The idea of surgery in general spooks a lot of people. Everyone does their best to console patients who are nervous about being sliced open or poked around inside. However, sometimes it does not go as planned. What would you do if you woke up during the surgery being performed on your body? You are unable to speak. You cannot move. You feel the sensation of the surgery still going, and you are frozen for five full minutes to experience it.

This is one of the horrific cases that happen to roughly one in 19,600 patients. This study surveyed over three million patients who underwent general anesthesia in the United Kingdom and Ireland. More relatable studies about us citizens in the United States have worse news. One in every one thousand surgical patients wakes up during surgery in the US. A high portion of this number is from the amount of surgeries that require lower dosages of anesthesia. This includes emergency C-sections, cardiac and emergency trauma surgeries. Dealing with fragile people whose bodies demand dangerous medical procedures should not be given massive amount of anesthesia. It could put them “over the edge.”

Another factor that may contribute to this would be paralytics. When these are used, patients are unable to move and let doctors know that they are conscious. Doctors are taught ways to monitor periodically that people are still asleep, but they are not always reliable. Methods include testing of heart rate and blood pressure. They may rise when a person wakes up and becomes nervous and alert; however, the drugs being used often numb the body’s stress response. The amount of gas used in a person’s lungs are measured continuously, but if impacts each person differently.

A solution to this problem may be brain monitors. Doctors would be in charge of using the monitors to keep “brain activity below a certain threshold” during surgery. Professor Jaideep Pandi, consultant anesthetist at Oxford University Hospitals says that some studies show no signs of reduction in the rate of anesthetic awareness when these monitors are used.

I cannot imagine having to sit through something like that. The feeling that people have talked about in this CNN article terrifies me. “Among the symptoms experienced during the event, paralysis was the most distressing to patients — more so than pain,” says Pandit. Patients have developed severe posttraumatic stress disorder from this occurrence. Carol Weihrer had to sleep in a recliner for the last 16 years in fear of lying down and having flashbacks that cause her to starting thrashing. Another young boy showed signs of separation anxiety before speaking with a therapist about his nightmares that continue to haunt him. I hope that some day people do not have to innocently go through this experience. Surgery must already be difficult; people should not have to worry about waking up during it.

Malcolm X once said, “Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it’s more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody’s blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless.” Cowardly or not, that is how the vulture survives. Not many animals can survive like it either. They always seem to make work with what they’ve got. Vultures can feast an animal covered in deadly microbes, and still be immune to them. Vultures typically eat rotting flesh, sometimes even through body cavities often consuming fecal matter. Helpless, dead, or dismantled carcass- whatever you’d like to call it, is consumed by the vulture in a way that have scientists baffled.

Vultures have immunity toward these microbes. Microorganisms like this that cause disease or fermentation would make a quick kill of any other animal. Researchers have looked into the intestines of vultures to see why these animals stand out against the microbes. DNA located in the intestines includes 76 types of different microorganisms. Lars Hestbjerg Hansen is a microbiologist at Aarhus University in Denmark. He is also the author on a new study on these birds. He admits that although it would feel as though the microbiome inside vultures is complex to make it better, it is actually quite simple.

Hansen thinks that over some period of time, vultures have made an adaptation. They have made it possible to surpass the disease and eat past the toxic bacteria in carcasses. He also suggests that the digestive system may destroy the bacteria, since it does not show up in the stool of vultures. With all of the horrific diseases going into vultures and nothing going out, my first thought was to question if vultures are spreading diseases. However, Dr. Hansen says that there are no signs indicating this. 

It is amazing to me that we have no real idea where or why this happens. The human body seems so complex and varied, yet we have professionals and medical practitioners. This is a bird that eats DEADLY things and we can’t figure out what is going on in that little body. I would be interested to see how further testing on this would go. How would you try to find something like this out?

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/science/a-vultures-gut-is-simple-but-seems-effective.html?ref=science

The holiday season is here. What better way to celebrate than with food? New York Times gives a word to the wise: “Measure your nutmeg carefully. Very carefully.” Nutmeg is known as one of the more “interesting” spices in the kitchen by most toxicologists. This season, teenagers wound up in poison control centers. The effects of nutmeg are not anything like food poisoning. They are considered “exotic.” Years ago, nutmeg apparently mad a man spit at strangers while walking on the street. We have seen these side effects for a while now. Nutmeg was used to end unwanted pregnancies in the Middle Ages. More recently, prisoners use it as a drug substitute. At one point it was thought to fight the Black Plague. It is said to be “stimulating enough to bring on menstruation, poisonous enough to induce an abortion.” Last, let’s not forget about the high-like state that may include hallucinations. Malcolm X once said, “A penny matchbox full of nutmeg had the kick of three or four reefers.”

More common symptoms include intense nausea, dizziness, cottonmouth, and much slower brain function. People even forget what happened while they are in this state. It is compared to a two-day hangover. Nutmeg contains myristicin and safrole. Myristicin has psychoactive potential, while safrole is sometimes used in Ecstasy. Teenagers like the ones mentioned have been getting themselves into their own chemistry lab of trouble, thinking that the results from nutmeg while be like synthetic drugs. In a ten-year period, 17 cases found were accidental whereas 15 were deliberate. In a larger study done, 72.3% of the poison cases were from intentional use.

