Despite being brainless and consisting of mostly water, jellyfish have applications that we’ve only just begun to exploit. Between all the different species, jellyfish have incredible properties such a natural illumination, regeneration, and even possible immortality.

Jellyfish get their glow from Green Florescent Protein (GFP). Using a gene that’s involved in the production of GFP, scientists can tag proteins and then trace them through a living organism. This can be taken to the extent of tracking fertilization within fruit flies and other test insects. Recently scientists have been using this method to track insulin production in the liver, cancer call, and even HIV cell activity.

This practice can be applied to other serious viruses to help track their location and origin. This would work especially well for very infectious and hard to control viruses such as Ebola. Attaching a GFP to the Ebola virus would help doctors track it in patients that may not be showing symptoms yet and thus increasing the chances of finding and quarantining the infected population.

A species of jellyfish known as Turritopsis dohrnii is one of the many that can regenerate itself. Unlike most others, this jellyfish “ages in reverse.” It can, at any point in its life cycle, go in reverse and become a polyp again. The way it works is through cellular transdifferentiation. A process by which cells become different types of cells. Because of this, other than being eaten or killed in some other similar manner, the jellyfish is immortal. It seems to continuously just restart its cycle. With this in mind, the jellyfish is also reproducing. This could lead to possible problems in the future since the jellyfish is multiplying but not dying off. It’s already begun to spread and thrives in most, if not all, the world’s oceans.

We’ve only just begun to take advantage of all the possibilities that come from sea life. Many other sea creatures such as sharks (immune to cancer) can open the door to unthinkable medical advances.

http://www.livescience.com/16752-gfp-protein-fluorescent-nih-nigms.html

http://jvi.asm.org/content/80/11/5156.full

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/magazine/can-a-jellyfish-unlock-the-secret-of-immortality.html?pagewanted=all

I have been a vegetarian for about a year and a half now and my boyfriend has been one for about 6 months. Many people have very strong opinions about this way of life, especially in a state where meat is viewed as absolutely necessary for every breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack. However, studies have found that those of us who do not eat meat may actually have lower risks of disease and overall better health.

There are several types of vegetarians, however the majority of vegetarians, including myself, are lacto-ovovegetarians, meaning we do not eat any meat but do eat eggs and dairy products.  Many people confuse vegetarians with vegans, who do not eat any animal products including eggs, dairy, and sometimes honey. There are also variations of vegetarians who eat fish but no other meat (pescatarian) or only chicken (pollotarian). The studies say, however, that as long as someone is eating little to no meat they will at least receive some of the health benefits.

The first benefit I noticed when I became a vegetarian was weight loss, which is a reason why many people become a vegetarian. The reasons for this weight loss are stated in an article on atasteofhealth.org, which are that vegetable diets are typically lower in fats and sugars than the average meat diet. With this being said it is understandable why there are so many other health benefits to becoming a vegetarian.

In a study on health.harvard.edu it is stated that vegetarians are 25% less likely than meat eaters to die of heart disease. This was found in a combination of studies involving 76,000 people and a later study of 65,000 people by Oxford cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Oxford) found that vegetarians are 19% less likely to die of heart disease. One of the health benefits for being a vegetarian listed on brown.edu for becoming a vegetarian is a lower risk of developing heart disease (they also list a lower risk for developing “Colorectal, ovarian, and breast cancers, Diabetes, Obesity, and Hypertension (high blood pressure)”). Many of these are also echoed in the Harvard article with studies to accompany them.

With all of this being said it is somewhat suspicious that two studies found different findings when looking at heart disease and vegetarianism. Is there a chance that there was an error in one of these studies or possibly a third variable such as a high fat vegetarian diet vs. what most would think of as an average vegetarian diet? Could the file drawer problem be at work here and there are other studies which were not published showing negative or potentially negative results?

With all of this being said it seems pretty likely that there at least a few benefits to becoming a vegetarian if not many. As a science student if I were not already a vegetarian I would seriously consider it and look at what I have to give up and if it outweighed the health benefits which I have found. If the benefits outweigh what you have to give up and you are interested in this lifestyle, more information on becoming a vegetarian can be found on eatright.org.

Finals week is coming up around the corner. Everyone is looking over their notes, everyones stressing and some are doing superstitious methods as a desperate attempt to remember all the material. One easy new tip that has been proven to help people remember their notes better is to type your notes up, and then print them out in a silly hard to read font. It is proven that silly font, or hard to read font is better remembered. Obviously, typing everything up helps you remember it. But then when reading over the printed notes, the silly font helps you remember it. This works for all subject where memorization is required.

