lot. Too much salt for a person can effect a persons blood pressure, and lead to other health risks, and also it can mes around with a persons digestive system.

Going back to processed foods they can be harder to digest in a persons body.It sometimes takes longer for certain foods to digest in a persons body. There was actually an experiment that was done with the digestion of Ramen Noodles. Doctors compared the difference between a person digesting regular processed ramen noodles, and person digesting homemade ramen noodles.  The volunteers had a pill inside of them that allowed doctors to see inside the body and to see what exactly was going on with the noodles inside of the bodies. In the end according to Dr. Braden Kuo from Massachusetts hospital saw that ” after about one to two hours they noticed that the processed ramen noodles were less broken down that homemade noodles.” (prevent disease).  Foods are not suppose to take a long time to digest in a persons body, so this experiment basically show what ramen noodles were doing in the body, and how long the digestive process took.

I personally enjoy Ramen Noodles, but I do not eat them on occasion, because of the high sodium it has, and also because it is a processed food. I think if people eat ramen on an occasion that it isn’t too bad for you, but too much of any kind of processed food, and other certain foods is usually bad for you.

Here is the video of the persons digestive system after eating Ramen noodles…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/09/ramen-digestion_n_1263825.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/09/ramen-digestion_n_1263825.html

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/26512269/health-experts-say-eating-too-much-ramen-noodles-may-cause-long-term-health-risk

http://preventdisease.com/news/14/011914_This-Is-What-Happens-In-Your-Stomach-When-You-Consume-Packaged-Ramen-Noodles.shtml

http://authoritynutrition.com/9-ways-that-processed-foods-are-killing-people/

Have you ever just got an itch for no apparent reason? Or just got an itch from rubbing up on something?

Itching is when the skin becomes irritated from something.  A person can start itching from a bug, some kind of dust in the hair, an allergy, or some kind of disease etc.  Another word for itching is pruritus.(How stuff works).  “When something like a piece of hair or some kind of dust particle begins to rub on on a persons skin, the body is somewhat told that its skin is about to me harmed”. (Howstuffworks).  According to NBC news one of the “main causes of itching is because of something call dermatitis, a skin condition caused by anything from laundry detergent to gold that can irritate the skin”.(NBC.}

Some of  the reasons for the random itching sensations that we also get on us is because of some of the nerves in our bodies. Sometimes nerve give us some kind of pain in our bodies that we feel, but there are also nerves that can give us an itching sensation. I know for myself I always get some kind of random itch that I had no clue where it came from.  Apparently there are different types of chemicals that are inside of us that make us itch including Histamines. Histamines are a part of the natural bodies response when it comes to different allergic responses.(med terms)  “These histamines send off information to our spines which are then processed in our brains”(NBC). Many people also stress because of reasons such as stress, or allergies,  the weather(for example the sun), etc.  “Some of the same fibers that our in our bodies that send of the signals to our brains that we are itchy, are the same signals that tell our brains that we are in pain as well.” (how stuff works)After the signal is sent that is when we begin to scratch, so those signals are pretty fast, because that split second when we feel itchy, we begin to itch.

“When people begin to  scratch the itch it can also lead to very bad skin irritations which can lead to other problems.”(medicinenet) ,Dry skin is also a very common cause for itchy skin. There are different lotions and skin relief sprays that can help lessen the irritation or relief from the skin. When it comes to those random itches there’s nothing really to be done about those. If  a person is getting an itch on a certain part of their skin constantly and the skin begins to get very irritated, sometimes they will need to see a doctor if it begins to get worse. When it comes to different skin problems, diseases, etc that’s when itching can be explained a little bit more.Itching is just another part of life that people need to deal with, whether its because of a bug, skin problem, a nerve, etc, itching is just something that we can’t really get rid of, we can relieve it for awhile but can’t get rid of it.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14910412/ns/health-livescience/t/why-do-we-itch-blame-your-brain/#.VBeVumP4JKM

http://www.medicinenet.com/itch/article.htm#itch_facts

http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/information/anatomy/question600.htm

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=3765

Have you ever tripped in public. Has someone ever pointed out that you had something on your face in from of everyone?? Has your pants zipper ever been unzippered. Have you ever had a bad hair day? Did mom or dad ever come grab you out of a party? Has your top or bottom ever fallen off in the ocean after getting hit by a wave? Ever slip on a banana peel? Anyway a lot things are reasons why people get embarrassed in life.