This article was very interesting to me because I had never heard of anything beyond spray paint that people tried to get high from in their homes. I suppose the idea of real food doing that by accident is also a bit frightening when you least expect it. I did not know the history of nutmeg and found it’s toxic history interesting. Personally, I found this scientific article to be legit. Not only does is have patients that were willing to admit their experiments with nutmeg, but there were even reports throughout history that people used it to become under the influence. I had no idea a spice could do that to your body, especially one we use this time of year! Enjoy the holiday spice in moderation.

source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/a-warning-on-nutmeg/?ref=science

In grade school, it probably got girls out of gym class. It even keeps some from going to school at all. It is the wonderful gift Mother Nature has given women, periods. The United States National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health shared an interesting topic regarding women’s menstrual cycles. The investigation was based around rotating shift work and menstrual cycle characteristics. Information on shift work and menstrual cycle patterns in the Nurses’ Health Study II was collected from 1993. This consisted of 71,077 nurses from 28-45 who were not on birth control.

This is a study that showed that women whose work shifts change are modestly associated with menstrual function. There are “possible implications for fertility and other cycle related aspects of women’s health.” Women with over twenty months of rotating shifts had more irregular cycles. They were also more likely to have a cycle length less than twenty-one days or greater than 40 days. This is a very wide difference that strays from the average “one month mark.”

Reuters.com has information that agrees with this hypothesis. They have reviewed the facts that involved the NLM, but are still questioning how much of this is relevant for the disturbance in women’s cycles. Lead researcher, Christina C. Lawson of the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says that shift work itself does not directly lead us to believe it disrupts women’s periods. She addresses factors such as age, weight, and exercise levels. She believes that there in more confidence in association so far, but that does not mean it is as simple as cause-and-effect.

Night shifts have been seen to disrupt natural circadian rhythms, which alters blood pressure and hormone production. Although this is an observation made by scientists, they are still unsure of the “exact mechanism”. Melatonin is supposed to be produced during the night while in darkness to help regulate sleep. When people do not sleep or are exposed to light, this could impact their bodies. However, melatonin is not specifically related to reproductive hormones. Overall, I am not sure what could come of this study. It seems as though even with a large group of people, there are varied results. This may go to show that even with thousands and thousands of women in a study, the answer can still be hidden.

other source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

Personally, when I go to see my doctor, whether it’s for a check-up or for an illness, I always trust what they say. I don’t have a medical degree or anything, so of course I cannot properly diagnose myself. They went to school and studied to become a doctor, which I of course, have not done. Now, it may not be the best idea to leave your health in someone’s hands, but what do I know? Yes, I know some small things here and there, but any doctor’s knowledge far exceeds mine. For example, when I separated my AC joint in my shoulder last fall during a football game, I went to see my orthopedic doctor. To fix my shoulder, I needed my orthopedics’ help and expertise; there was no way I knew myself what to do to get healthy. So naturally, I put my faith with him to help heal me. It wasn’t really a “leap of faith”, as I was used to trusting doctors, but it got me thinking; do doctors’ always know what’s best for you? Is it wise to just blindly agree with whatever they say?

My intrigue led me to a study about the effects of aspirin on your heart. Prescribing aspirin to patients in order to reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke is a common practice among doctors that has been occurring for quite some time. However, a new study from Japan suggests that this drug isn’t all that is cracked up to be. The study that was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association observed the effects of aspirin on the heart, and the results were astonishing. The trial took around 14,000 male and female subjects between the ages of 60 and 85, and split them into to groups. One was the experimental group that took one aspirin a day, and the other was a control group. The results showed that in the first group, 58 people died due to heart related issues, and 2.77% suffered a fatal or non-fatal heart attack or stroke. In the other group, there were 57 deaths and 2.96% had a heart attack or stroke. Evidently, these results demonstrate that the aspirin had pretty much no effect in aiding the heart. Basically, doctors were giving patients telling patients to take medicine that did nothing. The numbers recorded from this experiment depict that the only differences were due to chance. This was a completely randomized experiment, and it’s results showed that aspirin did not help prevent heart problems.

When I read about this trial, I immediately thought of our discussion in class about antiarrhythmics. The aspirin and the antiarrhythmics are very similar, because on paper they seem like they should work well. As we learned, this was not the case. However, giving aspirin to patients was not as bad as the antiarrhythmics, as the antiarrhythmics were detrimental to people’s health, and the aspirin just had little effect. While it is tough to conduct a double blind placebo experiment with such things as antiarrhythmics, it is vital for any new form of treatment to be rigorously tested. This stood out to me because it demonstrated how doctors are not always correct. New information and new clinical trials occur every day, and constantly bring new information. It is imperative for one to understand that sometimes doctors do make mistakes. Now, this doesn’t mean I will not trust my highly trained doctors, but it will force me to be wary of any experimental or new procedures that one of my doctors may recommend. Consequently, in the future I will be more careful and cautious regarding medical decisions about my health. 

