I’m talking about a material called Graphene, no not Graphite like in your pencils, though graphene is technically taken from graphite. Let me give you a little history in this relatively new material. At the University of Manchester in England there were two physicists, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov. All they did was simply take a roll of sticky tape, and put it over a slab of graphite. Then they kept repeating this process while making the sample left on tape thinner with each try until they came up with a one atom thick material which is now known as graphene. Grim and Novoselov received the Nobel Prize for physics in 2004 for this simple experiment.

So now you’re probably wondering, what’s so special about what’s so special about graphene? Well for starters it’s only one atom thick, making it the only two dimensional thing known to mankind, obviously making it the thinnest material in the world as well, about one million times thinner then a single piece of hair. It conducts electricity better then silver, conducts heat better then diamond, and is 200 times harder then steel yet it is flexible and stretchable.

Now, how can we use it? It can be used to replace micro chips which is primarily made of silicon. Graphene can conduct electricity at 1000GHz which is ten times more then silicon can handle. And since it is an excellent conductor of electricity it can also be used with touch screen technology. Imagine having your cell phone screen if it were 200 hundred times harder then steel, no more cracked screens! And for the future scientists believe that it can significantly improve water purification technology that can provide clean drinking water for million.

The only problem with graphene is that is extremely difficult to obtain. Peeling sticky tape over and over again isn’t really ideal from a mass production standpoint making it somewhat expensive. Market price is about 100 dollars for five grams of graphene. We can obtain it by by heating up hydrocarbons such as methane till the hydrogen separates leaving only the carbon behind but then the graphene you would get from that is low quality and not useful.

Works Cited:

http://www.graphenea.com/pages/graphene#.VmD0a4SQtIA

http://www.graphene.manchester.ac.uk/explore/the-story-of-graphene/

    Vs   

Recently movies developing quickly, and more and more people like to watch movies, but there are different opinions about watching movies at different place, some people beginning like to go to the cinema, and other people like to watching movies at home. There are many different reasons, such as varying atmospheres, different cost, different timeliness and convenience.

First, the atmospheres of going to cinema to watching movies are different from at home. When you go to cinema, you can get more better watching experience, because there are bigger screens, and  realistic sound effects, you may feel that it is a really world, and especially when a person watching Hollywood movies, it can bring great visual impact. Besides, a person needs to obey many rules, and cannot drop litter around in order to keep environment clean.  When you watch movies at home, you can choose watch movies on the computer or television, while the environment is not very good, and the screens are small than cinema and the sound effect is worse. But one does not obey rules and you can lie on the couch watching movies, and eat food whenever you want.  You can imagine that you are lying on the couch watching movies, and eating nice food. It is very nice.

Second, watching movies in the cinema is costs more than watching movies at home. It means money spent, and time cost. When you go to the cinema, you need to buy tickets, sometimes one need pay full price for the tickets, and other times you only cost half price to buy tickets. For example, if a person buy movies tickets on the weekend,   and one need buy full price tickets, and when a person buy tickets on Tuesday, a person can buy cheaper tickets. Besides, person can buy tickets on website, in general, it cheaper than other places. Watching movies in the cinema, a person need cost more time. For example, when people go to cinema, they need to spend some time on the way, and they need to queue up for tickets. When one watching movies at cinema on weekend, many people will go to cinema, they may spend an hour to line up, it takes more time to watch films in cinema than at home. When you watching movies at home, and you can watch movies for free. There are a variety of movies on website, Such as Youku, Tencent.  When you watch movies at home, you can choose movies on the computer, and you do not need to wait in line. It saves a lot of time.

Third, movies have different styles. When people go to cinema watching movies, they can watch the new movies, it is very fashion. For example, many young people purse fashion. They will watch the latest movies. So, going to cinema to watch movies is a good choice for them. When you stay at home, you can also watch a lot of movies, but for copyright, people cannot watch the latest movies at home, and the films are available a few months later on line or on TV. But if people like classic movies, then watching movies at home is a good choice.

In conclusion, there are a lot of differences between watching movies in cinema and at home. If people have more money and time, and they like fashion, they can choose going to the cinema to watching movies. On contrary, if you more like classic movies and do not have much time, you can choose watching movies at home. From the above graph we can clearly see that the amount of people hope watching movie at home is dramatically larger than the amount hope watch at theatre. I do think watching movie athome is a better idea.

Sources：

http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/watching-movie-home-vs-viewing-theatre-economic-hardships-still-face-many-today-mean-enjoy-q1379010

http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/watching-movie-home-vs-viewing-theatre-economic-hardships-still-face-many-today-mean-enjoy-q1379010

http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/watching-movie-home-vs-viewing-theatre-economic-hardships-still-face-many-today-mean-enjoy-q1379010

The closer the average person gets to death, the more they tend to try and fight to stay healthy and active. Whether that is through excessive exercise, keeping up with daily vitamins, or strict diets, humans are constantly trying to better their health through simple daily life fixes. But, one thing that seems to slip older adults mind is sex! As people grow older, it seems they tend to have sex less and less.

In the words of Joy Davidson, a New York psychologist and sex therapist, “Of course, sex is everywhere in the media, but the idea that we are vital, sexual creatures is still looked at in some cases with disgust or in other cases a bit of embarrassment. So to really take a look at how our sexuality adds to our life and enhances our life and our health, both physical and psychological, is eye-opening for many people.”

These health benefits are not simply a result of speculation or hypothesis, but are backed up by scientific scrutiny. Sex has a number of benefits to both ones mental and physical health. Mentally, sex boosts ones self-esteem and strengthens their overall well-being. Results of this is not only seen through a more positive connection between the two participating in sex, but also through their relationships with their family, friends, and peers. Although benefits such as these are only recorded through observation by sex therapists such as Gina Ogden, there are many physical benefits much more testable and scientifically proven.

A huge health benefit of sex is its positive impact on the immune system. Researchers at Wilkes University of Pennsylvania discovered that students who had sex once or twice a week had higher levels of certain antibodies ,than students who don’t, which defend the body against germs, viruses, and other intruders. Simply put by sexual health expert, Yvonne K. Fulbright, “Sexually active people take fewer sick days.”

Another huge benefit of sex is its close correlation with lowered blood pressure. Joseph J. Pinzone, MD, CEO, and medical director of Amai Wellness, has preformed many studies involving the benefits of sexual intercourse on the human body. He states, “One landmark study found that sexual intercourse specifically (not masturbation) lowered systolic blood pressure.” Systolic blood pressure was the first number on the pressure test.

 

Besides being a great way to raise your heart rate, sex helps keep your estrogen and testosterone levels in balance. “When either one of those is low you begin to get lots of problems, like osteoporosis and even heart disease,” Pinzone says. His studies have shown that men and women involved in sex one to two times a week are half as likely to die of heart disease.

Almost every pain medication, from over the counter to prescription drugs, comes with danger of misuse, abuse, and liver damage, so why not just have sex? “Orgasms can block pain,” says Barry R. Komisaruk, a distinguished service professor at Rutgers at the State University of New Jersey. It releases a hormone in your brain that helps to significantly raise your pain threshold.

Sheenie Ambardar, MD, says that touching and hugging can release your body’s natural “feel-good hormone.” Sexual arousal releases a brain chemical that revs up your brain’s pleasure and reward system countless times during sex. This could possibly be the most significant benefit of sex because this means that by having sex it can help with stress and negative emotions. Although stress may not seem as significant as heart disease or a weak immune system, according to http://www.statisticbrain.com/stress-statistics/, 77 percent of U.S. citizens suffer from physical symptoms of stress and 48 percent report that these symptoms play a negative role in their personal or professional lives.