One of the main reasons why people blush is because they are embarrassed about something.  Blushing is basically when a persons face turns red after being embarrassed or while they are being embarrassed.

Another thing that goes hand in hand when it comes to a person blushing as Adrenaline. Adrenaline is a substance that is released into the body of a person who is feeling a strong emotion.( Merriam -Webster).  Adrenaline is actually the thing that triggers the person to turn red when blushing. What happens is that adrenaline dilates(open up) a persons blood vessels which leads to a persons blood to flow.” When a person is embarrassed the veins in their face responds to a signal called the adenylyl cyclase.  This then allows the vein to dilate and that is when the reddening in the face begins.” (How things work).

Another thing that is important when it comes to a person blushing is the system that this feeling comes from. When it comes to different emotions in our body, they’re are different parts of the brain that work with those different feelings. When it comes to a person feeling in embarrassed the system that works with this is the sympathetic nervous system. “This system is also called the fight -or flight response.  When it comes to this system, everything that happens is basically involuntary, meaning a person does things without thinking. So a person doesn’t think to plus when they get embarrassed it just happens on its own completely. ” ( Howthingswork).

There are other ways that a person can start blushing for example when they drink alcohol. There is an actual fear that people endure because of blushing. This fear is called erythrophobia ( the fear of blushing. People actually can get surgery done for their blushing to be lessened.  Certain nerves in a persons spine are actually snipped to limit this blushing. Blushing just something that we cannot control, and it happens once in awhile when we are in an awkward situation.

I personally think blushing is a very fascinating thing. I think it is fascinating that our bodies just do things on our own by the way we react to things or how we are feeling at the moment. How the different systems in our bodies just connect so well, that it can tell another part of it to do something else.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/blush1.htm

Whats a perm? Whats a relaxer?

Many women use perms/ relaxers to get their hair to be straight for a longer period of time. Other women use perms/ relaxers to get their hair to be curly depending on ones hair texture. What are some of these that are actually in these perm/relaxer products one may ask?

A Perm/relaxer is” a chemical treatment that is used to permanently alter the natural texture of the hair. “(Hair about). “The active chemicals that are used in the most common kind of  perm/relaxers are potassium hydroxide, llithium hydroxide, guanidine hydroxide.”(wikipedia).  These perm/ relaxers break down the  different kind of chemical bonds that are in something called the hair shaft, basically the strand of hair. This is one of the reasons a lot of times a persons hair breaks off, because the hair after one of these perm/relaxers becomes dry and brittle which makes the hair break off.

When a person gets a perm/relaxer treatment done to them some of the effects that come with it are scalp irritation, permanent scarring, scalp drying. Since this is basically a chemical, a person must use gloves when applying this to a persons head because it can burn there skin as just said.(mtholyoke). When the perm is being put onto the persons head, the perm is going to start to tingle the persons scalp and if kept on too long, it will start to actually have the  feeling of a burning sensation on the scalp. That is when the person much wash the perm out of the persons head.

Depending on ones hair texture the perm can either straighten the hair or make it curly. For African American woman, the perm makes the hair straight. In order for one to get their natural hair texture back they have to either cut all of their hair off completely or let the perm grow out on its own. In order for the perm to constantly work, a person must get a touch up of a perm, every 4-6 weeks or however long they want to wait to get another one. If a person doesn’t do this, their natural hair will begin to grow back.  If a person wants to get rid of their perm, but does not want to actually cut all of their hair off, they can “transition” back to their natural hair. This means that they let their natural  hair grow out and slowly cut off the relax ends. The relaxed hair will become very dry, brittle and dead, and during this transitioning process the hair will shed more that usual. When the natural hair grows out and its still connected to the dead ends, there is something called the line of demarcation, this is where the natural hair and the relaxed hair meets and this is where the hair is the most sensitive, and breaks off the most.