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1936801

https://www.yahoo.com/health/new-study-finds-aspirin-does-not-lower-risk-of-103116286772.html

Chances are, you will survive that last breakup, just like the rest of them. Breakups, being cheated on, dumped, public humiliation, or whatever stunt you did to propose and got rejected: you will be ok. Your significant toher doesn’t have that much control over you, right? There’s speculation that when one partner passes away, the other’s accompanying death may be caused by a “broken heart.” People actually die from having their beloved one pass on. They die from a broken heart. We have all seen the classic couples like Brittany Murphy and Simon Monjack, alongside June Carter and Johnny Cash. Each husband died shortly after losing his wife. Could the cause of each husband’s death relate to the loss of both wives?

Signs of this syndrome include severe emotional stress and heart attack symptoms. Although upon autopsy, officials could not identify the cause of death to have any relation to a heart attack. This is according to a report in 2005 done by the New England Journal of Medicine. Only nineteen women were evaluated in this study. The women had left ventricular dysfunction after sudden emotional stress. This is an extremely small study case to be done. I imagine it is not easy for scientists to find patients who seek to be a part of an experiment after going through a difficult emotional experience. Perhaps these people were unaware that they were being studied to watch for death. Maybe in some cases, people just did not care. Whatever the case, New England Journal concluded that without coronary disease, emotional stress could precipitate severe left ventricular dysfunction in patients. Sympathetic stimulation is a probable cause of death.

Dr. Ilan, who is a cardiologist and lead author of the study at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, claims that these look exactly like heart attacks. In an article from the New York Times, he says that the EKGs were abnormal but no blockages, just weak hearts. Looking further into the Johns Hopkins studies, patients had more epinephrine and norepinephrine hormones, which are stress. Apparently these hormones weaken the heart muscle. This process “mimics” a heart attack. So far, Johns Hopkins University has followed about 170 patients with this. NY Times reports, “About 2 percent of patients who undergo emergency cardiac catheterization, a procedure used to examine blood flow to the heart, eventually receive a diagnosis of broken heart syndrome. Among women who are rushed to the catheterization lab, an estimated 5 percent to 7 percent get a diagnosis of broken heart syndrome.”

Genes and menopause are factors that have been only slightly mentioned during this study. In addition, some people did not suffer a tragic loss at all, only about 40% from the John Hopkins study. I find it amazing that our bodies can think ourselves into mimicking a heart attack anyway. The romance in the movie “Walk the Line” based on June Carter and Johnny Cash sparked my interest for this one. Maybe it should not be diagnosed with the name “broken heart syndrome” after all? Good news though: once diagnosed and treated, most recover.

Do you have one of those best friends that can finish your sentence? Pick out something that you like? Know exactly how you feel or what you might say about it? What if twin siblings had proven paranormal power to read things like this from one another? Twin telepathy is something that has been discussed for hundreds of years. This article dates back to Francis Galton’s observational article discussing the ability of twins in the same company to sing simultaneously and comment similarly in the same situation. Today, scientists toy with different ideas to find a proper explanation for these out of the ordinary experiences that twins may have.

It is said that telepathy of this sort occurs within closely connected twins during a time of crisis. For example, in 1977 a woman by the name of Martha Burke reported that she felt she had been “cut in two.” She experienced pain across her chest and abdomen. Later during that day, she discovered her twin sister had passed away in a plane crash. In addition, in 1975 Nita Hurst’s left leg bruised out of the blue one day, eventually traveling up the side of her body. At the same time, her twin was in an automobile accident. These are very strange cases because this plane crash happened on the other side of the world from Martha Burke and this car accident happened 400 miles away from Nita Hurst. Neither twins knew previously and were nowhere near the scene. I wonder how made up these stories may be, when Nita Hurst claims to have physical bruising on her body, although unharmed.

Noetic.org says that, “Despite the many anecdotes, there is a shortage of convincing evidence from laboratory studies. One reason is that there have been very few studies. Another is that among the studies conducted, factors known to enhance the chances of telepathic contact weren’t, or couldn’t be, incorporated, such as inducing danger to a twin to evoke crisis telepathy. Other variables that have been scientifically associated with a higher probability of telepathic occurrences are extroversion and a belief in telepathy, but subjects are not usually screened for these attributes.” This topic may suffer from the file drawer problem, seen as though not many studies have been collected to gather a decent hypothesis regarding what twin telepathy really is from. To make this study experimental, it would be unethical to put people in a crisis-like situation to satisfy test results. In this case, I am not even sure how a scientist could provide a horrific environment believable for twins to start their telepathy. This seems like a difficult task to do. Other ideas that people have on telepathy may not be suitable for all other twins. It is a fragile subject that we do not know much about, nor how to go about exploring.