Scientist found this out accidentally. Scientist conducted an experiment originally about font size. The experiment was to give a list of random words in different sizes to students and test which ones they remembered. The scientist had thought that the largest words would be remembered while the smaller words would be forgotten. But this was false. Larger font did not help remember the words. The scientists decided to test whether font has an impact on memory. And turns out it does! Psychologists from Princeton and Indiana University conducted a small study. There were 28 participants of both men and women. The psychologists gave the participants a reading about 3 different species of aliens, each species had seven different characteristics like “blue eyes” or “eats pollen”. Half of the participants read the information from the standard Arial font and the other half read the article in Bodoni MT. Bodoni is an unfamiliar font which is harder to read. Those who had studied in the harder-to-read fonts outperformed the others on the test, 85.5 percent to 72.8 percent, on average. (article here)

After these results were found a much larger study was conducted. “involving 222 students at a public school in Chesterland, Ohio. One group had all its supplementary study materials, in English, history and science courses, reset in an unusual font, like Monotype Corsiva. The others studied as before. After the lessons were completed, the researchers evaluated the classes’ relevant tests and found that those students who’d been squinting at the stranger typefaces did significantly better than the others in all the classes” (article here)

The theory behind this is if the font is written in a harder to read font then you cannot skim through the material. You must sit and actually read every word which makes you remember it. If you are concentrating on what each word says then you will be more likely to remember it. Although there has only been two studies. The two studies have been consistent with their findings. I know for my finals I plan on studying with silly font. Because whats to lose!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/health/19mind.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://lifehacker.com/5672301/hard-to-read-fonts-can-make-text-easier-to-remember

When I was 14 I was obsessed with a show called “Past Lives” on Fox Television. I had my alarm set for every Tuesday at 9 because it interested me so much. It fully convinced me that the life we are living right now is not the only life we have experienced. For the past 4 years I have always wondered if it was just an extremely believable TV show, or if it was the real deal. The definition of reincarnation is “ the religious or philosophical concept that the soul or spirit, after biological death, can begin a new life in a new body.” Many religions reject the belief of reincarnation, especially Christianity where reincarnation is not stated in the bible. Looking past religious beliefs, there is clear evidence that reincarnation is credible. Consider “old souls”. An old soul is someone who is “wise beyond their years” and often finds interest in different generations…to them, it just comes naturally. Consider phobias. Have you ever gotten an extensive answer as to why spiders scare you so much?

            Medical Doctor, Ian Stevenson performs extensive research on children in order to piece together their past live stories. A particular study that caught my eye was one done on Rashid Khaddege of Lebanon. Rashid was born in 1943 and at the age of 25 (1968), he was killed in a car accident where his friend Ibrahim was driving. About a year later, a boy named Daniel Jurdi was born. Daniels first word was “Ibrahim.” When Daniel was about two years old he started explain to his mother that where they were living was not his home. He begged his parents to let him go “home”, and later explained that they were not his parents and that his father, Naim, was dead. Naim was Rashids father. Also when Daniel was two, a family member tried to pronounce the name of the Kfarmatta. Daniel then corrected his relative on the pronunciation and explained he was correct because that’s where he was from. Another instance is from when Daniel and his mother were driving. When passing a place on the coast named Military Beach, Daniel began to cry and screamed, “This is where I died.” It is said that Daniel went into extensive detail about the accident. Daniels father began to do research on deaths in Kfarmatta and there was a perfect fit for what Daniel had been describing, which was the death of Rashid Khaddege. Doctor Stevenson interviewed both families. Before the interview, Daniel asked if bananas could be served because that is what his “mom” loved. Daniel recognized all of the people present at the interview. Daniel has always had a fear of fast cars, which can be explained through his death in the previous life.

            This could be completely due to chance, but in my opinion there is WAY too much evidence and chance is not a factor (again, I am a believer this is 100% real.) I believe this is a good study and the timeline of these events is essential. The belief that Daniel had a previous life was not concluded after the first incident, it was concluded after years of research and other situations making it more believable due to time and events. Ian Stevenson has hundreds of other cases concluding past lives are legit. I am a firm believe that past lives are real, and phobias are related to an event that occurred in a different life.

http://www.datehookup.com/content-reincarnation-facts-and-resources.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation

http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/2001/03/stevenson.html

Since we have all just returned back to State College after a relaxing Thanksgiving holiday, I thought a blog that somewhat related to Thanksgiving would be interesting. After inhaling multiple plates of food last Thursday, I felt absolutely exhausted! Rumor has it that tryptpophan in Turkey can make a person feel very tired. Or is it just overeating that made me feel tired? Tryptophan is an essential amino acid that we need in our diets (since humans cant produce it on their own). We need this for our skin, digestion, and serotonin which triggers our mood. Turkey is known to have had this, but is it enough to really make us that tired after just a piece or two? Some say you may have to eat plates and plates of it and others say it is completely the turkey that is making you tired.

A few experimental studies have been conducted to see if turkey alone can put you to sleep. If you change the independent variable or tryptophan, how does this effect the dependent variable of how tired you will be? The first study was a meta-analysis that looked back on 20 years of info and showed that doses of tryptophan of 1g or more can induce drowsiness. Another study gave subjects 12g of tryptophan and they were extremely drowsy. The third found what would be in the middle, and what would probably be consumed at a meal. The concentration of this in turkey is at around 350 milligrams per 115 grams (4 ounces). To begin getting drowsy at 1 gram, you would need to eat .7 pounds of turkey, as much as a 12 pound steak! To really feel the effects of it, you would have to eat 5.4 pounds of turkey according to their math. For extreme drowsiness, you would need to eat about 8.6 pounds of turkey! Turns out, it is not the tryptophan that’s making you tired, unless you’re eating 9 pounds of turkey.