Effects of stress on the brain:

• Anxiety
• Restlessness
• Lack of motivation or focus
• Irritability or anger
• Sadness or depression

Effects of stress on behavior:

• Overeating or under eating
• Angry outbursts
• Drug or alcohol abuse
• Tobacco use
• Social withdrawal

Instagram. A photo sharing social Web service that lets you share your life with friends and family through a series of pictures which you post using your smartphone. Activity on Instagram is monitored and calculated through likes on a picture. One gets likes on their Instagram pictures by their followers. The more followers you have, the more likes you’ll probably have. But is posting a picture just because you have a lot of followers guaranteed a lot of likes?

You ever think you have such a great pic, that it’s bound to get likes. Whether it’s a “Throwback Thursday”(tbt), a picture with someone famous, or a picture with all your friends, the occasion and importance of the picture can really affect the amount of likes your picture gets. But theirs one thing that people generally overlook when it comes to posting a picture, and that’s timing.

Lattergramme, a service for Instagram that lets users manage and schedule Instagram posts, did an analysis of over 61,000 posts seeing when photos see the most likes and comments. What they discovered was that if you want your followers to pay attention to you and see your posts, posting at 2 am and 5 pm EST are the best times to do so. The also found out that the worst times are 9 am and 6 pm EST. Posting on Wednesday’s will give you the best day to have interact with your followers.

Latergramme founder Matt Smith broke down as to why posting at 2 am and 5 pm are the best times. “”We think this is because less people are posting at that time and that more engaged users are using Instagram at that time,” Smith told the Huffington Post. Latergramme was also able to find out what times are the “hottest” on certain days. Like on Monday, the concluded that 5 pm is the worst time to post that day and 7 pm -10 pm are the best. Like on Saturday’s, 2 am is the best time to post, and 7 am is the worst. The analysis was able to determine what days you should posts on and the times you should do so in order to getting the most interactions and essentially the most likes.

I found another analysis that complied the research of 10 different studies in determining the best time one should use social media. When it came to Instagram, it was deduced that 2-3 pm and 8-9 pm on Mondays and Thursdays were the best time to post. The 10 studies found out that there really isn’t that much of a difference between “best days to post” because Instagram engagement everyday is fairly steady and consistent.

I then found a Fortune 500 study that took 123 Instagram accounts of Fortune 500 companies and examined all the posts from the companies. They concluded that “Throwback Thursday” is the day people tend to post pictures the most, but in the case of overall effectiveness of a photo, the day doesn’t matter.

If I were to do an experiment in finding the best time to post on Instagram in order to get the most follower interactions, I would start off by hypothesizing that posting at night, during off-work hours on the weekends will get you the most likes. I think that using the knowledge of posting on the weekend would be ideal, for no one will be working so they’ll have more leisure time on social media. I would take in count the correlation between posting on a certain day (Mcm, tbt) + the hash tags used to amount of likes received on a photo. To determine the best day to post, I will add a post likes and comments together, then I would divide this by the user’s follower count. By doing this on every day of the week, we’ll be able to determine which day sees the most engagement amongst one’s followers. I would then take multiple accounts and use them in this experiment. I feel like doing an observational study or experimental study wouldn’t make that much of a difference. If we did an observational study and just observed the amount likes a post gets compared to others, we’d be able to see the real results of the posts without changing the environment of the posts. If we did experimental, we would be able to control the time of when an account posts. I would have 168 accounts partake in this experiment and have each account post once during a week. Since there are 7 days a week, and 24 hours in a day, that’s how I got 168 accounts. One account will post on Sunday at 12am, and the next account will post on Sunday at 1 am, and so on until Saturday at 11 pm. In the controlled experiment, the independent variable will be the time posted and the dependent variable will be the most interaction amongst followers (likes, comments, follower interaction). Whichever account gets the most likes, comments, and followers interaction will essentially prove which time is the best time to post.

Works Cited:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/25/get-instagram-likes_n_6751614.html

http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/11752/what-are-the-best-days-and-times-to-post-on-instagram

http://coschedule.com/blog/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/

“With over sixty million images uploaded onto Instagram everyday, it seems we are all trying to find a version of ourselves that gets the most positive feedback—or the most ‘likes’.” As a young woman myself, I definitely feel the pressure of having to confine to society’s opinion of beauty. Since it is 2015, social media is now a basic use in everyday life. It made me wonder if how often we use social media is rising, if the negative effects of social media is rising as well?

Negative effects of Social Media

Pinterest has recently acknowledged that it is a big enough issue to ban “thinspiration” pin boards, where pinterest members would post links that would relate to extreme weight loss as it was damaging to the users’ self image. Dove published  a survey that showed “over half (54%) of women globally agree that when it comes to how they look, they are their own worst beauty critic, which equates to a staggering 672 million women around the world.” This survey shows that it is clearly a big enough problem that social media has a great amount of effect on how women perceive themselves. Research from the University of Buffalo indicated that girls are now basing their self worth on their appearance, and are most likely to post pictures on social media for any sort of validation. According to a recent  Dove study “82 percent of women feel the beauty standards set by social media are unrealistic and almost three quarters of women believe social media comments critiquing women’s beauty are destructive to their self-esteem.” Also in the survey, Dove announced that with the twitter data they collected, women on twitter wrote over 5 million negative tweets in 2014.

Following Models and/or Celebrities on Social Media

According to some psychologists celebrities have created “highly charged24/7 cycle of unrealistic body images” that teens may aspire to be. Following celebrities can cause a teen to get Dysmorphia, a condition in which there is dissatisfaction with body appearance. Self-criticism has become a main thing in online media, and now with the factor of celebrities and models where their bodies are sometimes airbrushed or edited. The looks of models and celebrities realistically only fit a small percentage of girls and boys in real life, yet every teen girl aims for that look. In an interview with model Britney Kelleher (huffingtonpost.com/dr-gail-gross/celebrity-influence-on-your-teens-body-image_b_7233856.html) she says, “of course media makes you think you’re not good enough. Like if you don’t starve yourself, you are never going to fit in, be able to be a model. You’re not the ideal size or look.”

More than just Self esteems issues

In a study by the Keep it real campaign, 80% of all ten year old American girls have been on a diet. In an article “An Intervention for the Negative Influence of Media on Body Esteem” did an experiment and found ”that the association between initial risk for disordered eating and subsequent thinness expectancy endorsement was much smaller in an average-size model image-viewing group than in a controlled or thin model image-viewing group.” In the Effects of the Media on Body Image article they mention “national eating disorder Association reports that in the past 70 years national rates of incidences of all eating disorders have dramatically increased across the board . . . Bulimia in women between the ages of 10 to 39 has more than tripled.”

How to fix the problem

What we see on social media is just plain unrealistic and sometimes even unhealthy, and the majority of the women in America are the true idea of beauty. Recently, some celebrities have been posting photos with no makeup and photos that are pre edited to show the young women that follow them that you can still be beautiful without having to alter your look. Dove also has launched a campaign called #speakbeautiful dedicated to make social media a more positive

atmosphere for women and people in general.

Does your name determine your destiny? Let’s talk about this. Roman had a saying “nomen est omen” ,or “name is destiny”. To some remarkable degree, one’s name does matter, and what one is called influences the way people perceive him and the way he perceives himself. Is this really true, let’s see…

Anecdote：

Remembering what Andrew said about Anecdotes, there are lots of anecdotes for this phenomenon. Back to my home country, I found it very interesting that people with first name meaning “patriotic” are likely to become politicians. Besides that, I also found the people who have the given name meaning “doctor” are also likely to become doctors. I don’t really know about American names. But as I looked it up on the internet, not surprisingly I found similar patterns existed. And I also found an interesting term called “Nominative determinism”, which implies a person’s name can have a significant impact in choosing their jobs or profession and in shaping their characteristics.