Twins were raised apart and also studied. The findings were published in Entwined Lives, by Nancy Segal. Sixty-eight cases were studied, and the reunions displayed an act as if the twins had known one another their entire lives. There were similarities beyond genetics, of course. After 34 years apart, one set of female twins both wore seven rings, two bracelets on one wrist, and a watch and a bracelet on the other hand for the reunion. Another strange example from Noetic.org, “The “Jim twins,” for example, had been separated at 4-weeks-old and were apart for 39 years. Both were named Jim, married a woman named Linda, divorced, and then married another woman named Betty. However, one Jim was on his third marriage. They both had had childhood dogs named Toy and sons named James. One son was James Allen and the other James Alan. They both had been firemen and sheriffs. Both bit their nails, suffered from migraines, smoked Salem cigarettes, and drank Miller Lite beer. Each was 6 feet tall and weighed exactly 180 pounds, though they wore their hair differently. Among the most remarkable shared details was that both had a compulsion to build a circular white bench around a tree each of them had in his yard right before they met. Also, they both had owned light-blue Chevrolets, which they had regularly driven to Pass-a-Grille Beach, Florida, for family vacations. What’s more, both enjoyed leaving love notes to their wives throughout their homes. Their facial expressions, IQs, habits, brain waves, and handwriting were nearly identical. To top it all off, they died from the same illness on the same day.”

So what will it take to get down to the science behind these communicating brains? Perhaps we have enough anecdotes to start the conversation, but how will we reach a conclusion? This is going to be some tricky testing…

I’m sure everyone has heard of rumors that say that cell phones increase the risk of cancer. I’m here to tell you that this claim is not entirely accurate. But note that I say not entirely accurate. There are reasons that there are these claims. Some scientific facts will make people believe that this in fact is true. However, we know that science is never completely 100% accurate.

If this was true and people knew that cell phone usage was a cause of cancer, then the cell phone market would probably dramatically experience a decline. Let’s be honest, we are all on our cell phones throughout the day more than we anything else. I’ll step forward and admit that I’m on my cell phone almost all day. Cell phones are essential nowadays, which may or may not be such a great thing. But that’s not the point of this blog. What I’m trying to transition into is what about cell phones make people think that it causes cancer. Cell phones contain electromagnetic radiation, which consists of either ionizing or non-ionizing radio-frequency. Being exposed to ionizing radio-frequency is known to increase the risk of getting cancer. There is no evidence that says non-ionizing radio-frequency increases the risk of getting cancer.

There are some studies currently being conducted to test if cell phone usage will cause cancer. About 290,000 participants that are 18 years or older are currently in a study called COSMOS. They will be followed for the next 20 to 30 years. This unfortunately means that we do not have data that can help us conclude anything. But soon we will know once they fill out a survey that talks about their current health at the time. If you want to know about more studies about cancer and cell phone correlation, read section seven here.

The last thing I wanted to mention is the question of whether or not kids have a higher risk of getting cancer through cell phones than adults. As mentioned before, cell phones aren’t conclusively a link to cancer, but if you were talking about the ionizing radio-frequency aspect, children have a less developed nervous system, so they are in fact more vulnerable to “cancer through cell phone radiation”.

In conclusion, the myth about cell phone radiation causing cancer has not yet been proven due to lack of evidence. There are studies being measured currently, but we will not know about them for a bit of time. I would say just to be safe, avoid radiation when it is not necessary, but don’t worry too much about cell phones being harmful. I know for a fact I’ll still be using my phone as much as I normally do!

Sources:

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

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/electromagnetic+radiation

http://s.tmocache.com/content/dam/tmo/en-p/cell-phones/apple-iphone-6/space-gray/stills/browse-apple-iphone-6-space-gray.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.web.280.280.jpeg

We have all heard that alcohol affects men and women in different ways, but do we actually know how? Many times women become very emotional and lose their inhibitions and men can become reckless or angry, but some people are very happy drunks. It affects everyone differently.

Valerie S. Harder conducted a study to see how alcohol affects each gender. There were 246 participants in the study and all of them were said to have a possible drinking problem by their doctor. There were 166 men and 80 women. The participants started an alcohol treatment program and reported their emotions every day, once a day.

Stress was a key factor. Those who reported being very stressed indulged in more drinking the next day, and the day after that their stress levels were reported to be lower. The differences between how alcohol affected genders differently were too minor to make an assessment. The researchers thought that participants’ levels of happiness would go up after a day of drinking, but they found that was not true. “People report less happiness as they use more alcohol” (Cox). This was true in both men and women, but more so in women.

Many people drink alcohol to improve their mood, but this study had results that showed that is not how it works. The study also found that men who were angry were more likely to drink the next day. This study is not big enough to be 100% convincing, and with an observational study there is always third variables, reverse causation, and chance. This study could not conclude huge differences in the way alcohol affected men and women. I think it depends on the individual’s personality to determine how alcohol will affect them.

In the United States, men drink more than women. According to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services survey, “57.6 percent of males aged 12 and older and 46.5 percent of females aged 12 and older reported having consumed at least one alcoholic beverage in the past 30 days” (Rufus). Also, alcohol use increases with levels of education. Those who have a college degree are more likely to consume alcohol than those who did not graduate from high school (Rufus). This sounds surprising at first, but alcohol is used to socialize especially in business settings.