Its more than likely from the high number of calories and carbs being consumed at thanksgiving dinner, rather than just the turkey. I think that this was certainly a well conducted study. The math was done correctly and the data is convincing. However I’m sure some people get more tired from tryptophan than others. A good study would be one where people of all weights and heights have the same amount of turkey and it is reported who gets the most tired from it. Given this data, I’m pretty sure that there is a very small chance that the reason we get tired after thanksgiving meals is from the turkey. If you’re looking to go into a drowsy state after eating, try seal meat as it has 3x the amount of tryptophan!

Works Cited:

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/the-truth-about-tryptophan?page=2

http://www.nerdist.com/2014/11/how-much-turkey-would-you-need-to-eat-to-get-knocked-out-by-tryptophan-alone/

Recently, I was reading a blog post that discussed the fact that men tend to have bigger noses than females.  Apparently, this was due to the fact that men have bigger muscles and need more oxygen for their bodies.  So then I became curious as to if men could smell better than women too, due to their bigger noses.  After researching, I found some pretty interesting material.

In fact, women smell better than men but nobody has been able to figure out why until recently.  A group of scientists examined the dead bodies, who had passed over the age of 55,  of seven men and eleven women.  The thoroughly studied their brains, and especially the olfactory bulb, which is neural structure that creates the sense of smell.  The study found that on average, women have 43% more cells in their olfactory bulb than men do. Thats a huge advantage women have over men!  We know why they can smell better but for what reason?

Dag Olav Hessen on Science Nordic suggests that women are given this ability because, ” women as primary care persons have needed stronger senses, for instance to know whether food was good or bad”.  But if we are talking about gender roles here, (women are caretakers and men are hunters and gatherers), then wouldn’t men need to smell just as well?  Smelling animals and navigating would then essentially be just as important.  Johan Fredrik Storm also suggests that women are subconsciously able to smell similarity in genes, helping them choose partners that have different genes from themselves.

Whatever the reason, these findings are huge.  However, I am not sure that I trust the study conducted, due to the small number of people involved.  Also, since the researchers examined the brains of those who are deceased, how sure can we really be that they have more cells in their olfactory bulbs while living? It could be that we are born with the same amount and that over time, men lose theirs.  Or even that, women gain these cells after they pass the age of 55. Although I am not sure how unethical it would be, if this research was conducted on more bodies of a wider age range, I would be less skeptical of the findings.

Resources:

http://sciencenordic.com/women-smell-better-men

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0111733

With obesity rates sky-rocketing, it’s obvious the affects of a poor diet and processed foods have the physical health of a body, but what about the mental health of the body..? Does unhealthy eating cause unhappiness?

Drew Ramsey, a psychiatrist, says when he meets new patients he can already predict what their diet consists of – high in sugars, refined carbohydrates, and industrial vegetable fats, which does nothing good for people’s mental health. It’s no secret that obesity levels of Americans are higher than ever before, but mental diseases like dementia and depression are also rising. Is the American diet to blame for this, too? Processed foods are stripped of all the nutrients our bodies most definitely need. We’re being overfed and undernourished. One study found that Americans whose diets consist of low-quality junk food are 79% more likely to be diagnosed with depression. Another study showed that women whose diets consisted of high levels of omega-3 fats (healthy fats) were less likely to suffer from depression.

But this proposes more questions.. could their be other variables, besides an unhealthy diet that cause unhappiness? It’s no secret that junk food is faster to eat and cheaper than healthy or organic foods. So, the people buying these foods regularly might be making a low income or be stressed out from their overbooked schedules, which both could cause unhappiness. As a result, I think there’s no way to prove that an unhealthy diet directly causes unhappiness; however, there is definitely a correlation and it might be a factor to be aware of when choosing what to eat.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-ramsey-md/food-mental-health_b_1703007.html

All teenagers are guilty at some point when it comes to texting and driving, a quickly rising reason for car rashes and deaths in the world today. While we as individuals try to make what we think are smart decisions, we often tend to continue doing things that were once rewarding to us, even when the payoff is gone.

Researchers have blamed these flaws in judgment on the immaturity of the teen’s prefrontal cortex which is the part of the brain involved in making decisions. Now, researchers at the University of Iowa in Iowa City say their theory has changed to a simple answer: the idea of rewards. Even if they’re small, rewards tempt teens to act more irrationally than adults.

Psychologist Zachary Roper and his team worked with two groups of volunteers: 13 to 16year olds and 20 to 35year-old adults

Before testing began, the scientists informed the volunteers they had a target. Each had to report the orientation of the line inside a blue diamond. Groups of six symbols appeared on a computer screen, with only one of them being a diamond, and the other five: circles. In some trials, one of the five circles were red or green. In other trials, there were no red or green circles.

The volunteers were told to answer as quickly as possible, with no reward (money) being earned, while the researchers measured how long it took them to find the diamond and record answers.

When no colored circles were one of the options, both adults and teens responded quickly. But when a red or green circle showed up, both groups initially took a bit longer. Adults, quickly stopped paying attention to the colored circles, and their response times sped up. Teens, though, took longer to respond when a red or green circle showed up, and their response time never sped up.

