With the Creamery only a walk away, it’s a given that ice cream will regular staple in our diets, but when we eat too much of Peachy Paterno or Death by Chocolate,  why is that we get brain freezes from too much ice cream?

Ocean Beach, California

Brain freezes, or sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, occur because when you eat ice cream or something just as cold, when it touches the top of your mouth, it causes the blood vessels there to dilate. “The dilation of the blood vessels triggers pain receptors, which release pain-causing prostaglandins, increase sensitivity to further pain, and produce inflammation while sending signals through the trigeminal nerve to alert the brain to the problem,”, which is the reason for why you get “brain freezes” says chemistry.about.com. Simply, the blood vessels on the roof of your mouth become larger causing the receptors there to identify the pain this causes, and bam the headache. 

Ways to prevent an ice cream headache? Warming the top of your mouth with your tongue works, where the heat your tongue naturally produces will transfer to warm up the roof of your mouth until both parts are equivalent in heat. Or if you’d like to avoid the great ice cream freeze all together, “simply eating cold foods more slowly can help prevent brain freeze” or “arming foods up a tiny bit in the front of your mouth before swallowing them”, according to kidshealth.org. 

Eating ice cream should always be an enjoyable experience, so try and savor each bite and save yourself from a brain freeze by eating slowly or drinking something slightly warmer as you eat your favorite freezing cold treat.

Work cited:

http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingsworkfaqs/f/how-brain-freeze-works.htm

http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/ice_cream_headache.html

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/03/156155297/when-ice-cream-attacks-the-mystery-of-brain-freeze

The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is currently researching alternatives to getting vaccinations without having to get a shot.

On their website, they claim, “instead of a dreaded injection with a needle, someday getting vaccinated against disease may be as pleasant as drinking a yogurt smoothie.”

The alternative they’ve developed is an oral vaccine made of probiotics (the healthy bacteria in dairy).

At first, I was skeptical.  Although I don’t particularly like to get shots, I’ll do so because it means protecting myself from things like influenza and HPV.  However, the research claims “this new generation vaccine has big benefits beyond eliminating the “Ouch!” factor.”

Here are some of the key benefits of the new oral vaccine:

• Probiotics are natural, and replace the chemicals found in typical shots which often give unwanted side effects such as nausea or dizziness depending on the vaccine.
• The probiotic oral vaccine is more cost effective to produce, which is important because according to Discovery Medicine, “Vaccine-preventable diseases are still responsible for the deaths of more than 1 million children under the age of 5 years annually, mostly in developing countries”
• By swallowing a vaccine instead of injecting it into a muscle, Associate Professor of Medicine Mansour Mohamadzadeh claims, “you are able to harness the full power of the body’s primary immune force, which is located in the small intestine.”
  

  “You swallow the vaccine, and the bacteria colonize your intestine and start to produce the vaccine in your gut,” Mohamadzadeh said. “Then it’s quickly dispatched throughout your body. If you can activate the immune system in your gut, you get a much more powerful immune response than by injecting it.”

Mohamadzadeh and his team at Northwestern conduct an experiment where they fed mice their oral anthrax vaccine, and then exposed them to anthrax bacteria.  And the hard end point they published was impressive, with eighty percent of the exposed mice surviving.

In conclusion, the experiment proved “the immune response was higher and more robust than with the injected vaccine,” said Mohamadzadeh.

While the results from this experiment seem promising, only the success rate was published, which poses some serious questions. This leaves an insurmountable amount of unknown variables that could discount the findings of this experiment.

For example, were all the mice that were exposed to the vaccine the same age and gender, or was there a variety? Was there a control group?  Without more information it would be easy to write the results of this study off as a false positive.

Without more information on this study, it’s difficult to determine if the results are an indicator of how the oral vaccine works.

However, The National Institute of Health remains optimistic, and calls this possible vaccine break through “the use of probiotic bacteria (…) an exciting new approach.”

Only time will tell if the probiotic oral vaccine is the next big thing.

For those of you who have siblings, do you ever feel like you can read each others mind? My sister and I always jokingly say that we have “sister telepathy” when we finish each others sentences or we wear the same outfit on the same day. Although we joked about it, we would always just assume that things like that were just a coincidence. I never thought that siblings could actually telepathically send messages to one another because we have been taught that the only ways to communicate are with our five senses. I was interested in learning if it is possible to communicate by sending thoughts to someone else and I found some studies that tested telepathy between siblings. Maybe my sister and I can relay messages through our thoughts after all.

People first became interested in telepathy because twins started to share their experiences of “crisis telepathy.” An example of crisis telepathy is that one twin reported agonizing pain on the left side of her body, then later she found out that at the exact moment she experienced the pain, her twin sister had gotten in a car crash. For some people, anecdotes such as this one is enough evidence to convince them that telepathy exists, but unfortunately there is no scientific evidence to prove this yet.