I began to transition my hair, after a bad hair cut and wanted my hair to start growing and to get back to a healthier state. I was also just very tired of the scalp irritation, and scabs that I had began to get on my head after my perms. I also believe that getting a perm is also one of the factors of me having a very dry scalp. I am still transitioning my hair right now and I have been doing it for about 22 months now. My permed hair is almost all grown out of my head, and my natural hair is very thick, and curly. I do think getting perms/relaxers is just up to the person who gets them. If a person prefers to just have straight hair or curly hair then getting a perm/relaxer will help them manage there hair better. I personally like my natural hair better than having straight hair so that is why I made the decision to stop getting them.

Here is a video of  what sodium hydroxide( one of the main ingredients in a perm/relaxer) does to a soda can.

http://blackhair.about.com/od/glossary/g/relaxer.htm

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~nshah/cosmetics/relaxers-healtheffects.html

Have you ever wanted to know  what that stuff growing all over your body is?? Did you ever wonder, why it grows or why it doesn’t grow? Well today I’m going to talk about Hair.

Here are two definitions of hair:

Hair “is a thin threadlike growth from the skin of a person or animal.” (merriam-webster).

Hair” is the collection or mass filaments growing from the skin, covering parts of the body”.(Hair definition).

So the next question is how hair growth works

“Hair growth begins when a person is still a fetus. It is said that during week 22 of  the pregnancy process a persons hair follicles are all formed on the head. (web md).The hair follicle is underneath the skin, and the hair actually gets nourishment from the blood vessels on our head.(viviscal.com).” There are four phases that the hair actually goes through during its growing process over the years. “These phases are the Anagen(growing phase), Categen(transitioning phase), Telogen(resting phase). and the exogen( the new hair phase)”(viviscal.com).  When a person is wondering why there hair isn’t growing, its because it depends on the certain phase that there hair is in.  These different phases do not have an exact time span but they do have general ones.

When a person sees hair coming out when they comb it or brush it, that is because the hair is shedding. Just like animals our hair sheds as well. That is because new hair is trying to grow, and the old and dead hair is breaking off.  The lower you go down the hair shaft the weaker the hair is because it has been there the longest. “When the new hair wants to grow the cells inside the follicle divide and more produce. When this occurs the old follicles get pushed out and a new hair is produced.'(How stuff works)

“When a person hits puberty ( The process where the child’s body matures) thats when hair starts to grow and is visible in places such as the armpits, and the upper lip area and so one.'(. How stuff works). Men actually grow more body hair than woman. “Both men and woman have these hormones called androgens, but men have a higher level of it, which makes there body hair grow more and thicker.  The male hormones like testosterone help a mans hair grow, but for both men ad women it depends on genetics to determine how thick and dark ones hair might be.”( How stuff works).

Overall hair is a very interesting thing, because there are so many different kinds of hair that can be talked about, and so many things that one can do with there hair.What also wonder about hair is why, hair starts to change color as we get older, and why sometimes does it fall out. I enjoy looking at all different hair types and just comparing them and seeing the differences between the two of them.

http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Hair

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hair

http://www.viviscal.com/hair-growth-cycle

http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/hair-loss/science-hair

http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/parts/human-body-hair.htm

Hey guys my name is Olivia Noble. I am from Philadelphia P.A. I love going to the beach, hanging with friends and having a good time. My favorite place to go to is Ocean City Maryland. My family goes down every year and I always have an amazing time. Here is a link to find out some cool things to do in Ocean City. I joined this class because I am not a huge fan of science, but I do find it somewhat interesting., but I wanted to get a required class out of the way. I don’t plan on being a science major because, even though i’m ok at science, i still don’t think i would do that well, and also it is not something I want to do for the rest of my life.