Their attention still was drawn to the previously valued circles, which in a trial prior,the red circles provided a small 2 cent reward while the green circles provided a larger 10 cent reward — even though the shapes no longer brought any reward. Clearly, the red and green circles were distracting teens from their goal.

Brian Anderson, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University who was no involved in the study says that this data may help explain why teens engage in risky behavior.

Getting a text or using social media triggers the brain’s reward system. Once the brain links the behavior to the reward, we are more compelled to continue to do it. This is why we text while driving when we should be paying attention to the road instead.

Next time you’re driving, remember that your safety is what is most important, and checking your “like’s” on Instagram can wait ten minutes.

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/distracted-teenage-brain?mode=topic&context=39

Did you know your parents have turned you into a liar? Well, that is, only if they’ve ever lied to you.  Research has found that kids who are lied to by adults, are more likely to lie themselves.  So, maybe if your parents ever catch you in a lie, you can blame it on the fact that they told you Santa was real while you were growing up.

A recent study was conducted by Chelsea Hays and Leslie Carver, which tested the impact of lying on children.  Around 200 3-7 year olds participated in an experiment where they were randomly assigned to be lied to or not.  In one case, the children were told there was candy waiting for them in the room. Once they got to the room, the experimenter then told them that they were lying, there were no sweets for them, and they were actually there to play a game.  In the other case, the children were told they were to go into the room to play the game and there were no lies told.

The children were then asked to play a game in which they were asked to recognize an object with their backs turned to it by using auditory cues.  For example, the sound “Tickle Me”, would play and the child would be able to guess that an Elmo toy was sitting behind them.  The experimenter then acted as if they had to take an urgent call and told the children not to peek behind them at the toys (which of course, almost all of them did).  After being asked if they peeked or not, 88% of the 5-7 year olds who were lied to originally did not admit lying, while 65% of the 5-7 who were not lied to did not admit lying.  For the 3-5 year olds, it did not matter if they were lied to or not, 50% admitted guilt no matter what.

Readers Digest has concluded from research that parents do not think lying to their children affects them.  This could be very detrimental to children’s personalities.  It is very apparent from the study that even the smallest of lies affect the way children view integrity.  However, this study is flawed because it could be that children are not as affected by parental lies as much as they are by a random adults.  But at the same time, it is also possible that they could be affected more by their parents lies.  I would think the latter because children mimic and learn from their parents ways more than they do random adults. I think this study would be more interesting if it was conducted with parents instead.

One other interesting thing about this study is that the 3-5 year olds were not affected whatsoever.  This could be due to the fact that the part in their brains has not yet developed in which they are able to understand they have been lied to.  Even though they weren’t affected, I’m still shocked almost all of the 3-5 year olds lied in the first place!

Resources:

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/11/lying-to-your-kids-will-turn-them-into-liars.html

http://digest.bps.org.uk/2014/11/when-we-lie-to-children-are-we-teaching.html

The number of children who are diagnosed with autism is on the rise, and the numbers are quite scary. Why have the numbers increased so much in the past decade or so? Is there something that is making the numbers rise or are there just more children actually being diagnosed? There are no definite answers, but some people have theories, as we talked about in class with the genomes.

The Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network monitors 8 year olds and estimates the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). According to ADDM, in 2010, the results showed that 14.7 per 1,000 or 1 in 68 children had autism. Boys are much more likely to be autistic with 1 in 42 boys and 1 in 189 girls having autism in the region being monitored. White children are 30% more likely to have ASD than black children and 50% more likely to have ASD than Hispanic children. 46% were average or above average intellectually (IQ >85, 31% were intellectually challenged (IQ<70), and 23% were on the border of each (IQ 71-85). The average age of the earliest diagnosis was 53 months (Prevalence of ASD).

In the 1990s, 6.2 of every 10,000 children were diagnosed with autism by age 5, compared with 42.5 in 10,000 in 2001 (Code). It is crazy how much the numbers rose in 10 years, and they have continued to rise since then as show in the last paragraph. The opinions about causes vary. Some people think exposure to chemicals during pregnancy alters the brain triggering autism, and others think childhood vaccines cause autism. A study showed a potential link between autism and phthalates which are found in vinyl and cosmetics such as hand soap.

The main cause that is being studies now is genetics and genomes. According to Autism Speaks, the Autism Genome Project which started in 2004 is the largest project studying the link of autism and genes. It is still only in the first phase, but the first steps were getting DNA samples from 1,200 families which researched then studies for increased or decreased susceptibility to developing autism (Genetics and Genomes). Phase 2 will be a three year process which takes the information found in phase 1 in those genomes, and compares it to other genomes to find consistency with genes that could be linked with autism to either confirm or rule out certain certain genes.

Since this study is still in the process of being completed, there are not results at this time. But, there is great hope that they will find something that gives an answer as to why autism is rising so much. It is a scary epidemic for parents and for children. The beginning information the Autism Genome Project has found has already helped make a difference in understanding autism.

Sources:

“Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children Aged 8 Years — Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, 11 Sites, United States, 2010.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Mar. 2014. Web. 04 Dec. 2014.