Most of the studies that have been conducted to test if telepathy exists involve testing telepathy in twins. A study done by a Swedish psychologist was reported by ABC News. Twins were randomly chosen to participate in the experiment. All of the twins that were chosen had reported that they had experienced crisis telepathy at some point in their life. In the study, one twin was hooked up to a four channel polygraph machine that measures physiological changes in the body. The other twin was exposed to physical surprises such as dipping their hands into a bucket of ice. The goal is to see if physiological changes occur in the twin who is not exposed to the physical surprises. There was no final proof found, but the results did encourage a follow up experiment. Even though some twins did show evidence of telepathy, there can be many additional explanations to the results such as genetics, coincidence, and empathy.

Personally, I think that it is near impossible to ever prove if telepathy is real. I do not think we can choose to mentally send a message to one another but in time of need our bodies can sense a message from our siblings. This relates back to the ‘crisis telepathy’ that I mentioned earlier. I think that it is more common that our bodies receive messages from one another in moments of crisis. Overall, I think that in most instances the best reasoning would be that it happens by chance. I hope that we can eventually create new technology that allows us to further our research on this topic. I would love for it to be proven that sibling telepathy can happen. It would be very interesting if we could purposely send a message through our minds instead of it just happening in moments of crisis.

What do you guys think about telepathy? Do you think it could be real? I want to hear your opinions and feel free to share any stories you have relating to telepathy! I know that a lot of people have had some experience and they assume that they have telepathy! Also, if anyone is a twin I’d love to hear your experiences since it is more likely to occur in twins!

In 2012, A twenty-two year old Virginia girl named Lauren lifted a car off of her father. Her father had jacked up his car while he was fixing it; however, the jack had slipped and the car pinned down on him. Lauren spun into action and with superhuman like strength she lifted the car of him and performed CPR and saved his life.

You can look up many more stories similar to this one. So why can these people gain this supernatural strength? What is a scientific explanation for these stories? The hypotheses that some people came up with is that fear enhances our physical and mental capabilities.  For instance watch this video and take this guy as an example:

He outran a hippo, which is the leading killer of humans in Africa. Out of fear his physical capabilities allowed him to outrun a hippo which can run up to about 19 mph. This is the same idea of what gives people the strength to lift cars off of children. The reasoning behind it is that our body naturally restricts our physical capabilities to lower the chance of use gaining an injury. Thus, we can only use about 65 percent of our body’s physical capabilities. On the contrary, fear enables us to bypass this restraints and use around 80 percent of our physical capabilities. This hypotheses holds true to many people because all the stories in comparison has individuals who have fear and then fulfilling an unbelievable feat.

Although this hypotheses sounds to be true, there is no factual data to support it. Therefore, there are contradicting views that disagree with the fear conclusion. Yes, it is true that our bodies restrict our physical capabilities; however, we cannot control fear so we cannot just turn fear on and pick up a car in a split second before it crushes someone. Also, one more major objection to the fear hypotheses would be since fear increases our body strength only about 15 percent then it would be impossible for let’s say a 100 pound women to lift a 3,000 pound car off of a child. With that being said this stories might be nothing more than just stories. I’d like to hear what my fellow classmates think and what do you decide… Does fear make you superhero or are these stories something to tell your children to let them know it is okay to be scared?

Wise, Jeff. “Yes, You Really Can Lift a Car Off a Trapped Child.” Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness + Find a Therapist. Sussex Publishers, 4 Nov. 2010. Web. 04 Oct. 2014.

“Hysterical Strength.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Jan. 2014. Web. 04 Oct. 2014.

“Coffee is my life. I can’t go one day without it”, said my roommate, Hannah. My roommate always makes a cup of coffee before going to her first class. She said she can’t go to her classes unless she drinks a coffee. I am not a coffee drinker, so I don’t know how coffee makes it so special that people could not live without it. However, I have heard from some people that, it is not a coffee that keeps you awake, but it’s the psychological sense that you think it is when actually is not. In order to clear up this confusion, I did some research to see if coffee really keeps people awake and positive and negative facts of consumption of caffeine.

To begin with, coffee contains a substance called, caffeine and this is what makes people become more energized and awake from tiredness or sleepiness. It can also be found in different beverages such as tea, soft drinks and other more. Caffeine has a natural bitter taste just like coffee has a distinctive bitter taste; however caffeine contained beverages that are sold in the markets have already processed to lower the strong taste of it.

When people take caffeine from foods or drinks, our nervous system embraces caffeine as adenosines, human chemical cells that are produced in daily activities. When caffeine reaches nervous system, it connects with adenosine receptors and allows our attentiveness to increase. When they are linked together, caffeine prevents our bodies to slow down. The energy that we get from caffeine could last up to six hours. For this reason, students and adults depend on caffeinated drinks to stay up and do their unfinished works or to get over the sleepiness in the morning.