In past several decades, there are many study done in this topic

With a null hypothesis that students whose names begin with letters associated with bad grades are likely doing poorly in school, researchers run an experiment. To test the hypothesis, researchers acquired data from a large private university, and the data contains all kinds of racial groups. They first identified students whose first or last names began with letter A, B,C or D, excluding those with conflicting first and last initials(e.g. first initial A and last initial D). In addition, students who have initials E to Z are sorted into “Others”. In this study, the factors controlled are demographic and graduation year. The result are followed below

It was the same as the researcher predicted; the experiment concluded that there is a strong name-performance correlation in this case, and the “other” column shows the lower average GPA was caused by the initials C and D. However, correlation does not equal to causation. There probably is a third variable in between. For instance, we don’t know if teachers give the grades based on students’ name deliberately, rather than their students are responsible for the result observed. Furthermore, the sample size was not mentioned in this experiment,thus it could be the factor cause the inaccuracy.

How we explain．．．

There is no scientific evidence prove names does affect our destiny．psychologically, this phenomenon can be attributed to how we react our own names. From the study above, we can explain it, saying children who like their names turn out to be more confident and self-assertive than those who don’t. Thinking about how many time in a given day, while meeting people ,the first name you ask is “ what’s you name” but if one have a name he doesn’t like, he should not be confident.

In Conclusion..

I found it is really hard to prove the causation between name and one’s future. However, name liking in fact affects life outcomes though very implicit way. A name can exert unconscious influence over one’s decision making. It just can be not totally due to chance that in American people named Dennis are more likely become an dentist, same thing with people named starting with La and lawyer.

at last, here is a video about this interesting phenomenon

Work Cited

http://psu.summon.serialssolutions.com/search/results?spellcheck=true&s.q=name+success+correlation#!/search/document?ho=t&fvf=ContentType,Journal%20Article,f&l=en&q=name%20profession%20correlation&id=FETCHMERGED-LOGICAL-p540-687fe246ba3feec1aedf7a53127b0961a32c1ebae1fcad9947978e24fbc7c2af2

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/18/12/1106.full

http://jcr.oxfordjournals.org/content/38/2/300.abstract

http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f6627

Seasonal Affective Disorder as mentioned in one of my earlier blogs causes symptoms in the winter that many just don’t like to feel. Antidepressants are used, and you fight until the long winter is finally over. As we sit in dorm rooms, with our blinds closed most of the time, we don’t feel that sun coming through the window. But, What about artificial light? Does it serve more benefits to you than natural light?

In Study 1, According to Christopher Bergland, researchers at the Interdepartmental Neuroscience program at Northwestern University in Chicago reported that the detrimental impact of being in a windowless environment is a universal phenomenon. According to a new study titled “Impact of Workplace Daylight Exposure on Sleep, Physical Activity, and Quality of Life,” concluded there is a strong relationship between workplace daylight exposure and office workers’ sleep, activity, and quality of life. The study group was comprised of 49 day-shift office workers-27 in windowless workplaces and 22 in workplaces with windows.
The study found that compared to workers in office without windows, those with windows in the workplace received 173 percent more white light exposure during work hours and slept an average of 46 more minutes per night. Workers without windows had lower scores, and had poorer outcomes in measures of overall sleep quality, sleep efficiency, sleep disturbances and daytime dysfunction.
Therefore, in this study it concluded that natural light was better than having no light at all.

However, Study 2 took a different approach. After several years of research correlated weight gain with artificial light exposure. Researcher Kooijman and his team wanted to know more about what exactly caused this correlation, so they decided to look at the mechanism behind the weight gain. The researchers used mice for the study and exposed them to artificial light for 12, 16, or 24 hours for five weeks.

Kooijman and his research team came to the conclusion that mice exposed to the artificial light for 24 hours, compared to 12 hours had significantly higher fat composition despite consuming the exact same diet. A tissue called brown adipose tissues (BAT) plays a key role in energy expenditure by burning calories. The BAT activity was decreased by light exposure in this experiment. As mice were exposed to longer periods of light, conversion of fatty acids and glucose into heat was reduced, and the longer the light shined the more the fewer calories the mice burned.

It seemed weird to me that this study could reflect on humans, but the body’s circadian rhythms are uniquely attuned to variations in light and dark and disruption of the processes can have astonishing metabolic repercussions. This study definitely shows that maybe artificial light isn’t the way to go. Now, if working in a hospital all the time, one often confuses their body and causes the processes to slow down, so sometimes it can be hard to control in certain situations.

Between the two study’s, it seems that natural light provided better benefits for the human body. It didn’t slow down natural system processes, it helped sleep, helped activity and quality of life. However, in the study with the mice, there could always be third variables involved, which caused the results. But it is interesting to see how both types of light could have different effects on us as humans, no matter where you are in the workplace, in a cubicle, or at a hospital.

Overall, it would be interesting if there were a study done to see if there is a correlation between natural sunlight and the human body vs. artificial light. It would be interesting to see the findings between the two, and to see if there is any more mechanism’s behind what is actually going on with the human body when it comes to artificial and natural light.

As many know, the future is full of innovations, new ways of thinking and doing things. 3D-printing has become more and more popular within this century, people have started even printing cars! With 3D printing we should be aware or take precaution. A new study finds that some newly printed plastics may emerge with traces of dangerous chemicals.

A bio-engineer at the University of California, wanted to measure tiny zebra fish eggs and newly hatched baby fish, when she used a 3D-printer, many eggs did not hatch and the fish that did were sick. The bio-engineer Shirin Oskui, was aware her regular plastic lab ware never has harmed her fish before, suggesting it has the be the 3D-printer.

William Grover and Shirin Oskui both further investigated and found that processes inside some of the 3-D printers actually leave traces of toxic chemicals on the finished/final object. This was a huge discovery, because there are no strict rules for safety when comparing 3-D printing to a manufacturing plant. The product could be successfully printed out but that does not mean it is deemed safe.

The researchers performed an experiment and made three small disks with each 3-D printer, they placed each disk into its own dish along with 30 newly laid zebrafish eggs. As a control they placed zebrafish eggs in dishes with no plastic disks. Once the team monitored both the control group and testing group, they found that about 80% of fish in the control groups survived but fish in the testing group had some health problems and only 60% survived. Also every fish in the remaining dishes died. Those in the test group that died off, were eggs and fish hatched exposed to plastic made by stereolithography 3-D printing (Society for Science). The researched went as far to clean the finished object after it was printed, but the toxins remained which they have believed poisoned and killed the fish.

Thankfully the researchers found a cure to the problem. They recognized light made the ink into a hard plastic, and reasoned the more light applied should transform any ink leftover into a safe solid. The researchers tested this theory, and came to the conclusion that since 60% of fish survived at least a week when light was applied, that the light should get rid of the toxins.

This was definitely an interesting read, and does require additional research. I looked for more research on this topic, but could only find this article. In the future, more studies should be done on this topic. It truly raises the question of what regulations have we put on 3-D printing? Has technology moved so quickly and changed so fast that we still have yet to set concrete safety procedures and rules when using 3-D printers? This still remains unknown. Little is known about to toxicity of 3-D printed objects.

Works Cited:

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/some-3-d-printing-can-leave-toxic-taint

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.estlett.5b00249

http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/tuljtip17&div=10&g_sent=1&collection=journals

googleimages.com

I cannot recall when, but ever since I was young, I was discouraged to consume coffee. Everyone told me, “Coffee will stunt your growth!” Fast forward to college, I have met people who cannot go a day without their Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. My question is: Does coffee stunt growth? What are the pros and cons of the popular beverage? Should I cancel my Starbucks card? I decided to investigate this topic, for coffee seems to be a new addiction everyone has in the US.

I decided to google search “Does coffee stunt growth?” To my delight, the first article search I found was a study. In this study, 81 female subjects from the ages 10-19 were tracked for six years. Within those six years, researchers found no difference “bone gain or density than those with the lowest.” (Mary L. Gavin) The groups were given 25mg of caffeine per day to double, (50mg) of caffeine per day. (Mary L. Gavin) I searched for the people who conducted the research, hoping to validate these results. However, all the articles did not have a legitimate source as to where they got this study. All of them cited each other in that there was a study that tested 81 adolescent teens. This experiment could be prone to the Texas Sharpshooter or file drawer problem! Who knows, maybe a coffee company put those results and ignored those that went against its null hypothesis. Yes, the article may claim there is no correlation, but even if the information in the study was valid, there is no evidence that definitively prove coffee does not stunt growth.