All of these people are affected in different ways by alcohol. Men have a higher tolerance for alcohol than women do, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect them psychologically. According to the book Substance Abuse Treatment: Addressing the Specific Needs of Women women are more susceptible to long term effects of drugs and alcohol. Women have a harder time dealing with the effects of these substances and are more likely to get alcohol and drug related diseases, organ failure, and psychological disorders (Center For Substance Abuse Treatment).

In conclusion, every individual who decides to consume alcohol has to be aware of the way it affects them. The consequences can be very dangerous if the substance is abused. Men and women are both affected in similar and different ways.

Sources:

Cox, Lauren. “Moods and Booze: Alcohol’s Effects Different in Men and Women.” LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 26 July 2013. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.

Rufus, Anneli. The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.

Center For Substance Abuse Treatment. Chapter 3: Physiological Effects of Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco on Women. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 18 Sept. 0000. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.

Discover Magazine

A recent discovery in research has found that men may have bigger snouts compared to women because they generally have more muscle, which requires a larger oxygen intake.

The scientists also point out that this discovery could help explain why Neanderthals, the closest extinct relatives to humans, bore such large noses.

Ancient skeletons portray larger body masses than current humans. Theories suggest that these species could have relied on larger noses to supply greater levels of oxygen and therefore, support their body types. However, a link between body and nose size cannot be proven due to the fragmented and broken states of ancient fossil remains.

According to LiveScience, “Past research of a wide range of modern humans globally also revealed that men generally have larger noses than women, and typically have larger nasal cavities and airways behind the nose as well. In addition, men consume more oxygen during nasal breathing than women.”

To solve the mystery of nose size, researchers analyzed the point in human development when nose size begins to change. The team concentrated on a sample of 18 females and 20 males, all of European descent. They gathered information from the Iowa Facial Growth Study and observed various X-rays and physical exams, spanning from ages 3 to over 20.

The team found that the noses of both males and females were similar in size, preadolescence. However, with puberty, male noses begin to grow as the body builds more muscle, allowing males to consume more oxygen. Males typically grow leaner muscles during this period, as opposed to females. The male noses observed in the study were up to ten percent larger, on average, than female noses.

“As body size increases in males and females during growth, males exhibit a disproportionate increase in nasal size,” said Nathan Holton, biological anthropologist and lead author. “This follows the same pattern as energetic variables such as oxygen consumption.”

The authors of this study denote that their research observed less than 40 people, all of European descent, which does not make the theory universally true. However, past research does suggest that the notion of men having larger noses is a global phenomenon, so Holton’s recent findings appear to be consistent with what scientists already know.

References:

Lewis, Richard. “The Big Male Nose.” Iowa Now. University of Iowa, 18 Nov. 2013. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. <http://now.uiowa.edu/2013/11/big-male-nose>.

Choi, Charles Q. “Why Guys Have Bigger Noses Than Gals.” LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 18 Nov. 2013. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. <http://www.livescience.com/41276-why-men-have-larger-noses.html>.

Pennsylvania is known to have some great places that you can go to to gaze at the stars. I was wondering what exactly were stars and how are they formed. Stars are held up in the sky by their own source of gravity and are filled with luminous gas. It is composed of mostly hydrogen and helium. Nuclear fission also plays a role with making a star. It supports the star with its number of reactions holding it against gravity. This ends up producing photons, heat, and also creates heavier elements.

On clear nights you can usually see stars in the sky but do we really know where they come from? In a recent star formation theory it is believed that stars start out as basic clumps inside gas clouds that eventually fall on each other. After the material that is inside a cloud gets hot enough the gravity of the cloud causes it to fall inward. The gas then heats up to 18 million degrees. Once it reaches this extremely hot temperature hydrogen nuclei forms into helium nuclei. The results form into what you see in the sky on a clear night. Nuclear fissions energy causes the center of the star to radiate outside the star which causes it halt the collapse of the gas cloud.

You can also see which stars are the hotter ones. Blue lighted stars are the hottest and the lighter color stars are lower in temperature. In the next million or so years the hottest stars will have used up all their energy. The lighter stars however have the ability to burn billions of years down the road. Now this leads to my next question. What exactly causes a shooting star?

Shooting stars really aren’t even stars at all. They are made of meteoroids that entire entire our atmosphere burning up. The small light you see behind the star is actually called a meteor. If any part of its journey actually hit the Earths surface it is then dubbed the name meteorite. I always thought space was pretty awesome thing to look at and what better way to start then with the stars. You may now understand a little more about them and have a better understanding.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/what-is-a-star/

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question12.html

http://kazzabee.com/2012/06/04/be-better-basket-challenge-1-stop-look-up-at-the-stars-and-dream/

Whenever you go hiking on a trail or visit a park, the locals always insist that you leave no footprint.  They insist that you keep the environment the way you found it so it stays in good condition.  We feel the same way about the whole planet but we don’t treat Earth that great and its starting to show us that.  I followed an MIT study following 18 random households and the University calculated their carbon footprints.