Caffeine has other benefits than waking people from sleep. It increases the memory of people and lowers the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. On the other hand, too much consumption of caffeine has side effects to our bodies. First, it could lower the calcium level in the body. When we lack in calcium, it could result to severe diseases like osteoporosis and hypocalcaemia. Second, for those people who experience anxiety and stress often, caffeine can boost these more and give worse feeling of anxiety.

In conclusion my research about caffeine answered my question if coffee really awakes people up in the morning. It not only gives energy to people, but also could prevent some disease and raise the memorization, while it could also have negative effects in our body. For example caffeine drops of calcium level and experience of angst and nervousness to some people.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/454988-how-well-does-coffee-work-to-keep-you-awake/

http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/drugs-alcohol/caffeine-awake.htm

Why are breast cancer rates on the rise?

Back in the day, cancer didn’t have such a great impact because not many people actually got cancer. Well many people don’t exactly know what breast cancer is. Well, breast cancer originates in the breasts from abnormal cells and has the potential to spread anywhere in the body.

One of the biggest factors is a very common one: Stress. Nowadays everybody is complaining about the amount of stress they have. “The demands of our lives with increased stress, little time to relax and not enough sleep leads to increased levels of stress hormones which lower our immune response and raise our blood sugar”(Cancer). High blood sugar not only raises the risk of breast cancer, but any cancer in general. But there is not a strong correlation between stress and cancer; there are third variables involved such as a smoking and eating. Smoking cannot only increase chances of lung cancer but also for breast cancer.

In a observational study done by the American Cancer Society, they came to the conclusion of “The rate of new cases was 24% higher in smokers than in nonsmokers and 13% higher in former smokers than in nonsmokers”(Study). And those women that started to smoke before the birth of her first child is more prone to be exposed to breast cancer in her near future. For those who are overweight, they also have a higher chance of getting breast cancer because they have more estrogen in their bodies, whether male or female, which has also been concluded by ACS. And that leads to the accelerated growth of estrogen-responsive breast tumors. Another factor is breastfeeding. Those female that chose not to breastfeed their children or those who have no children at all are putting themselves at a higher risk of getting breast cancer. Although most studies have been inconsistent about the relationship between breast cancer and breastfeeding, what would the rational person do? I don’t know, you tell me?

So remember, take home points of the day

• Keep stress to a minimum
• Don’t smoke
• And breastfeed (females only)

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

http://www.integrativecanceranswers.com/why-are-so-many-women-getting-breast-cancer-10-surprising-little-known-reasons/#.VC-IxSmwLX5

I am sure I speak for a lot of readers when I say at some point over the past two years I have played Candy Crush Saga for too long at one time. But why was I so addicted to such a simple game? I have seen plenty of people sit on the CATA bus crushing candy on their way to class and even once saw someone miss their stop because he did not look up. Roughly half a billion people have downloaded this free game and with $800,000 per day being spent on levels King.com is not going to stop making levels.

There is actually scientific reasoning behind it when Candy Crush is being played, at least at first, all you do is win. This makes you happy and as the levels get harder and harder, winning them becomes more of a challenge. This is called variable ratio schedule of reinforcement, this theory states that if you play enough, you will eventually win, the same concept that applies to slot machines. So naturally when you do begin to beat the more difficult levels, it makes you happier and happier, but whats making you happy is the brains release of dopamine.

Dopamine  is the neurotransmitter that is the pleasure point of the brain. Dopamine is also released when people take Molly (pure MDMA.) Molly essentially floods your brain with dopamine in order to make you happier, the same happiness and chemical reaction apply to Candy Crush. Because of the rush molly gives you, people end up having “bad comedowns” from molly. After the molly begins to wear off and all of the dopamine levels come down, people get sadder in the coming days because their body does not know how to react without the high levels of happiness (dopamine.) It is the same feeling that makes you upset when you cannot beat a candy crush level.

When you are stuck on a Candy Crush level you keep wanting to play it because you are unhappy with the result, you need that higher level of happiness that can only come from winning a level.

Or maybe Candy Crush isn’t addicting at all… maybe people are just hopelessly bored or maybe people don’t know what else to do when they procrastinate. Procrastination is something that effects nearly 20% of the population so when I think about what I do to procrastinate, it includes maybe 10 minutes of checking my fantasy team, another 10 checking sports scores and then maybe 30 minutes playing Candy Crush!?!?? So maybe stats are wrong, maybe Candy Crush players are just playing it a lot due to chance, after all, correlation need not equal causation. I think it is more than probable that the reason so many people such as myself sit there and play candy crush is procrastination from whatever activity I am supposed to be doing. Since the 1970s, procrastination rates are up 21% and Candy Crush certainly hasn’t helped this issue.