“Genetics and Genomics.” Autism Speaks. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2014.

Cone, Marla. “New Study: Autism Linked to Environment.” Scientific American Global RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2014.

I know personally I always sleep in a pitch dark room because my Mom always said it promoted better sleep.  Of course she never told me why or if there was any science behind it, you just believe your Mom when she tells you something.  I have become so accustomed to this that i find it hard to sleep with even a night light in the room.  After reading this recent study I am very glad that I sleep the way that I do because Ohio State Researchers have published a report saying that sleeping with a light on at night makes you gain weight.  This may seem a little bit crazy but researchers aren’t claiming this without proof of course.

The study took mice and housed them in 3 different conditions that are as follows: “24 hours of constant light, a standard light-dark cycle (16 hours of light at 150 lux, 8 hours of dark), or 16 hours of daylight and 8 hours of dim light (about 5 lux of light).”

After a week into the study, the mice that spent night time hours in a dim light showed an increased body mass over the other two groups.  Throughout the rest of the trial, the same results followed.  The final results showed that the light-at-night mice had gained about 12 grams of body fat compared to only those in the standard light cycle who only gained 8.  The weight that the dim light-at-night mice gained showed higher levels of epididymal fat and impaired glucose tolerance fat, which are both markers of pre-diabetes.

Ohio States lead researcher Laura Fonken, reported her findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and added that she believes it has to do with when food is eaten.  An additional part of the experiment was to restrict eating to the regular times and to also let them have free range.  Because the lights were on non-stop the mice were unable to gauge when their normal eating times were.  When the eating was kept during normal times, the mice did not gain nearly as much weight.  When given the chance to eat when they thought it was time, they gained more weight.  Fonken believes that the time you consume the food has a lot to do with if you gain weight or not.  The reason for this may be to do with the light interrupting levels of hormone melatonin which plays a part in your metabolism.  The light also disrupts the expression of clock genes which helps to give the animals control on their feeding and active times.

This study is another key part to one day solving our obesity epidemic.  “Light at night is an environmental factor that may be contributing to the obesity epidemic in ways that people don’t expect,” said co-researcher Randy Nelson.  There have been previous studies that looked at the long term use of television or computer use in the bedroom and are tying that to increased obesity.  Figuring out all the different pieces to this puzzle won’t be a quick fix but this study may just help push it in the right direction.

I think this study is pretty cool because it encompass a few things that I wanted to talk about.  Another student recently posted a blog about whether eating after 8PM really made you gain weight or not.  They stated that because you are drawn to higher fat foods at night that could cause weight gain but otherwise, it doesn’t really matter when you eat as long as your getting the normal amount of daily calories.  I would like to argue that point and I think that this study shows some really interesting ways to do that.  The light effects you more than you would assume because it messes up what your body thinks is supposed to happen.  Do I think that the light at night really makes you gain the weight? No, there are a number of third variable as well as chance that could play a key role in that.  However, I do believe that overtime the light at night could play a significant role in weight gain because of what it does to your internal clock.  I think this study has a little while to go before we 100% confirm this theory but it’s definitely off to a good and promising start.

www.buzzfeed.com

Lighten up to get heavy

For my younger siblings in elementary school back home, it’s that time of the year again – PSSA testing week. For those people who did not attend grade school in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) is a statewide, standardized test. Given the modern emphasis on standardized testing in primary education, it seems that policy makers hold the high expectation that all students should meet these standards. The debate whether struggling students benefit more from repeating a grade or from moving ahead with their same-age peers, is one that has resurfaced in recent years in response to increasing pressures to improve school performance. At the elementary level, “young-for-grade” kindergarteners have been shown to experience a disproportionate risk of retention compared to their “old-for-grade” classmates.

Retention refers to the practice of requiring a student who has been in a given grade level for a full school year, to remain at that level for a subsequent school year. In the United States, approximately 10% of students from kindergarten to the eighth grade have been retained at least once. Also, the largest proportion of grade repeaters, making up 34.1% of the total population, was held back in either kindergarten or the first grade.

In the study, “Further Understanding Factors Associated With Grade Retention: Birthday Effects and Socio-Emotional Skills,” researchers sought to investigate factors associated with kindergarten retention. They also examined if socio-emotional skills, such as attentiveness, mediated the association of age on kindergarten retention. Investigators utilized multilevel logistic regression models to test whether certain positive and negative socio-emotional skills were related to the likelihood of grade repetition.

The study sample only included schools that had indicated their designated cutoff date by which students must turn five. Moreover, the study sample was composed only of first-time kindergarteners and excluded children who entered kindergarten at a young age or were held back. These strategies served to reduce the issue of selection bias.

Ultimately, researchers analyzed 7711 first-time kindergarteners that were enrolled on time in public schools that did not specifically prohibit students from being retained in kindergarten. By examining this specific subpopulation, researchers were still able to study a large majority of kindergarteners, while also ensuring less biased comparisons.