“Whether you live in a cardboard box or a luxurious mansion, whether you subsist on homegrown vegetables or wolf down imported steaks, whether you’re a jet-setter or a sedentary retiree, anyone who lives in the U.S. contributes more than twice as much greenhouse gas to the atmosphere as the global average” (MIT.edu)  Every person in the US contributes to the high amount of greenhouse gasses there is no avoiding it.  It is crazy to think that Donald Trump, President Obama, me Ethan Asam and those unfortunate enough that are living in the streets all produce more greenhouse gasses than the global average.

The MIT class studied in an observational study the carbon emissions of Americans in a wide variety of lifestyles.  The class studied every lifestyle ranging from the homeless to multimillionaires and from “monks to soccer moms”.  What they discovered was no matter the lifestyle you had, Americans won’t drop below a certain emission floor. “Regardless of income, there is a certain floor below which the individual carbon footprint of a person in the U.S. will not drop,” (Timothy Gutowski, professor of mechanical engineering).

When thinking about carbon footprints you would think the homeless, monks and children would have a rather low one but when you think hard about the subject you realize that the Government provides us with many public goods that go into each persons carbon footprint.  The Government provides police, roads, libraries, the court system and the military and all of these leave a rather big carbon footprint on the Earth and they certainly leave a bigger footprint than other countries in the world.

The MIT students conducted detailed interviews and made detailed estimates of the energy usage of 18 lifestyles and they concluded that the American average carbon footprint was 20 metric tons compared to a world average of only 4 tons.  The floor that no American falls beneath is 8.5 metric tons and that is still twice the global average.  Whether bias or high estimating made its way into the observational study, we as a country still omit by a large amount more carbon dioxide than any other country.  And for the record the 8.5 metric tons was from a “homeless person who ate in soup kitchens and slept in homeless shelters.”

I believe these measurements are spot on though because the emissions were looked at with great detail.  The students considered everything a person did like a “rebound effect”, for example if someone purchases a hybrid rather than a gas guzzler or long airplane rides.  The numbers are spot on and this is an indicator for us as a country to change.  One thing the class reported also is that when you save energy you save money so a rational person would want to lower their carbon footprint.

I wanted to end with a positive though because the U.S. is heading in the right direction with their recent commitment with China to reduce their greenhouse emissions.  Barack Obama and Xi Jinping announced last month that both countries plan to cut emissions between 26 and 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.  This is more than double what each country had planned before.  I think we are headed in the right direction to lower our carbon footprint from the staggering 20 metric tons it is now.

Sources Cited:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120242/us-and-china-reach-agreement-climate-change

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2008/footprint-tt0416

I’m sure you’ve heard the quote “I can smell your fear” at least at some point in your life.  Now, can something that literally has no smell, be smelled?

Kevin Richardson is a South African lion tamer who has been accepted into these lions pride as one of their own.  Kevin claims if they killed him, “I would do it all over again.”  How does he do this?  He shows no fear.

Mammals have 2 distinct olfactory systems.  The main one is involved with the conscious recognition of smells and depends on the nose’s ability to detect airborne molecules.  When you smell something, you’re breathing in molecules which bind to the olfactory receptors in your nasal passages.  Emotional states such as fear, are not typically known for being able to generate scent-laden molecules.  The other scent detecting process is known as the accessory olfactory system.  Beginning in the vomeronasal organ, which is above the soft palate of the mouth, highly specific smell molecules are detected and transmitted to the accessory olfactory bulb where they are collected and processed.  Instead of being able to detect airborne molecules the accessory system is designed to “read” the messages of communicative chemicals emitted by animals known as pheromones.  Pheromones transmit information concerning territory, aggression, and most prominently reproduction.  However, pheromone communication is only possible between members of the same species so it is physically impossible for any animal to actually “smell” another animals fear.

Instead animals sense of fear depends more on behavioral clues rather than on olfactory signals.  This is also true for humans because 99 times out of 100 you are going to see, hear, or even feel an act of aggression before you smell it.  So unfortunately, no it is not true that fear can be “smelled,” but that doesn’t mean there are other ways for fear to be read on someone or something.

Sources:
http://news.psu.edu/story/141321/2005/03/16/research/probing-question-can-animals-really-smell-fear
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/dec/04/smell-fear-research-pheromone

In April of 2010 our marine life in the Gulf of Mexico suffered from one of the worst disasters in the history of oil spills. It was called the Deepwater Horizon oil spill or better known as the BP oil spill. Our marine life still suffers today and scientists are trying to fight back. What are they doing? How is it still affecting our wildlife? As I dove into some more information about the disaster I couldn’t of prepared for what actually happened.

Scientists today are still at war with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. For starters over 8,000 different species of aquatic life and birds were either found dead or injured. Long term impacts of the spill range from an unbalanced food web all the way to parks and recreational service that deal with fishing trips to suffering business wise. Scientists are still using different methods to locate where the impact of the spill had the most affect. Also they are finding what is wrong with the dolphins in regards to their health.