So no, for anyone reading this, I am not saying Molly is equal to Candy Crush in health or addictiveness. But the next time you pick up your phone to play some candy crush ask yourself… am I addicted?

http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/apr/01/candy-crush-saga-app-brain

http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/dopamine

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/mdma-ecstasy-abuse/what-does-mdma-do-to-brain

http://www.effective-time-management-strategies.com/procrastination-statistics.html

As we grow older our brains begin to deteriorate and many lose memories or begin having mental health issues in older age. Alzheimer’s and dementia are both very common, scary effects of this brain degeneration, my grandmother has dementia and it can sometimes be intensely frightening. However research is showing that being bilingual, or speaking more than one language can increase brain ability and prevent degeneration.

In one study of 148 incoming high school students half who spoke only English and half who also spoke Spanish fluently they showed that bilingual students showed much more keen sense of hearing and had better attentiveness. They tested their abilities to hear a certain note  through background noise, then their ability to see and hear numbers with people talking in the background. In both tests the bilingual student outperformed the monolingual students. It made no difference for the bilingual students with or without the background noise, while the monolingual students performed much worse when there was background noise present compared to when there was no background noise. They concluded with this study that students who speak more than one language have better selective attention because their brains have a better auditory response capacity similar to skilled musicians.

In another study of a group of 262 people born all in Britain, who were studied when they were 11 then again in their 70s, some of whom learned a language other than English before they were 18 and some after, but who all could still speak both languages, were tested on their brain health and performance. There was no difference in performance of those who learned earlier or later In life, but they outperformed there non bilingual counterparts on all the brain and memory capacity tests. None of the bilingual people in the study showed any signs of memory or mental health deterioration.

However the studies did not make it clear why speaking more than one language effects brain health or whether being taught from birth or schooled in two different languages is different from learning later in life. It would be best to set up an experiment with a larger group of students and test cognitive abilities of those who learn and do not earn foreign languages then who keeps up with them and how their brain health changes throughout the process.
Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27634990

http://nih.gov/researchmatters/may2012/05072012bilingual.htm

How the Brain Benefits From Being Bilingual

How does one die naturally?

Have you ever wondered why one cannot be immortal? How cool could it be to live forever, but have you ever thought how exactly the cycle of life works? Deaths nowadays occur usually from mortifying diseases such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. But how exactly does one die naturally

Well your killing yourself right now by breathing, yeah well don’t stop breathing just yet. “Oxygen can break down the very cells that make up our tissues and organs, our bones and blood. It can damage DNA and critical enzymes.”(Oxygen). Oxygen is doing the opposite of what, the natural function of our body is supposed to do. Our body is supposed to reproduce cells that help repair our tissues, maintain the immune system, and sustain the healthy function of our vital organs.

Excessive breathing can slow down how our body takes in vital nutrients, and the receptions of critical hormones such as testosterone, and insulin. Both are very vital for the basic function of the human body. Testosterone is need to develop male reproductive tissues and promotes masculine characteristics. The function of insulin in the body is to control blood glucose levels. The amount of insulin the body produces naturally maintains the healthy function of the liver, and fat and muscle cells. Oxygen also produces radicals that damage the basics of human life and substances that are essential to the human body such as DNA, proteins and lipids.

Well now you might be wondering what the process it like? The process is called oxidation. Oxygen is the reason we age and the reason we die. It’s the slowest acting poison that all humans are exposed to.

Oxygen is Killing Us

Beware the Dangers of Oxygen

via dreamstime.com

1 laptop; 2 textbooks; 3 notebooks; 24,000 miscellaneous writing utensils—the weight of these really begins to add up. Lugging a heavy backpack on a 20 minute walk to the opposite side of the massive Penn State campus certainly isn’t fun, but it could also be dangerous to our health. We are all aware of the soreness after a long day with the backpack, but could the weight cause deeper problems?

According to sciencedaily.com, the weight of backpacks can damage the soft shoulder tissues and cause nerve damage, which could result in irritation or even diminished nerve capacity, which can inhibit hand and finger movement as a result of diminished ability for muscles to respond to the brain’s signals. This can limit writing ability and ability to operate machinery.

A study was done on soldiers who carry heavy backpacks reporting numbness and tickling sensations in their fingers. Using biomechanical analysis methods, the data shows how force placed on a particular area of the body is transferred under the skin and damages tissue and internal organs. Data was collected by an MRI and it was determined that the weight of the backpack is transferred to the brachial pleux nerves, accounting for stiffness of shoulder tissues. I think of it like this: the weight of the load is equivalent to stepping on a garden hose—it slows down the flow of signals sent through nerves the same way the water in the hose is slowed down.

Look at your peers walking down the street. Are they slightly leaning forward to compensate for the weight? Most probably are. This itself can cause issues for the spine and back muscles.

What can we do about this? Not much. Heavy backpacks exist anywhere from schools, to the army, to even hiking. The progress of technology may lead to the eradication of heavy textbooks, but it will be years until books are entirely digital.