The independent variable that researchers examined was the relative age of the child at the time of kindergarten entry. This was computed using the schools designated cutoff date in comparison to the child’s birthdate. Also at the onset of the study, teachers and parents each rated students individually on a Social Rating Scale, which measured the frequency of occurrence of different types of behaviors using a scale of 1 (never), 2 (sometimes), 3 (often), and 4 (very often). They reported behavior including the following:

1. Approaches to learning
2. Self-control
3. Interpersonal skills
4. Externalizing problem behaviors
5. Internalizing problem behaviors

Because this survey method was used, some response bias is inevitable. However, investigators attempted to control for this by excluding participants whose parent’s and teacher’s surveys expressed very dissimilar results.

Another confounding variable that potentially affected the results of the study is the nature of why children were retained. The information of whether teachers or parents initiated the retention process and their motivations for doing so were unknown. According to the study, “Teachers (and parents) may view retention in the early grades as helpful rather than punitive.” Their concern about their child repeating a later grade might cause them to choose to have it done with early on.

Lastly, despite the fact that a large, nationally representative sample dataset was used, the study is still observational in nature. Thus, it is not fully possible to draw clear causal inferences regarding socio-emotional skills, relative age, and retention from the results of this study. Nonetheless, the study yields the important conclusion that a disproportionate number of young-for-grade students were retained in kindergarten, compared to their relatively older peers.

Ultimately, the findings exemplify the potential need for a renewed emphasis on grade retention as an educational remedy for underachieving children. In order to help students reach their full academic potential, it is vital that educators address the academic, behavioral and mental health needs of children when not only recommending grade retention, but also when teaching in general. Perhaps further research on the success and failure rates of students in the years after their retention may provide a lens into the effectiveness of this practice.

Sources:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0193397313001081

http://www.nasponline.org/communications/spawareness/Grade%20Retention.pdf

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009081.pdf

How much does power affect us? It can make us do some crazy things of course, but did you know it could go so far as to change the tone of your voice?  According to a recent study, we actually detect power by the nuances in ones voice.

This study was broken down into two parts.  The first experiment recorded 161 college students reading a passage where they dealt with negotiation aloud in their normal voices.  After that, the participants were either assigned a “high-rank position”, where they were told they knew valuable information, or a “low-rank position”, where they were told they were unimportant in the workplace.  Then, the participants were asked to read a script in which they were going into business negotiations into further detail.  According to Psychological Science, “the researchers found that the voices of students assigned to high-power roles tended to go up in pitch, become more monotone (less variable in pitch), and become more variable in loudness than the voices of students assigned low-power roles.”

The second experiment then had new participants listen to the recordings that were conducted in the first part. They were then asked questions about how powerful they thought those recorded were to be. The results were astonishing.  72% of the time the second experiment participants were able to label the “low-rank position” speakers as weak, while 73% of the time they were able to label the “high-rank position” speakers as powerful.

Not only did I find the fact that we are able to identify power in voices so distinctively mind boggling, but I also was stunned by the fact that the pitch in our voices can change simply after reading a script. The study did not say whether or not it was a double blind trial or not but I think this could affect the facts if it weren’t.  If participants know they are being tested for power and are given the “high-rank position”, of course their voices would change to be more assertive  (because generally people want to support they hypothesis of the study).  However, I feel this was a very well conducted study if the participants were not aware they were being tested for power.  Overall, it is still crazy to know that our voices change when we feel powerful and that other people can subconsciously notice!

References:

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/11/20/0956797614553009.abstract

The Sound of Status: People Know High-Power Voices When They Hear Them

This past week when I was at home my friend decided to remove hair on her body by using the product Nair. Nair is a type of hair removal cream. It seemed to work well for her, but it got me wondering how it really worked and what the science was behind it.

When looking at an article on livestrong.com I discovered that Nair works by “dissolving bonds between keratin proteins in the hair shaft.” This is why Nair basically melts the hair off someones leg. Since it doesn’t kill the follicle of hair, it will eventually regrow, but not as fast as it would if the user was shaving. Nair says that their products are not tested on animals, so therefore the sample size must be all people who are using Nair. Nair is said to cause hair to grow back at a slower rate than it would if someone was waxing. While many claim this, this might not be true. All Nair does is essentially melt the hair off a persons leg, so the follicle will still grow at the same rate.

I couldn’t find any information about what types of experiments were done to test Nair, except that Nair was not tested on animals. I would assume that in order to find out whether or not Nair makes leg hair grow back at a slower rate, many different case studies would be utilized. I can imagine that they would have people use Nair and report back how long it took for their leg hair to start growing back in. They could then compare that to how long their leg hair grew back while shaving. Nair may claim that their product causes leg hair to grow back at a slower rate, but in actuality this could also be due to chance.

Overall, after seeing this information, I not only learned how Nair works, but I have come to the conclusion that it probably does not work any better or worse than shaving. Neither Nair nor shaving kill the hair follicle, so it makes sense that they would both grow back at the same rate considering the follicle is still working. I think shaving versus Nair is more of an opinion/preference, since it seems like they both work equally as well. For myself, I would probably choose to shave just because of complications that could happen because Nair contains many chemicals.