What I would do: In order to find out if coffee truly stunts growth, there will need to be a double blind randomized control trial. I would have half my adolescent subjects take a varied amount of caffeine, while the other half take a placebo. After a certain amount and time, I would measure them. I am not saying my experiment is flawless, for it is not. My experiment does not eliminate the factors of confounding variables. What if a kid’s genes is free from the side effects of caffeine? What if there was a certain activity that made them stunt their growth instead? Though sample size is important to eliminate chance and some variables, it cannot cancel all variables. Also, another issue with my intended trial would be ethics. What if in fact caffeine does stunt growth? The subjects in which effected will be permanently impaired of what their height could be. Is my planned trial ethical? Not really…

From: ASAPScience

From: ASAPScience

How I think coffee can stunt your growth: In my first paragraph, I explained how there is no real evidence that supports whether coffee can stunt your growth. In an article I found, it states that “coffee does contain caffeine, which stimulates the central nervous system.” (Owen Bond) It can be mutually agreed upon that caffeine wakes us up. That’s the reason why we drink coffee right? Well, our sleepiness actually is the product of a molecule called adenosine, “which is produced by your body while it chugs along through the day.” (Lauren F Friedman) During rest, there is a decline in concentration of the molecule and during alertness/when we wake up, there is a smaller concentration. Caffeine is extremely similar to the shape of adenosine, so it has the capability of binding to the receptors in your brain. (Lauren F Friedman) With caffeine, a person does not feel the effects of dreariness. What I think is: What if the supposed stunt in growth from coffee was simply due to our lack of sleep? Little to no sleep may mean that our growth hormone is suppressed! I may be completely wrong. What do you guys think?

Should I keep drinking coffee? Aside from the fact that coffee gives an individual alertness to go about their day, there are many benefits that coffee provides. From a domino effect, wakefulness you get from coffee improves brain function. Also, coffee is known to increase metabolic rate and help us run fat. Below are some more benefits I found on the beverage

• Increase in Physical ability/performance
• Vitamins (B2, B5, B3, Maganese, Potassium)
• Decrease in getting diabetes – “In a 2005 review of nine studies, researchers found that for those that drank four to six cups of coffee per day, versus only two or fewer, their risk for Type 2 diabetes decreased by almost 30 percent.” (Samantha) Yes, this is an assumption, but it is note worthy.

In a study published, “Association of Coffee Drinking with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality” the researchers examined about 230000 men and 170000 women from the ages 50-71. Researchers conclude that there is no clear evidence whether coffee causes certain health problems. However, as listed in the study, coffee drinkers were more inclined to smoke. Can it be the smoking, not the caffeine, that is culprit that caused the diseases in which killed the subjects. Certain things that I thought were question worthy were what if old age effected their health problems? In my previous blog, I learned that our immune system takes longer to recover and eventually breaks down over time. Also, for me at least, we put an over excessive amount of sugar in our coffee. Could this have caused heart disease, a disease in which some subjects contracted through the experiment?

Take home message: there is no clear cut evidence that coffee stunts or doesn’t stunt growth. Coffee offers many advantageous effects such as alertness, ability to burn fat, and vitamins, but too much caffeine would cause more adenosine receptors, thus requiring more coffee for us to be alert. Without caffeine, one would feel much more sleepy than they originally were.  Once again, everything in moderation is key. For those that will continue to consume, there will be pros and cons (maybe stunt growth, more adenosine receptors). Drink at your own risk!

Works Cited

• (Mary L. Gavin, MD) http://kidshealth.org/teen/expert/nutrition/coffee.html
• (Anahad O’Connor) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/health/the-claim-drinking-coffee-can-stunt-a-childs-growth.html
• (Joseph Stromberg) http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/its-a-myth-theres-no-evidence-that-coffee-stunts-kids-growth-180948068/
•  http://www.healthassist.net/blog/general/pros-and-cons-of-coffee
• (Neal D. Freedman) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3439152
• http://udel.edu/~danikoll/Factormyth.html
• (Lauren F Friedman) http://www.businessinsider.com/how-does-coffee-affect-your-brain-2014-8
• (Samantha) http://www.care2.com/greenliving/7-coffee-pros-cons.html
• (Rob M. Dam) http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=201177
• (Owen Bond) http://www.livestrong.com/article/409740-how-caffeine-affects-the-nervous-system/

So with finals week coming up, I’m sure everybody is as nervous and panicked as I am. Just the thought of taking a test that’s worth so much of our final grade stresses me out. I have already gotten a head start on studying for my exams. I try to at least study for a certain topic an hour a day so I can maintain and remember everything I need to know. The only thing I have a problem with this is the place to do so. When my roommates in the room, the TV is most likely on and it creates the biggest distraction. By next week, I plan on finding the perfect study spot in order for me to ace my exams.

In order to find the perfect place to study, there are a few variables one must consider. The variables to consider are where you study, the noise of the room, and who you are with. In an experiment, studying with music vs studying without would be the independent variable and how you’re performance of cognitive memory (studying) would be the dependent variable. Who you are with and where you study would also be the independent variables in the study. First and foremost, where is the place where you can find the least amount of noise. By noise, I mean any distractions that can get in the way of you retaining your material. Listening to music doesn’t generally count as “noise”, because some people prefer to have something playing in the back ground. When it comes to studying, there is a distinct difference in listening to music as a background noise, and listening to music with ear phones in. Studying with headphones on tends to decrease retention and memory, whereas music in the background can be an aid to study. The difference between the two deals with how close the input of sound is. Headphones have a direct accost the brain by covering the ear, essentially blocking out any information you try to take in with your eyes because your brain is too focused on the music. Background music on the other hand has all environmental noises included in it, and to hear this music to the exclusion of other input requires intense concentration. A study at Stanford University wanted to see how listening to music can affect the brain with cognitive memory. What they found was music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory. They were able to conclude that music can positively affect cognitive production. I then stumbled upon another article dealing with music, but this one had a different spin on the idea. Nick Perham and Martinne Sykora of Applied Cognitive Psychology conducted an experiment using 25 undergrad students as participants. The students partook in several serial recall tasks, mainly presenting them 8 consonants and them repeating it back in order to them. What they found was studying in a quiet room had the greatest performance among the participants. But the key finding in this study was that the participants performed better while listening to music they didn’t like as opposed to listening they do like. Making sure that each participants had the same likes and dislikes in music, it was discovered that listening to music they didn’t like was like, “a cacophony of sound, in which the segmentation of each individual sound from the next is difficult to identify”(Perham). The music they disliked had less acoustic variation from one moment to the next, which had a less detrimental effect than music they liked. Music that was liked by the participants had the greatest degree of distraction out of all the methods of cognitive memory. Another study I found showed that with 115 children studying, those who were in the room with noise levels lower than 50 decibels were more productive than those who were in the room with noise levels above 60 decibels. The children in the higher noise room reported to have higher blood pressure, raised heart rates and levels of stress hormones increased. I was able to find one more study regarding the effect of music while studying because I believe this is one of the biggest factors in focusing and retaining the information you need. Early in 1975, researches wanted to find out if listening to music vs silence would promote the best memory recall amongst college students (Etaugh & Michals, 1975)16 males and 16 females were used and were to read a passage with music and a passage without. Using a controlled experiment is one of the best ways to discover the differences because you can control the noise and see clearly how the two differentiate. What was found that males performed exactly the same with music and non music environments, yet females performed worse with noise than without. The same study idea was used in a recent administrated survey by professors Kotsopoulous and Hallam (2010). The survey asked questions to 600 students from varying ages of countries USA, Greece, Japan, and the UK. The survey asked questions about study habits, what type of music did they listen to, if they listening to it during studying, and whether they wrote and did homework while listening to music. What they found out was music was listened to mostly when thinking and writing,  but not normally listened to when studying and retaining information.Subjects reported that music helped most with concentration, easing stress, and reducing boredom. However, subjects could recognize if the music was interfering with their focus and therefore would return to silence. While regarding all these research experiments I believe that it’s safe to hypothesis that listening to music can cause poorer study habits and reduce cognitive memory. This will affect tests scores so you could also hypothesis that listening to music while studying for a test could result in a lower test score. So essentially, when it comes to studying, being in a quiet place can have the best results, though listening to music as a background noise can be acceptable as well.