As for us, there’s only so much we can do to lighten the load. Sometimes returning to the dorm to swap out books between classes is not an option, and leaving the laptop behind isn’t very efficient now that most classes are based on ANGEL. There are backpacks with wheels, but they aren’t exactly socially acceptable beyond 3^rd grade (no offense to roller backpack enthusiasts). Not to mention, carrying roller backpacks up and down stairs is not reasonable either.

Is this something we need to be gravely concerned about? Probably not. My back has already grown stronger/adapted to carrying a heavy backpack all over campus, and it doesn’t bother me as much anymore. I also have a theory that walking with the extra weight burns more calories, but I have yet to look into that. We will have to wait and see if there are newfound patterns of our generation having more back problems in our older ages, seeing that many of our parents or grandparents carried their books in their hands and never used a backpack so they wouldn’t show those results. In my opinion, this study is not concluded.

Sources: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130221141604.htm

  via curaspineprocedure.com

“‘Cause God makes no mistakes. I’m on the right track, baby, I was born this way.”

Several years ago, Lady Gaga made it a point to express her view on sexuality and that it is acceptable to be gay because that’s how you were born. But scientifically, can you really be born gay? Is there such a thing as a gay gene?

As stated by the CitizenLink team, since the early 1990s, an abundance of  studies have been making an effort to tackle a specific genetic cause for homosexuality, and for over twenty years, one still cannot be classified as valid or consistent proof. This raises the argument of nature vs. nurture, and due to the lack of proof, nurture seems to be the reasonable solution.

CitzenLink goes on to say that Dr. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, concluded his homosexuality research by stating, “Sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations.” Dr. Francis Collins is indicating that the impending genetic factor for homosexuality is far less than the genetic contribution that has been proven for communal personality traits that he listed as “general cognitive ability, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, aggression and traditionalism”.

The Huffington Post re-introduced a controversial study from 1993 that presented the idea that families with out of two homosexual brothers, specifically twins, at least one was highly likely to have particular genetic markers on a part of the X chromosome called Xq28. But how could the “gay gene” have originated?  If the “gay gene” did exist in a family, that would mean the family would have a history of gay couples. That alone could be countered with anecdotal examples. Within this gay family, a trickle-down effect would have to take place, which could negatively impact the family’s level of reproduction or eliminate it as a whole over the course of time. The likelihood of this occurring commonly within families solely due to the “gay gene” is highly unlikely. Once again, the biggest influence on the correlation with families and homosexuality relies on the environment, or nurture.

“You begin to display gay behavior when you’re young,” many pro-gay gene individuals claim. This may be true, but this does not prove that it is biological. At a young age, we begin to display our personality with subtle or sometimes obvious actions. Our environment as a child strongly influences the way we grow as adults. As a child, if one is surrounded by a vast majority of women, the child is likely to act in a feminine manner. If a child has the misfortune of coming in contact with molestation/sexual abuse with the same sex, male or female, their sexual orientation may be skewed. Or, if a child grows up with a male on male couple, he may grow up believing that is the way that a relationship should be. On the issue of how much influence parents have on their child’s sexual orientation, a parent told Patrick J. McGrath, “A friend has always projected a very tough facade. She was sexually molested at around 12 years of age. Her daughter has taken the ‘toughness’ to heart and anything remotely feminine is shunned.”

So many confounding variables play a role in the environment, culture, and development in one’s childhood that it is nearly impossible to say that a baby came out a particular way and has not changed since birth. In the battle of nature vs. nurture, nurture wins. There is no way to prove that an individual is born gay and stays gay due to the “gay gene”.

Manhattan is a concrete jungle that is one of the most well known places in the world. I would doubt that the first thing one thinks about regarding Manhattan would be the abundant amount of life other than human beings. It turns out that underneath Central Park, the soil is abundant with hundreds of thousands of microbes that have never been discovered before. It is interesting to think that one of the more diverse ecosystems could be located in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world, but that is the fact of it. Feel free to read up on more background of Central Park if you please.

In a study of over 500 different soil samples all across central park, scientists “were surprised to learn that the park has just as wide a range of soil microbes as do tropical rain forests, prairies or other wild places that have been studied” (Newman, Andy). With this amount of life harvested in such a small area how abundant was the land the city of manhattan was built on before all the construction? Before New York was made into a huge city, Henry Hudson discovered Manhattan as a huge area full of trees, shrubbery, and wildlife.

This picture truly amazes me because it shows the vision of the people who colonized our nation to be able to see the potential of the land they were discovering. If this land was so diverse before than it has just been evolving ever since. Just because a city surrounds it, Central Park is still extremely well kept and needs to be looked at more. Why haven’t we examined this soil in the past? Has human negligence forced us to overlook possible one of the more diverse ecosystems on the planet? It is hard to believe that there are small organisms living in the soil of Central Park that have yet to be discovered, and we are just realizing it is important to know what they are. If in the center of a city filled with about 1.7 million people there are undiscovered organisms that are being overlooked, where else in the world have be neglected to research further? I believe this attributes to the idea that Andrew constantly harps on about HUMAN INTUITION IS LOUSY. Some may argue that little organisms in the soil of Central Park have no effect on the way we live but that is superficial of them. At one point all humans evolved from little organisms like this. They are the stepping stones of advanced life and in order to learn how the world works we have to look into things like these more. It is crucial to not overlook the wonders of life. An area as abundant as a rainforest is sitting right in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world. Let’s explore.