More recently than ever, many people push society to stop using politically incorrect terms so lightly (and in wrong ways). As I walk out of the elevator of my dorm building and onto my floor, I see signs put up by my RA. The main sign reads, “WATCH WHAT YOU SAY!” and around it are smaller signs that read, “That’s so gay,” “That test just raped me,” “I failed my test, I’m retarded,” and “Ewh, that’s so ghetto!” Sitting in my psychology class as we learned about mental illness and disorders, I began to see and understand that society abuses these types of labels as well. People regularly say, “You are so psycho,” or “Wow, you’re bipolar.”

Many people throw these terms around so lightly in a jokingly manner because they don’t necessarily think that the diseases actually exist; they think the symptoms are all in the patient’s head. However, these are mental disorders are real and should not to be joked about.They are biological medical conditions that can be diagnosed and treated.

Mood disorders are disturbances in emotion and are also referred to as affective disorders. Although the range of human emotions runs deep from intense sadness and despair to extreme happiness, most people just tend to stay in between those extremes.  Stress and other factors can push someone to the edge of these extremes, which is how some mood disorders come about.

Mood disorders are either classified as “Bipolar and Related Disorders,” or “Depressive Disorders.” Major Depressive disorder is when a deeply depressed mood comes on fairly suddenly and either seems to be too severe for the circumstances or exists without any external causes for sadness. However, I wanted to focus more on Bipolar disorder; this is when a person experiences periods of mood that can range from severe depression to manic episodes (excessive excitement, energy, and elation). Someone with this disorder could possibly feel normal and have manic episodes, or they could also experience episodes of depression.

I wanted to focus on this because a long time ago, my family came to realize that one of my aunts who married into our family had Bipolar Disorder. We began noticing that sometimes she would always be around and be extremely happy to see us and extremely talkative. Other times she just wouldn’t come around or would be extremely depressed and irritable. Being so young, I didn’t understand how someone could possibly be so happy one day and so sad the next. It is then that we found out that her mother also suffers from Bipolar disorder, and later we found out that her daughter suffers from it as well.

According to “Psychology,” by Ciccarelli White, more than 65 percent of people with bipolar disorder have at least one close relative with either bipolar disorder and major depression. Twin studies have shown that if one identical twin has either major depression or bipolar disorder, the chances that the other twin will also have it are 40 to 70 percent.

According to DBSA Alliance, bipolar disorder affects approximately 5.7 million adult Americans, or about 2.6% of the US population age 18 and older every year. DBSA also states that although bipolar disorder is equally common in women and men, research indicates that approximately three times as many women as men experience rapid cycling, which is seen in my aunt’s family.

Although there are medications to treat bipolar disorder, however there are times when my aunt prefers not to take them. These are times that my family can easily see that she is not being herself again. DBSA says that Nearly 9 out of 10 consumers with bipolar disorder are satisfied with their current medications, although side affects remain a problem. This is why my aunt sometimes does not want to take her medications.

So next time you joke around and call someone you got into an argument with “bipolar,” make sure you rethink that title because bipolar disorder is something that some people have to live with and revolve their lives around; it is not a fun thing to have.

It seems as though everyday another one of my friends tells me they’re going gluten-free. Recently, whenever I’m roaming the grocery store looking for snacks I see the label saying “gluten-free” on almost every bag. Why has everyone become to obsessed with a gluten-free diet lately. My friends and just about everyone else on the planet claims they have a gluten allergy. Why  are gluten allergies becoming more and more popular?

People whose bodies cannot fully digest gluten are diagnosed with celiac disease, or a gluten allergy. The undigested protein triggers the immune system to attack the lining of the small intestine, which causes very unpleasant reactions. According to articles.morcola.com, a study using frozen blood vessels from fifty years ago found that intolerance of wheat gluten is four times as likely today than it was fifty years ago. It’s possible that people are just becoming more aware than over before of the health effects of too much gluten or the American diet has caused people to develop this disease. The later is most likely true.

For those with celiac disease, overtime their small intestine will become increasingly damaged and less able to absorb nutrients such as iron and calcium, which can then lead to other serious health problems. Many people blame the changes in modern diet for the increasing development of celiac disease. It’s no secret that the Western modern diet consists of more grain carbohydrates  than ever before in history.

Celiac disease has also been linked to cause Dementia in the long-run, but this got me thinking that maybe there could be reverse causation. Dementia could be the cause of an early development of celiac disease or vice versa. Either way, the development of celiac disease and the attention of gluten in diets has definitely increased over the years.

http://www.foodrenegade.com/the-rise-of-gluten-intolerance/

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/23/why-is-wheat-gluten-disorder-on-the-rise.aspx

A controversial topic among scientists is whether or not stress can cause cancer. As we near the end of the semester and begin to study for finals, is this something we should be worried about? It appears that from the evidence we have so far, we might be okay.

Studies by uniformed services university of health sciences found that the “evidence that stress can cause cancer is weak.” (cancer.gov) They go on to say that stress can lead to a variety of bad habits such as smoking or drinking that could lead to cancer but those are indirect causes. Although some people argue that stress does cause some kinds of cancer, there is no evidence to date that can prove it. Even though we do not have evidence that stress has a direct correlation to cancer, researcher Dr. Ron Glaser at Ohio State university performed studies that showed students under pressure seemed to have “slower healing wounds and took longer to produce immune system cells.” (psychcentral.com) Stress may not be a direct cause of cancer but it does seem to have an effect on our bodies.