Scientists are looking into the effects the spill had different kinds of species of animals. In 2011 researchers visited the Louisiana Bay to study the recently discovered very sick dolphins still suffering from the effects of the bp oil spill. They had to test the blood of these dolphins and their sickness ranged from low blood sugar all the way to elevator lifted enzymes. The dolphins also showed that they were way more likely to develop lung disease. They did this by encircling the dolphins into a net then handlers would try to calm down the dolphins so they could do their study. Scientists are also taking samples from the sea floor to determine how much oil is still in the area and they also note that they don’t believe all the oil has been accounted for. Other scientists are simply looking for life in the sea floor using under water cameras. They discovered that more animals have been roaming through the sea floor at a higher rate. There are plenty of ways we can help scientists out with this issue. Donations to the NWF can help researchers save the environment around the oil spill simply by going to their website at www.nwf.org.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/scenes_from_the_gulf_of_mexico.html

http://www.nwf.org/What-We-Do/Protect-Habitat/Gulf-Restoration/Oil-Spill/Effects-on-

Wildlife.aspx

http://www.npr.org/2013/12/19/255406326/scientists-charge-bp-oil-spill-gravely-injured-dolphins

http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/04/bp_oil_spill_scientists_strugg.html

http://www.nwf.org/How-to-Help.aspx

Since we are all students here at Penn State, there is no secret that the partying is top notch.  A lot of kids come here just for the elusive frat parties and wild State Patty’s day.  Throughout the average weekend 84% of students are consuming alcohol.  If you walk down frat row any Saturday or Sunday morning you can easily see that most of it is consumed out of the classic red solo cup.  They can almost always be found littered outside on the Frats lawns.  You may not remember how much you drank last night but did you ever consider if the container you drank it out of mattered?  I know I never have!

Until now, I never considered what the alcohol was coming out of, just that I knew it was probably going to be coming from a red solo cup.  A new study at Bristol University is saying that the cup makes all the difference when it comes to alcoholic drinks.  The study consisted of 160 social drinkers, ages 28 to 40 and were asked to drink lager or a non-alcoholic drink from a curved glass or a straight edged glass.  The study found that it took participants almost twice as long to finish their beer from the straight edged glass than the curved glass. Researcher Angela Attwood suggests that the curved glass makes it harder to judge where the halfway point is, making it harder to realize how much you have consumed.

Attwood continued with studies conducting another one, but this time on the computer.  Participants were presented with pictures of curved glasses and straight glasses with liquid in both.  They were asked to gauge whether the glasses were more or less than half full.  This experiment showed a greater error in judging the halfway point on the curved glass than in the straight edged one.  In addition, the participants who showed the greatest error in this test were the ones that showed the greatest difference in the speed at which they drank the drinks in the first test.  This shows that there is some variability depending on the type of person and the way that they drink.

This study is of high value to many associations as well as police who are trying to enforce safe drinking.  Looking for ways to help slow the drinking process and avoid drinking that one too many are in high demand.  For inexperienced college students who don’t know their limits, who knows this could be a lifesaver.  I believe that there are many third variables involved with this trial.  The atmosphere you are drinking in, stress levels, what you’re drinking and how you handle alcohol are all things that are important to consider.  If someone has the mindset that they want to get drunk, not much is going to stop them.  Someone who wants one beer and knows they have to drive home on the other hand may benefit from this more.  Either way, it’s something that I never took into consideration before but might actually make a difference.

www.slate.com

http://www.alcohol101plus.org/downloads/CollegeStudents.pdf

theproofagency.com

Booze intake influenced by glass shape

In Christopher Nolan’s latest film Interstellar, the protagonist played by Matthew Mcconaughey finds himself floating through an alternate dimension after diving into a black hole. In the dimension, Mcconaughey is able to view different sequences of time through a wormhole-type entity located in the bookshelf of his daughter’s bedroom. Ever since their existence was proven with Einstein’s theory of general relativity in 1915, black holes have become the basis of several science fiction films such as Nolan’s Interstellar. Most of these films portray black holes as “portals” to alternate dimensions or universes, ultimately distorting the general public’s understanding of the subject.

According to Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, a star in the universe will curve and distort the space around it as it is formed. The more massive and compact the star, the more space is distorted. When the star finally burns out all of its nuclear fuel, it then cools and shrinks, forming a bottomless pit in spacetime, otherwise known as a “black hole”. The gravitational pull of these massive holes are so great that not even light can escape them.

Due to this immense gravitational pull, anything that comes close to the black hole will automatically get pulled inside of it, ultimately becoming a part of it. If you were to “dive” into a black hole like Mcconaughey’s character in Interstellar, the strong gravitational pull would drag your body out further and further, stretching you to the point of which the atoms that you are made up of get disassembled. So, to put it bluntly, there is no “other side” of a black hole; the only thing these massive pits lead to would be a very painful (yet very epic) death.

However, in bigger black holes, death isn’t so untimely. Every black hole contains a boundary called the “event horizon”, the point in which gravity becomes so strong that everything, including light itself, is dragged into the black hole to the point of no escaping. The bigger the black hole, the more likely it is to reach the event horizon without getting pulled apart and destroyed, allowing you the explorer to further “inspect” the inside of the black hole. However, since this type of “inspection” without destruction is virtually impossible , we’ll just leave the black hole exploration to Mr. Mcconaughey and his team of courageous astronauts.