As sad as it is to say, we’re growing up in a rape culture. Rape has become  more and more common and it is practically all we hear about when it comes to safety in college. As college students, we should all be aware of the high risk of rape. Girls, because were in college we are four times more likely to be raped than any other gender or age. Many girls try to avoid these situations by not going out to bars or parties but many girls also argue they do not want to miss out on the college experience. Four men the North Carolina State University decided they would help out.

They invented a nail polish that changes color when it comes in contact with a liquid that has been contaminated by drugs. For example, Rohypnol, Xanax or Gama Hdroxybutyric Acid…AKA GHB, all of which are the most common forms of date rape drugs. The polish is meant to help prevent date rape in a discrete way and to empower women while keeping them safe. People are beginning to argue that this nail polish is feeding the rape culture and normalizing it. We’ve all had it drilled into our heads not to leave drinks unsupervised or with someone we don’t know. But is that enough? No, it is not enough because 84% of women knew their rapist. With this nail polish, you simply dip your finger in your beverage, stir it around and the results are instantly shown on your nail. The product has not been released to the public just yet, it is it still being perfected by adding different color options and making the polish 100% accurate. This product was not created to stop rape and many people are skeptical but there is no possible way that it can not decrease the number or rape victims at any University. Undercover colors is taking donations in order to get this product on the market quicker.

http://www.usciences.edu/shac/counseling/daterape.shtml

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/undercover-colors

https://www.facebook.com/undercovercolors

https://undercovercolors.cloverdonations.com/uc-donations-page/

When I think back over my first month at State College, I think of the things back home that I miss the most. Before anything else, I normally think of my dog, Shadow. The way she always seems happy, responds to what I say, and loves the words “beach” and “treat” made me think about the possible personalities that non-domestic animals could have.

First off, it is important to first know the types of personalities that domestic pets such as dogs have so that we can then see how that compares to all animals in the wild. A blind trial by Dr. Samuel Gosling in which an observer unfamiliar with the dogs would judge the behaviors of the dogs while doing various activities showed the results to be quite consistent with what the owners believed of their dogs (How Stuff Works). This is essential to proving that dogs do have personalities, but those that are around them constantly already know that. Dog breeding is highly controlled and due to this, some may question whether or not animals outside of domestic households have the same type of distinct personality traits as dogs like my own do. Some may say that the following studies could be due to chance but through numerous trials it is safe to say that the studies were performed well. One study in the Netherlands showed that birds of different sorts were seen as having specific traits ranging from adventurous to shy and timid (How Stuff Works). This baffles me as an intellectual because humans always believe that they are the most dominant beings on Earth and constantly overlook the millions of other species, but if animals are able to act just as humans do in social situations could there be more to the ways they communicate, learn, and adapt to situations around them?

Along with birds, a separate and more recent study on sharks has arisen the same question for sea dwelling animals. In the study of cat sharks, were placed in all different environments yet where ever they ended up it seemed that the more “social” sharks stayed together and the “antisocial” ones avoided others (Shark Study).

This information makes me think about evolution and the similarities humans have to other species but I feel as if nobody takes the time to think about how the way we act is also similar to all species of life. There are those that love to be in the spotlight and the opposite who would never dare put themselves out there, but it is interesting to know we are not alone in those situations. It took an almost miracle for the human race to exist and so it makes you think what else is evolving with just as much luck as we did thousands of years ago? With so many animals so similar in the way our minds work, how far off are those animals from being able coherently and rationally learn as humans do?

Works Cited

“HowStuffWorks “Animal Personality Studies”.” HowStuffWorks. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Oct. 2014. <http://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/do-animals-have-personalities1.htm>.

“Shark study shows they have individual personalities.” BBC News. BBC, 10 Feb. 2014. Web. 2 Oct. 2014. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/29461882>.

When students first arrive on campus in their first year, the sheer amount of things to do and keep track of can get overwhelming quickly. In addition to classes, there are clubs and activities that students get involved in, as well as meetings and socials to attend. For many, one of the advantages of staying on campus is the wealth of additional resources available. Whenever one has questions or feels distressed, RA’s, advisors, and other students are almost always readily available and willing to help. When moving farther away from campus, the ease of access to these aides is greatly decreased and it can add to a student’s worries.