The next thing to consider when trying to find a perfect place to study is where it is. What do they always say in real estate? Location. Location. Location. That’s right, where you work can have a big impact on how well you study. Most students would say that they are fine with studying in there room, but for others, their room could be the thing that’s keeping them from studying. When you leave your room, you have to organize yourself in order to study before you go. Plus, you only take what you need to study when you leave your room, avoid distractions from your roommate or television in the process. From personal experience, I found it much easier to study and grasp the information I needed by leaving my room and going into the quiet study lounge down the hall. By doing so, I take my self away from the unwanted noise, and I’m able to concentrate at the work at hand. Students who normally leave the room to study do so because they know that they could get sidetracked or even worse, fall asleep. If a student gets distracted easily, studying in a classroom or library could be the best place for you. Extracting all the “fun” out of a room could be the thing that gets a student to lock in on their work. So when finding a perfect place to study, it is possible to do so in your dorm room. But for maximum results, being in a place like a library that has a plethora of information access, is quiet, and essentially “boring” can be the thing that really gets you to lock in on your work.

Other key factors that can help determine the perfect study place is who you are with and the lighting. Who you’re with is huge because normally, studying alone can eliminate distractions. But, having someone to study with isn’t such a bad thing. In fact, having an organized study group can be the best thing for you, for you’re with other people who covering the same material, most likely in a quiet environment, and you have someone to help you understand something if you don’t get it at first. Having an active study group is great for studying for problems can be discussed and worked out using the knowledge of the ones around you. Lighting is also something the can factor into how you study. It’s tough to read in dim lighting, but it’s even more annoying trying to read with harsh artificial light coming right at you. Finding the perfect lighting along with the perfect people can make your study sesh 10x better.

When finals comes these next two weeks, I hope that I will be prepared because of my studying. I also hope that I find a perfect study spot for these tests so I can concentrate and use my time well. With regarding the research regarding studying with music, the affects of other people in the room, and where you study, I believe that studying in a quiet room, preferably a library, by yourself (or with a focussed study group), with adequate lighting is the perfect place to study for an exam.

Works Cited:

http://alac.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=9

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-30831/Silence-golden-studying.html

http://digest.bps.org.uk/2012/08/music-we-like-is-more-distracting-than.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+BpsResearchDigest+(BPS+Research+Digest)

https://intro2psych.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/can-music-help-you-study/

http://testprep.about.com/od/Study_Skills/tp/Places_To_Study.htm

Music is the ultimate form of rhythmic expression in our society. Since the beginning of time, different genres, artists, and styles have come and gone. Today, we have a plethora of music available to us, hailing from all across the globe, cultures near and far. One of these genres, made famous during the 80s, rap music, has come under a lot of heat. Critics say that rap music, and more specifically gangster rap, causes increased violence and aggression and poses a threat to civil obedience.

In a paper entitled The Negative Influence of Gangster Rap And What Can Be Done About It, published by Stanford University, Professor Anthony M. Giovacchini discusses how the vulgar lyrics in gangster rap are having an alarming effect on the actions of Americans. He argues that the violence and civil disobedience portrayed and idolized in gangster rap music inspires similar actions in the real world. Professor Giovacchini specifically references an incident in Texas, in which Officer Bill Davidson was shot, stating,

“Howard shot and killed Davidson with a nine millimeter Glock pistol, while this gangster rap, also talking about killing cops with nine millimeter Glock pistols was playing in the car. Under these circumstances, it would be difficult to think that the music in the car did not have any influence on the situation.”

The Davidson family actually ended up taking rapper, Tupac Shakur, to court over the matter, claiming his lyrics incited the aggression against Officer Davidson. Although, the courts expressed serious disdain for the music in question, they ultimately ruled with the defendant. Judge John D. Rainey summarized his remarks in a statement to the court,

“2Pacalypse Now is both disgusting and offensive. That the album has sold hundreds of thousands of copies is an indication of society’s aesthetic and moral decay. However, the First Amendment became part of the Constitution because the Crown sought to suppress the Farmers’ own rebellious, sometimes violent views. Thus, although the Court cannot recommend 2Pacalypse Now to anyone, it will not strip Shakur’s free speech rights based on the evidence presented by the Davidsons”

In a more recent study by Dr. Eliana Tropeano of Western Connecticut State University, subjects were tested in order to determine the effect rap music had on their aggression levels. Dr. Tropeano enlisted the help of 33 undergraduate students from her university; 11 students listened to recordings by DMX, 11 students listened to recordings by Will Smith, and 11 students didn’t listen to any recordings. Afterwards, researchers administered a 12 question test to each participant, designed to rate their levels of violence and aggression. Dr. Tropeano found that,

“The violent group’s scores were much higher than the nonviolent group’s scores. Also, the control group’s scores were higher than the nonviolent group’s scores. “

These test results are incredibly significant because they show the effect music has on aggression, not just violent rap music. It is true that listening to violent rap music made the participants more inclined to violence, but listening to non-violent rap music made them less inclined to violence, as well. Basically, music will influence how you feel and react on a daily basis, if it is violent music it will affect you accordingly and if it is relaxed music it will do so as well. The choice of what music to listen to, and how to act on those feelings is entirely up to the individual.

Furthermore, research performed by Dr. Hajimi Fukui, a world renowned endocrinologist, actually shows that music lowers testosterone levels in men. Fukui had participants listen to a variety of music and measured their testosterone levels via saliva test, before and after. Fukui found that all music increased the testosterone levels of women, and all music lowered testosterone levels in men. This further weakens the case against gangster rap, as even violent music has shown to lower testosterone levels.

In summation, violent rap music has shown to make people more excited or inclined to violence, however the choice of music and the decision to react physically towards it is incumbent upon the listener. Additionally, despite the musics effects on the psyche, it has shown to lower testosterone in men, making them less likely to act upon these lyrics.  Rappers are not responsible for the way in which others interpret their art, nor are they responsible for keeping it away from at-risk individuals and youth. As a society, we need to make it a priority to teach young, impressionable people that although gangster rap is unique and interesting it is not indicative of how we should act in normal, civilized society. Additionally, gangster rap accounts for merely a thimble’s worth of the relevant rap music available. Rappers, such as Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Wyclef Jean, and Will Smith are famous for the positive messages they include in their lyrics; positive messages that would likely inspire positive emotions in listeners. To all those who continue to point the finger at Snoop Doggy Dogg, rappers, and the music industry, to those who believe free speech can be trumped by a need for civil obedience, I believe Tupac said it best,

My .44 make sure all y’all kids don’t grow”

https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/negative.htm

http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?query=&prodId=OVIC&contentModules=&dviSelectedPage=&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&limiter=&disableHighlighting=&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&zid=&p=OVIC&action=2&catId=&activityType=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010870221&source=Bookmark&u=lom_accessmich&jsid=fc52457ee5b9162d64bf20c8bda5e731

Click to access tropeano.pdf

I love comedy, so when it came time to start writing these blogs, comedy was one of the first places I started to search for scientific discovery. And though I did find information about a lot of aspects of comedy, I never would have expected this: The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic of 1962.

Kashasha is a town in modern day Tanzania.

The Laughter Epidemic takes the concept of laughter being contagious and cranks it up to a whole new level. The story goes that the laughter started with three girls in a town called Kashasha, and from there the intoxicating guffaws spread to 95 students shutting down school and causing panic. This affliction went on to cause hundreds of people to laugh uncontrollably for six to eighteen months, in the end forcing 14 different schools to close at one time or another.