Other studies show that although stress doesn’t cause cancer researchers believe it may be involved in helping cancer spread. According to the cancer.gov web page, “Evidence from experimental studies does suggest that psychological stress can affect a tumor’s ability to grow and spread.” Researchers believe the master gene ATF3 that is used to help genes adapt to stress could be involved in helping cancer spread throughout the body. Research shows that cancer cells are able to switch on ATF3 in immune cells, causing the cells to malfunction and allow tumor cells to escape to other parts of the body.

Although some researchers do think there is a link between stress and cancer, we have no evidence to date that can prove this connection. The absolute risk in this scenario could potentially be death depending on the severity of the cancer, but we really have no way of completely avoiding stress in our lives. We would accept the null hypothesis here that stress does not have a direct correlation to cancer. In order to come to an accurate conclusion we would need to see more data and take into account a plethora of third variables.

http://psychcentral.com/lib/stress-a-cause-of-cancer/000754

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265254.php

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/studies-no-clear-link-between-stress-and-cancer-returning

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

http://epilepsyu.com/blog/study-sheds-light-epilepsy-stress/

Most people today are familiar with the old wife’s tail the “five second rule.” That rule we learned when we were young where if we drop a piece of food on the ground we have five seconds to pick it up before it becomes “un-edible.” I know personally I always use this rule even though I know it might not be true. It appears though that there might actually be some scientific evidence to back this theory up.

Research out of Ashton University performed a study that showed that the five-second rule actually does have some truth to it. The study was performed by final year biology students and led by professor Anthony Hilton. In this experiment they observed the transfer of E. Coli and staphylococcus aureus from various types of food to multiple types of flooring. The types of flooring they used consisted of carpet, laminate and tile floors. For food they tested pasta, toast, biscuits, and some sort of sticky sweet. Than tested many different combinations when they were in contact from a range of 3 to 30 seconds

In their results, they concluded that, “time is a significant factor in the transfer of bacteria from a floor surface to a piece of food.” They also concluded that it also depends what type of food and what surface you drop it on. It appears that if you drop food on a carpeted surface, bacteria is much less likely to transfer from the carpet to the food. They also found that if you drop moist foods on either tile or laminate surfaces for more than 5 seconds there is a much higher risk of bacteria transferring to your food.

Overall, I think this experimental trial does show that there is some truth to the “five-second” rule. Chance is always present so for that reason we cannot be absolutely certain that this theory is true but the results do reject the null hypothesis that the five second rule is only a myth. We do not know the absolute risk of eating a piece of food after five seconds but we do know there is increased relative risk involved. If a piece of food (especially moist) were to be dropped on the floor, a reasonable person probably should stay away from eating it after five seconds.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/274012.php

http://www.aston.ac.uk/about/news/releases/2014/march/five-second-food-rule-does-exist/

We know that the moon affects the tide. We know that the moon affects the animals behavior. And we know the moon affects different insect behavior as well. Yet can the moon affect human behavior or is the idea of a werewolf something to be left in the movies? The full moon myth has been around for years. Its the idea that people’s moods or behaviors seem to change when there is a full moon. this idea has been portrayed to the extreme within movies for years. Its not the idea that when the full moon is out you become a monster, its just the idea that a persons mood or behavior might change to the point where they are more energetic, strange or just all around different.Yet is there really a correlation or is this just another myth brought upon by folktale.

This idea has been studied using different observational experiments, as the correlation between behavior and lunar phase is seemingly non existent. Even though the correlation has not been proven there are still cases where the idea is not so far fetched. For example according to an article on BBC named “Does A Full Moon Make People Mad” written by Claudia Hammond, it states that there have been cases where hospitals visits and violent/illegal acts increased during the time of a full moon. Now is is not proven that the moon caused this increase but this was not a one time deal. In fact this was a reoccurring event that caused the amount of staff on call to increase to help handle the increase.

Some studies that have been done about this topic monitor the amount a person was sleeping during the time of a full moon. One study in particular was done using 33 volunteers and the results do not lie. The results showed that there was a decrease in not only sleep time on average but also within the chemical releases within the brain.”We have evidence that the distance to the nearest full-moon phase significantly influences human sleep and evening melatonin levels when measured under strictly controlled laboratory conditions, where factors such as light and personal moon perception can be excluded,” (study authors).

As most of you know there is a direct correlation between mood and sleep as we become easily agitated or “cranky” when we lose sleep. Yet this study that was performed put the subjects within a room in which no light from the moon was able to be seen, and still the subjects had a harder time going to sleep and they had a different sleep pattern than what they normally do. Thus brining up the idea that maybe the moon does not effect the behavior, maybe the moon effects your sleep patterns which then changes your behavior. These countless studies have yet to get a definite answer yet most are pointing to the idea that the moon does not change how one acts yet it may still change how they sleep. So now the next time theres a full moon take a look at those around you or even at yourself and take note to see if there are any behavioral changes or changes within your sleep patterns.

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/26/full-moon-may-disrupt-sleep-study-says/

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131029-does-a-full-moon-make-people-mad

http://www.lunarcalendar.org/