The result of the added companionship and help of living on campus is often higher academic performance. Students who live off-campus are nearly twice as likely to get a GPA below 1.0 as those living on campus. In addition, those living on-campus have an average GPA that is anywhere from .19 to .97 points higher than their counterparts. Possibilities for the academic gap could be that the libraries are in easier walking distance of those on-campus, as well as the offices of professors, study groups, and academic advisors. Many large universities also provide tutoring and student organizations dedicated to learning on-campus.

However, there are several problems with trying to quantify the benefits of living on-campus. For example, many students who choose to stay on campus are in better financial situations, as most believe it is more expensive. Studies have shown that there is a correlation between financial situation and higher academic performance. Therefore, it is possible that the theoretical correlation between living on-campus and better academic performance is really just the well-known correlation between wealth and grades.

Another problem is that the majority of students who stay on campus are freshmen, especially in schools that require all freshmen to stay on-campus. This can lead to comparisons of academic performance between freshmen and upperclassmen, which can be unfair and lead to bias, in either direction. Unfortunately, in schools that require freshmen to stay on campus, there is no control group.

Finally, the students who choose to stay on-campus are those who believe that the decision will help them more than staying off-campus. If the same students stayed off-campus, it is possible that they would perform differently. At the same time, the students staying off-campus believe that it is the best decision for them, for financial, academic, or social reasons.  Without a control group for both, there is no way for us to tell whether staying on or off campus is the better decision. Ultimately, every student is different, and will have to decide for himself/herself whether to live on or off-campus.

Study groups are a huge benefit to living on-campus. While they exist off-campus, the difficulty of finding and gathering a group increases the farther a student moves away from campus.

I’ve always found the act of “tickling” in itself to be quite absurd. We touch someone repeatedly in a sensitive area (whether it be under the arm or on the sole of the foot) and as a result, we cannot help but laugh hysterically. But what really baffles me, is that this assumption doesn’t hold true when we try to tickle ourselves. This discrepancy made me wonder if laughing is actually a reflex of tickling or if there is a social factor involved.

Before conducting any research on the subject, I assumed that tickling caused a pleasant sensation. Why else would our reaction be to laugh and smile, two telltale signs of happiness? Multiple sites led me to this same hypothesis, which we refer to as the  “Darwin/Hecker Hypothesis of laughter/humor.” Created by biologist Charles Darwin and psychologist Ewald Hecker in the 1800’s, their theory assumes that laughter (induced by tickling) requires a good mood and ultimately is a pleasant sensation. For years this theory faced little objection or experimentation to prove its legitimacy, but a study done in the late 1990’s showed that their theory might be old-fashioned.

An undergraduate student Christine Harris and  researcher Dr. Nicholas Christenfeld of University of California at San Diego took it upon themselves to test out Darwin and Hecker’s hypothesis. To do this, Harris and Christenfeld adopted 72 undergraduate students to participate in their study. The study was based off of what they called the “warm-up effect,” which assumes that when someone finds something funny, being exposed to humor after that will seem even funnier. To test this, one group was tickled until the point that it was unbearable and then shown a series of comedy scenes such as clips from “Saturday Night Live.” The other group completed this in reverse, so, they watched the clips and then were tickled. The control group watched a video that was supposedly unfunny and then was tickled. What the researchers believed would prove Darwin and Hecker’s hypothesis was that being exposed to either the tickling or the comedic clips would make the other one more funny, according to the warm-up theory. What they found was that neither had any effect on the amount of laughter that the groups produced, which went against their theory and implied that tickling does not cause happiness or pleasant feelings. If this experiment was done correctly, then does that mean that tickling has no emotional connection, but is just a reflex?

Harris and Christenfeld decided to follow up on that hypothesis with another experiment. This included 32 undergraduate students this time, who believed that they would be tickled by a human and a machine, each for 5 seconds. This was a double-blind placebo trial because despite their belief that two different mechanisms would be doing the tickling, they were actually tickled by two humans. The results of the experiment showed that despite their lack of knowledge on the “tickler,” the students laughed and smiled just as much. In effect, they concluded that tickling was a mere reflex similar to “the one a doctor elicits from a patient’s knee with a little rubber hammer.” (Yoon, “Anatomy of a Tickle”)

Neither experiments completely convinced me that laughter is a reflex of a tickling because we still cannot tickle ourselves.There were many loopholes in Harris and Christenfeld’s first experiment such as their ability to measure laughter, different senses of humor, and possible resistance to a reaction from tickling. Their second experiment was more concrete, but the lack of experimentation done on this subject in general makes it hard to assume something as correct. But if I have learned anything from the research I’ve done on the subject, it is that tickling is nothing to laugh about.

Sources:

• Yoon, Carol K. “Anatomy of a Tickle Serious Busiess at the Research Lab.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 3 June 1997. Web. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F1997%2F06%2F03%2Fscience%2Fanatomy-of-a-tickle-is-serious-business-at-the-research-lab.html>.
• Clark, Josh. “Why Do People Laugh When They Get Tickled?” HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks.com, n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2014. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/laugh-tickling2.htm>.
• “UCSD Psychologists Tackle Ticklish Subject.” Newswise. Newswise, Inc., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2014. <http://www.newswise.com/articles/ucsd-psychologists-tackle-ticklish-subject>.