When I first read this story, I couldn’t believe it. I checked to see if the post was from April 1st, I googled the scientist who cited the event and, after all that checked out and the epidemic seemed to be a real thing, I decided to investigate the situation further.

As it turns out, the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic was a real epidemic but there was nothing funny about it at all; it was a large-scale anxiety attack. Christian F. Hempelmann presented the argument at the International Society for Humor Studies Conference at Northeastern Illinois University in 2003 and in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, saying that the incident was caused by “an underlying shared stress factor in the population.” According to Hempelmann, laughter was just a symptom of the mass hysteria, also know as mass psychogenic illness, that also caused other symptoms such as pain, fainting, respiratory problems, and crying fits. Mass psychogenic illness often occurs in people who have little power to control their world or to express their emotions, so the mind finds what ever way it can to release.

What was the situation in Tanganyika that drove these students to feel so overloaded with stress that they had no ability to cope with. Hempelmann tells us, “In 1962, Tanganyika had just won its independence. The young people involved reported that they were feeling stressed by the higher expectations of their teachers and parents.” So, at a time when most people would be joyous and content with newly won independence, these students were debilitatingly stressed over school? Does this seem all a little too mundane? It should, because stress is quite a common thing in our lives, and attacks of mass psychogenic illness happen far more often than you’d expect.

The list of examples that last an entire year may stop with the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic, but smaller cases can be seen all around us. According to The Guardian, in 2007 students from William Byrd high school in Virginia suffered a wave of “twitching, tremors, dizziness and headaches” that spread from student to student like a bug. Dr Jim Bolton, consultant psychiatrist at St Helier hospital in Surrey, said that this was very likely to be a case of mass hysteria as well. Just as with the Epidemic, the victims were students bogged down by stress with no way to express it. A similar event occurred in New York in 2012, except this time the twitching fits were only spread between teenaged girls all on the school’s soccer team. If you’re interested, Discovery.com goes deeper into the history of mass hysteria here.

Stress is a very real yet intangible struggle that we all must deal with. To add to the problem, it is often difficult to gauge someone else’s stress, as seen by how these mass stress attacks baffle school officials. Dr Lorraine Lange, the superintendent of the students from WIlliam Byrd high school, even said, “I don’t think students here are differently stressed from any other high-school students,” and yet somehow they were stressed enough to break down in such a way. Seeing as how we’re all students here, we all know that stress is a part of the daily routine. To avoid a Penn State fit of mass hysteria this finals week, please read The Cleveland Clinic’s ten ways to ease stress. If you still find yourself swamped with stress, read this quote by the fourteenth and current Dalai Lama,

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”

Im no Buddhist, but that sentiment has gotten me through a lot of hard and stressful times. Thanks for reading.

My dad for years encouraged me to sit outside in the sun when my acne got bad. I also had a friend whose acne got so bad on her back, her mom got her a tanning membership. Now, studies are coming out saying that the sun is actually bad for your acne and it causes more pimples.

Many believe that the tan will cover up the acne and the sun will dry the oils. In reality, the sun may initially the sun may dry up your acne and leave it looking better temporarily. But a few days later, the skin may become inflamed, red, and because it was once dry, oily. All of these results are temporary and the sun can end up damaging the skin permanently from the ultraviolet light leading to cancer and other harmful diseases. The sun can also be causing your acne. The sun can often cause acne-type rashes due to sensitive skin, making skin worse. For people who have sensitive skin, like me, these rashes are painful and can be in forms of bumps or pimples.

The sun can also amplify acne scars. I took a trip to my dermatologist at the end of the summer complaining about my acne scars. I had finally gotten rid of the painful and embarrassing blemishes on my face but I was still insecure with the acne scars. He told me that as long as i stayed out of the sun and put moisturizer on I didn’t need a skin lightening cream. This just goes to show how damaging the sun can be even when there isn’t any acne. The scars are still an important part of the process and its shown that the sun definitely makes them worse. I now know how important it is to put sunscreen on and to stay out of the sun when my skin is bad because although at first it may seem like the sun it helping, it is actually making it worse.

I don’t know how or when or why, but I have developed a fascination for quantum physics and quantum theory.  It sounds super complicated, and it is, but the mere thought of it is so intriguing.  I try and understand it, and to some extent, I do, but there is still so much to learn.  One of the most famous concepts/ideas from quantum theory is Schrodinger’s cat.  I came across this idea and watched many videos on it.  Here is the most basic of an explanation as I could find below. It is still super confusing, but try to understand it. I would suggest watching this video before continuing with reading this blog.  Erwin Schrodinger shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Paul Dirac for discovering the equation for the behavior of quantum particles.  This study has been very well read, and fascinating to many people of the world, and I hope that I can interest you in this topic as well.

By definition, Schrodinger’s Cat “serves to demonstrate the apparent conflict between what quantum theory tells us is true about the nature and behavior of matter on the microscopic level and what we observe to be true about the nature and behavior of matter on the macroscopic level — everything visible to the unaided human eye.”  So basically, Erwin Schrodinger proposed this idea of superposition.  If you place a cat in a box with a decaying alpha particle, you will not know if the particle decayed, and the cat died, or if it did not decay and the cat is not dead. Until we record the observation, and see what truly happens inside of the box, the cat is in “superposition”  meaning the cat is both dead and alive.  You’re probably thinking, “this is too crazy, it doesn’t make sense!” I ask you to open your mind, and think about it for a little bit.  So when we look at the cat, and determine what state it is in, we are forcing the cat to collapse to one reality: dead or alive.  There is also another interpretation of this theory.  It is called the many worlds interpretation.  This states that when the reality collapses, we are simply living in one of many universes that exist simultaneously.   We see the dead cat, but in another reality, the cat is alive.  These findings that I just previously stated, our from two new studies done with photons (or light particles).

There have also been two new studies, one by Canada’s University of Calgary and the University of Geneva in Switzerland.  They used enough photons to be seen with the naked eye, so that the quantum properties become macroscopic.  In both studies, “they amplified the states of a single photon, entangling it with many other photons, and then restored it to its original state.”  The polarization methods after they have been restored is enough evidence to prove that quantum entanglement occurred.  They begin to wonder how big quantum entanglement can get until it collapses.

I came across an article titled, “Einstein kills Schrodinger’s Cat”  I was quickly drawn to this title, and was very eager to read it. In the beginning it explains that as objects get larger, it is harder for them to exist in the superposition because they interact with their environment.  So the idea of a large cat being in superposition is highly unlikely in today’s science.  There has been progression and advances in this field that would suggest this could exist in the future.  Pikovski, from Harvard University, and his colleagues have discovered what happens when you try to perform these quantum theory experiments in the presence of gravity.  Einstein suggested that gravity slows down time (demonstrated in Interstellar)  There have actually been lab experiments that reveal: our head ages slightly faster than our feet.  So if two different molecules are in a superposition, and they are at different heights, it will not work. Pikovski later states that if this field of study wants to go further with larger superposition, they must take their studies to space, where there is no gravity.

Overall, the study of Schrodinger’s cat has been reproduced by scientists all over the world.  It has not been done on the large scale, like with a cat, but rather smaller particles like electrons and photons.  Scientists are making progress every day on this idea of quantum physics, and could soon discover a way for larger objects to exist in two places at once, the superposition.  It is an idea that continues to fascinate me, and I hope it does for you too.

A long contended issue is the effectiveness of aphrodisiacs. The Merriam-Webster definition of aphrodisiacs is “something such as food, drink, or drug that arouses or is held to arouse sexual desire”. Throughout history, different cultures and countries have presented their own versions of aphrodisiacs. Some countries have had herbal versions, or ingredients that pertain to medicine, which produce varying results. Natural substances such as yohimbine and the mandrake plant, in European and African countries, and rhinoceros horn in China, have historically been used as aphrodisiacs.