Sources:

“What is on the Other Side of a Black Hole?” by Frasier Chan  http://www.universetoday.com/14068/what-is-on-the-other-side-of-a-black-hole/

“Into a Black Hole” by Stephen Hawking                                                     http://www.hawking.org.uk/into-a-black-hole.html

Growing up I’ve heard from my parents, my friends parents and other sources in my life that drinking one glass of red wine a day with dinner is actually very healthy for you and your heart. Its even been advertised in the media as a means of combating heart disease.  Do you believe that?

Atherosclerosis is a process in which blood vessels begin to lose their natural ability to, relax. Smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes also help contribute to this process.  Both the alcohol and the polyphenolic compounds found in red wine maintain healthy blood vessels by helping to promote nitric oxide form, which is the key chemical that helps to relax blood vessels.

During a study of 13,825 over the course of 12 years at the Copenhagen City Heart Study, men and women were divided into 2 groups with one drinking alcohol and the other not.  The results were that the subjects who drank wine had half the risk of dying from coronary heart disease or stroke as compared to those who never drank wine.  Those who drank beer and spirits did not experience that advantage.  In 13 other studies involving 209,418 participants, research showed that a 32% reduction in risk of atherosclerosis came with red wine intake while only a 22% from beer.  Having 1-2 drinks of any alcoholic beverage a day has been suggested to help increase survival rates in a variety of different population groups.  Middle aged men and women benefit most from this as moderate alcohol consumption reduces the risk of developing atherosclerosis disease.   Even patients with a history of heart attack diabetes all benefited drastically.

Saying that it is healthy for you to drink alcohol is not true.  There are many other factors to consider when labeling something as “healthy.”  However drinking 1-2 drinks a day has been proven to help reduce the risk of heart disease by 30% in middle aged men and women so I’ll let you make the call.  

Sources:http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/wine-how-much-is-good-for-you
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/111/2/e10.full

One in every 691 babies born every year is diagnosed with down syndrome.  Down Syndrome is the result of a baby having 3 copies of the chromosome 21 instead of just 2.  Within this extra chromosome, over 300 extra genes are housed that do not show up in a person without down syndrome.  This is why there are many characteristics that are similar along down syndrome people.  Such as distinct facial features and other disabilities such as having a hard time learning.  The cerebellum only develops to about 60% as well, contributing to other disabilities and handicaps.  With over 300 different genes, this makes it very difficult to find treatments to help with the condition.

A new report in Science Transitional Medicine, shows findings that scientists may have designed a way to reverse down syndrome.  This may seem like a long shot but this study conducted on mice has promising findings.

The mice used in this experiment had many characteristics similar of that to a person with down syndrome.  A smaller cerebellum, difficulty learning and remembering their way out of a maze.  There have been many studies previously done on how exactly down syndrome effects the brain.  Using this prior knowledge, scientists tried to supercharge a biochemical chain of events called the sonic hedgehog pathway which triggers growth and development.  They developed a compound of sonic hedgehog pathway agonist that was inject into the “down syndrome” mice on the day of birth.

The idea behind this compound is to normalize the cerebellum’s growth from day one so that it will grow into that of a normal person’s.  The results of the mice’s injects turned out perfectly.  The growth of the cerebellum continued at a normal rate throughout adulthood after just one single injection.  The mice were then put through a series of tests to see if the cerebellum really did function like it should.  They were tested against mice born with no type of down syndrome on a series of water maze tests and found that they both were able to preform at the same level.

Roger Reeves, from the John Hopkins University School of Medicine, explains that much further research is needed before this procedure can be safely tried on humans.  While the compound helped to regulate the cerebellum, certain cells in the hippocampus that are responsible for learning and are significantly effected by Down Syndrome were unchanged by the injection.  The relation between the cerebellum growth and hippocampus cells is still unknown by researchers.

While the idea of this seems great who knows, if it could ever be put into human trial.  “Altering an important biological chain of events like sonic hedgehog would likely have many unintended effects throughout the body, such as raising the risk of cancer by triggering inappropriate growth.” (Reeves)  There is still potential here but I wouldn’t hold my breath for this treatment anytime soon.

In my opinion, this is a great thing for researchers to be spending their time on.  While many down syndrome people are able to live their lives it is not without struggle and dependency on others.  This study is the first steps we need towards finding a cure for this.  I find it interesting that they inject the compound at birth.  The cerebellum is quite small when a child is born but how soon do you start to see its effects?  It is a little bit sad because you are changing the child’s whole demeanor into a different person.  Who knows what else it is altering besides the cerebellum growth.  Dr. Reeves acknowledges that it may have negative effects on other parts of the body but when do you find the point where the consequence outweighs the benefit?  With the rise of this, I expect there to be some heavy ethical debates.  Especially between religion groups that believe a child is sent from god and made exactly how they are meant to be.  I look forward to hearing the progress of this in the future.

www.dsindiana.org

www.ibtimes.co.uk

Down syndrome may be reversible