I have been playing baseball since I was young and unlike most people I didn’t quit after Little League. As I’ve gotten older I have tried to convince countless people that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in the world. My argument is simple, there is less than a second to decide not only whether or not its over a small home plate, but also the speed, which can be anywhere from 70-100 mph. Lastly, you have to figure out from seam rotation and release point how the ball will move and at what speed followed by swinging a round bat at a round ball. But somehow people still disagree, the point of this is to eliminate any argument. 

Look at any sport in the world , you need a specific body type, even some of the more uncommon ones. In sports such as rugby and football is a sport based on size, if you are big you can be a lineman in the NFL, of course it requires some athletic ability too, as do all of the following examples. In the NBA over 76% of NBA players are above 6 feet tall, the average height for a man is 5’10”. Also,

Let’s take a look at the epicenter of height-discrimination: The NBA

• 42% of American males are 5’9 or shorter. And yet, 0.45% of NBA players fall into this category.
• 80% of American males are under 6 feet tall. And yet, only 3.5% of NBA players can say the time.
• 99.9% of American males are 6’4 or shorter. And yet, the average height in the NBA is still 6’7.

Based on these stats, the vast majority of sports require a certain body type. In Horse Racing, the riders have to be small so they do not weigh down the horse. However, in baseball anyone can play, from 5’6″ All-Star 2B Jose Altuve to 6’10” Cy Young winner and future Hall of Famer, Randy Johnson. Players of any height can partake and it requires a certain skill to hit the ball and is not based on anything but skill.

However there is a very good argument for boxing as well according to ESPN.com. Boxing is being called “pound for pound the hardest sport.” The ESPN panel of experts clearly disagree with me and based off of their chart baseball is actually the 9th hardest sport. However according to http://www.axonpotential.com hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports.

Hitting a baseball is the most difficult thing to do in sports according to some, and not others, having played baseball I am still going to say hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do, despite what ESPN says, because as everyone has learned in the past with quotes like “If [Jimmy Clausen] is not a successful starting quarterback in the NFL, I’m done. That’s it. I’m out.” No, Jimmy Clausen isn’t successful and no, Mel Kiper Jr. did not quit. So as you can see ESPN is not always right, despite what some statistics say, hitting the baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports… or is it?

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills

http://www.axonpotential.com/hitting-a-baseball-the-hardest-thing-to-do-in-sports/

http://rookie.com/mel-kiper-jrs-biggest-mistakes

Everyday I wake up and go through the same routine in order to get to class at the last possible minute. Wash my face, brush my teeth, change my clothes, and then take my vitamins (my gummy vitamins to be exact) along with other supplements such as iron and biotin.

It never occurred to me, until today, that I had no idea where any of these “nutrients” were coming from. I frantically read the label and again found no answer. But at the bottom of the bottle I saw in fine print, “have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration,” and this made me even more alarmed.

It is stated by Precision Nutrition that, “When people think of drugs, most think “artificial.” When people think of vitamin supplements, most think “natural.” But both drugs and vitamin supplements can be artificial or natural. Many vitamin supplements produced today are artificial.”

I admit I have fallen victim to believing this. Often we are misled with facts that if we are taking supplements then they should be 100% okay. The chemical makeup of these dietary phenomena is what should be analyzed instead of simply their percent daily value used in achieving the optimum goal. Other factors are important in giving our body what we need. We shouldn’t have to spend hours in the grocery store or GNC looking for the right supplements; we should be able to feel safe taking any vitamin that is placed on shelves.

“When a vitamin is marked “natural”, it only has to include 10% of actual natural plant-derived ingredients” (Andrews). This alarming fact should make consumers aware of the misconceptions they may have. A vitamin they may think is helping them can have some adverse effects since it is being synthetically derived from something else.

You can think of this process like juicing. When you put your desired fruits and vegetables into a juicer the product you get is always lesser in density than what you started out with. Some nutrients can get wasted during the process and may sometimes be the most natural, healthiest ones. This is the same during the processing and refining that takes place during the creation of multi-vitamins.

We are told in science to never assume and that’s exactly what I did. I thought that the worst ingredients in these vitamins were simply other things found in nature. But surprisingly, “Starting materials for strictly synthetic supplements can be anything from coal tar to petroleum to acetylene gas” (Andrews).

With the more common process of synthetically creating nutrients, companies save money as well as precious resources. But should we really worry about money or the safety of health conscious citizens?

References:

Andrews, Ryan. “All About Where Vitamin Supplements Come From.”Precision Nutrition. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2014. <http://www.precisionnutrition.com/all-about-vitamin-supplements>.