The most recognised aphrodisiacs in our world today supposedly work in a variety of different ways, ranging from the aesthetic element of the aphrodisiac, to the psychological effect that some foods have on people. Although these cannot be tested in the most scientific way, they can still be subject to observational studies to produce some kind of correlation between aphrodisiacs and sexual desire. Another option would be to test changes in testosterone in both men and women, although results may not be completely conclusive. Some classic examples include: chilli, avacado, strawberries and chocolate. All these foods have a scientific explanation as to how they can potentially increase sexual drive, mostly due to the chemicals it can help stimualte or vitamins and minerals that can potentially simulate feelings of arousal.

Although there haven’t been universally recognised studies testing these substances and their effectiveness in stimulation, our modern world has seen a surge in new foods that some claim to be aphrodisiacs, as well as herbal options. In theory, it would be relatively easier to test and investigate, but because sexual desire is such an subjective variable, it is almost impossible to test.

However, one relatively reliable test is the symptom of impotency, which occurs in males about 10-52% of men, and 25-63% in women. Because a clear sign of arousal in men is penile erection, it can be tested as there is a biological, and therefore, scientific explanation behind it. The mechanisms behind the potential effectiveness of aphrodisiacs can be measured in different ways, all of which contribute to the arousal of men. These changes can be observed, and therefore we can finally have an idea whether the tested aphrodisiacs work. Arousal creates a chain reaction in the body where proteins will either activate or inhibit the flow of elements such as calcium in the body can be used to measure arousal, and therefore can create potential correlations between aphrodisiacs and arousal.

All this will not create conclusive and decisive evidence in the field of study, however we can use science to provide some insight into whether eating certain foods can improve our ability in the bedroom.

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Photo #2

When you think about the deadliest animals on earth, the obvious choices immediately come to mind. Lions, bears, tigers, sharks, and other large predatory animals, atop each of their respective food chains. While these animals are undoubtedly not to be taken lightly, none of them actually crack the top 5 most dangerous animals in the world (don’t read until after) as     according to annual deaths. In fact, of those three, only lions and sharks are in the top 15, with lion at #13 with 100 annual human deaths, and sharks at #15 with 10 annual human deaths. taking a look at the top 15, I was very surprised by the top 3 in particular, or should i say the top 4, excluding humans at #2, which I think is already pretty obvious.

When looking at the Worlds Deadliest animals, the last thing I expected to see was such a common pet as one of the deadliest animals in the world, but at the 3^rd (really 4th) deadliest spot is dogs. At first, I thought there was no way that could be true, dog attacks are relatively rare, and the number of people who are killed by dogs each year cant be very high, especially not 25,000 deaths a year high. Then I realized that dog attacks aren’t what make dogs so deadly, its how common they are carriers and transmitters of the real killer, rabies. Rabies is an infectious viral disease, which is generally transferred through saliva into an open wound, usually a bite or a scratch. Of the 25,000 average annual deaths caused by rabies, about 95% take place in poorer areas in Asia and Africa, where proper medical treatment is very difficult to come by. Though there is a vaccine, rabies is so deadly because once someone is infected and shows any symptoms, it is fatal 99% of the time. In other words, if you cant get the vaccine beforehand, and you cant reach it directly after being exposed to rabies, there is nothing that can be done to stop it. It is also very easy to come in contact with a dog with rabies, or for your dog to come into contact with a wild animal with it, considering 99% of infections are from domestic dogs. Most of these deaths take place in poor remote communities where vaccines and modern medicine are not available, with the most common victims are children ages 5-14. It is due to this virus that dogs rank in as the 3^rd deadliest animal in the world.

At number 2 (really number 3), is a bit more predictable animal to see atop this list, and one of the most commonly feared animals, snakes. Admit it, along with spiders and, well I guess insects in general, everyone either is or knows someone who is terrified of snakes. It turns out that this fear is very valid, as snakes are responsible for 50,000 deaths each year (though with unreported incidents around the world the real total is estimated at 94,000). How are they so deadly? For the same reason rabies is so deadly, because many areas of the world such as south Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa don’t have access to proper medicine or doctors, which means that these potentially preventable deaths happen very frequently, and often go unreported. These areas of Africa and Asia are also where many of the deadliest types of venomous snakes live, meaning that interaction between them and humans happen very often, making snakes an incredibly deadly animal.

Finally, what would you guess is the deadliest animal in the world? Similarly to the last two, the deadliness of this animal, which is responsible for 725,000 deaths annually, is so deadly due to the lack of advanced medical care in areas like southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Similar to dogs, it also isn’t the animal itself that is so deadly, but what that animal is carrying, which with this little guy can be any number of deadly diseases, which it then injects directly into your bloodstream. That’s right, mosquitos are the deadliest animal in the world. Collectively, mosquitos have killed more people than all wars in history. Outnumbering every other animal on earth during breeding season, mosquitos can be found everywhere on earth (save Antarctica), which means that they have access to nearly every single person on earth. Different species of mosquito can carry different types of diseases, from yellow fever to west Nile virus, and of course the most obvious and the deadliest, malaria. Malaria is responsible for roughly a million deaths each year, most of whom are children in Africa. It lives in the red blood cells of infected individuals, meaning that it is not contagious through contact and cannot be sexually transmitted. This means that the only way to get it is through surgeries or medical procedures, from mother to infant, using dirty or used syringes, or from the main source, mosquitos.

So it turns out that disease and poison on smaller animals is the most deadly thing out there, not the big alpha predators that occupy peoples nightma
res and movie screens all over the world. Definitely not what I would have predicted.

A good night’s sleep can start our day off with a positive temper and energized body, and nothing could be better than that. For achieving this goal, many factors are playing important roles to contribute to our sleep quality. The right pillow is the one factor that helps us sleep better. Based on the research, sleep with a bad pillow is not only not helping to get rest but also making one even tired. So, did you choose a right pillow?

“Pillows can not only impact the quality of our sleep, but also how healthfully we rest and recharge,” says sleep expert Michael Breus, PhD, a clinical psychologist. A wrong pillow can be the “toxicant” that worsen the problems like “headaches, neck pain, shoulder and arm numbness, discomfort, sneezing, and wheezing“, notes orthopaedic surgeon Andrew Hecht, MD. The null hypothesis in this case can be that the pillow has no associations with sleep quality.

Based on the studies conducted by Kammi Bernard, “The goal of using a pillow is to help keep your head in what is called a ‘neutral alignment,’ meaning your head is sitting squarely on your shoulders without bending back too far or reaching too far forward.” He then mentions that it is firmly related to the sleeping position. If one is sleeping on the back, one needs a thinner pillow to not over support the head forward, then a thin pillow with a strong and tough support on the neck will be a perfect choice.  When sleeping on one’s back, one should put a pillow right under the knees. “This will help put your spine in a better alignment and decrease compression on the joints of your spine.” A foaming pillow can be a good option in this case. It will vary its shape with the back of one’s head and still providing support on the neck and shoulders. Besides that,  for those who likes to sleep in upper back (hunchback) or a thicker pillow can help one to get the more smooth blood circulation and get the shoulder muscle relaxed.

If one likes to sleep on the side, one needs a firmer and tougher pillow to not give too much space between the ear and the shoulder. “When sleeping on your side, it is best to have both knees bent up toward your chest in the fetal position. Use a pillow between your knees and try to keep your knees together, not letting the top leg fall over top of the bottom leg.”  A firm pillow can make sure that one’s head is in neutral and comfortable position. Bent upward can be caused by a thick pillow, and it is likely to lead neck pain over night. Without getting muscle relaxed in proper position, sleep can only be a burden to our body. Moreover, a small pillow or having no pillow will also not give enough support to side sleeping. A horizontal sleeping position may result to edema by not getting blood circulation in fluent way.  A Latex pillow can be a good choice for side sleepers. “This is the firmest type of pillow, and it resists mold and dust mites“, Breus says. The neck alignment and the back will get the most support by having Latex pillow.

“A bad pillow won’t be the cause of any of these problems, but using the incorrect pillow can certainly exacerbate many of the underlying problems linked to these symptoms, and it certainly can keep you from getting a good night’s rest,” says Hecht, the co-chief of spine surgery at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York.

In this research, the pillow does related to our sleep quality and our sleep positions. Other wise, it will cause the severe physical damage to our body. We reject the null hypothesis, and shows the associations between the pillows and the sleep. Choosing pillow should be serious and cautious. If the situation allow, one can feel the pillows really quick by putting head onto it. Or, one can do the scientific research based on the sleep positions to choose the right one. For the further studies, pillow can be cartelized by its functions, and people can rate the pillows in market by sleeping. By developing this topic deeper, a large sample of  random people (like 100 to 300) can do the experiment by trying different pillows and do a survey after the sleep. The experiment data will make the result more convincing and analytical.

http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/snuggle-up-with-the-perfect-pillow?page=3

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-525149/Could-pillow-making-tired.html

https://www.oxfordphysicaltherapy.com/blog/how-your-pillow-can-effect-back-pain-while-you-sleep

In Today’s world, there are more than 30 million people have used Airbnb to find a housing for their journey. Such newly raised mechanism makes the hospitality industry feel anxious, forcing some longstanding incumbent like Hilton, and Marriott to adjust or to suffer. However, some people think it’s not an immediate threat yet. They are saying the relationship between Airbnb and Hotel industry is like food trucks and restaurants. People who are willing to pay food at food truck are also willing to pay their meals at a cozy restaurant other days. Let’s talk a little bit more about this topic and see if Airbnb would influence hospitality industry.

Here is a study about the influence of Airbnb

As I delve more into this topic, I found a recent study about the competitiveness of Airbnb in hospitality market. Basically, it is saying that Airbnb is only nibbling a little bit at hotel industry rather than gulp it as a whole. In this study, researchers estimate Airbnb’s impact on hotel industry by comparing the change of total revenue before and after Airbnb kicked in, but the study have take the sample purely from Texas,which is a defect I will talk about later. By manipulate different equations of economic, the researchers provide empirical evidence which reject the null hypothesis that Airbnb is significantly changing the hospitality pattern. However, the result also suggests Airbnb could have some modest impact on the revenues of budget hotels. For example, in two years to December 2013, it cut the revenues of budget hotel by 5%.

My opinion about the study…

The study did great job estimating the impact of Airbnb on hospitality in Texas, but some future works are needed as well. First of all, the samples were purely selected from Texas. The local impact of Airbnb can’t be apply to other market where the supply and demand are different. a larger sample size could be a great contribution to the problem.

Secondly, the study avoid some competitor of Airbnb itself, like VRBO and HomeAway. A survey of sample size of 560 people indicates a fact 13% of respondents saying they have used other agent like Airbnb before. Such potential competitor might be one factor to hold back Airbnb’s growth.

My opinion…

From my perspective, I think Airbnb is a powerful competitor of hotel industry, simply Because it can do something that hotel can’t do. First of all, Airbnb housing is located at the place where real people live, thus it provides a social atmosphere, and a better way to know a new place. In addition, because the special location Airbnb require, it can created an additional housing where ever housing existed rather than building a whole construction in accordance with land sizing. In place like New York, one additional land would cause more than you image, thus the marginal cost would be higher. In market like New York, Airbnb become a compliment to the hotel a room rather than a substitute.

 Conclusion:

The article provides evidence the impact of Airbnb on the hotel industry is not significant. However, in a long term, challenges form Airbnb is potentially harmful to the operation of hotel incumbents. Turning to consumers, without hurting hotel industry, the existing of Airbnb benefits those who rent their properties and consumer who benefit from the lower price due to either Airbnb or Hotel competition with Airbnb. Such sharing economy is an interesting model. After knowing those facts, what’s your choice?

work cited.

http://time.com/money/2933937/sharing-economy-airbnb-uber-monkeyparking/

http://qz.com/551612/why-the-hotel-industry-isnt-afraid-of-airbnb-yet-explained-in-five-charts/

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2366898

https://atlas.qz.com/charts/Nkt2UNQQl

When I eat the food, some foods taste good only in hot temperature and some other foods taste pretty nice even in cold temperature. Obviously, serving temperature of the food has a close relationship with the taste of the food. Some foods are good or better when they are served with the right temperature. It is hard to tell that hot serving temperature is always better than cold serving temperature. So, I’m going to explain why foods have different taste in different serving temperature.

According to Karel Talavera Perez, at the University of Leuven in Belgium, human’s perception of taste decreases when the food serving temperature rises higher than 35C because human’s body accept this high-temperature food as a hazard. So, we can feel a taste like burning. He also said that perhaps we do taste at such high temperatures but we don’t pay attention to it because there is a burning feeling. Simply, a burning taste is a kind of our body alarm to notify the dangerous and it makes us unable to feel the taste.

In 2005, Journal of Sensory Studies found that the taste of cheddar cheese was perceived differently in different serving temperatures. Researchers prepared the cheese with different serving temperatures which were 5C, 12C and 21C. They found that the taste of sourness increased as the serving temperature rose. They also found that it is much harder to evaluate the taste of cheese when it was served with hotter temperatures. Other types of food also showed differences in their tastes when they were served with different temperatures. For example, ice cream gets sweeter when the serving temperature rises, the beer tastes more bitter with warmer serving temperatures and ham tastes saltier in cold serving temperature.

According to a study published in the journal Nature in 1999, temperature changes in certain part of human’s tongue can create an illusion of the taste. Heating the front part of the tongue can cause an illusion taste of sweetness and cooling the front part of the tongue can evoke a taste of sourness and saltiness.

Overall, if you want to have a certain type of taste or you just want to enjoy your food, this can be a helpful information for you. I think I will use some of them to make my food more delicious.

Images: digital.vpr.net

www.thinkstockphotos.ae

When you think of diamonds, you think of love, of engagement rings, shininess and forever. Everyone cherishes diamonds so much because they all assume they are so rare. So when you are given one, it is some sign of love. Who decided that? After I heard someone tell me that diamonds aren’t rare as everything thinks they are. I found that really interesting considering people thought they were so rare and special.

Diamonds only become really popular about a century ago. Before that rubies and sapphires were the gems that everyone wanted. People just loved the fact that they had rare gems. Diamonds come straight from Earth, and are found 100 miles below Earth’s surface. A one-carat diamond requires billions of carbon atoms to bond, and if it works out right, a colorless diamond will be created. Almost all of the diamonds come from either Africa, Russia, or Canada. Even though it sounds pretty cool, none of the science behind diamonds actually makes them as rare as they seem to be. what makes them so rare is actually the diamond companies themselves.

The big diamond companies, especially Da Beers, aggressively control the supply of diamonds. They simply locked up a huge amount of diamonds in a vault to inflate the prices of diamonds. After realizing that diamonds aren’t as rare as everything thinks they are, I wanted to know if maybe there is a difference with the way the diamond looks that makes it special. People always talk about how diamonds have that special sparkle.

I came across this news video with John stossel. The news report was also about diamonds and how they are no more special than cubic zirconia. Zirconium is a rock that looks very similar to diamonds. The one difference about them is that they only cost about $1.99. Stossel went to Grand Central train station and asked multiple pedestrians if they could pick the real diamond between a real diamond and a zirconia rock. Almost half of the pedestrians picked the fake one while others just couldn’t tell the difference. This could possibly prove the fact that diamonds have no specialty compared to any other rock that resembled it. There could be an issue with the file drawer problem where there were other experiments like the one in the video where they asked random people to identify a diamond, and in these experiments, the majority of the participants could have picked the right problem.

I can not conclude the fact that diamonds look no different from zirconium because of the possible file drawer problem. But what I can conclude is that diamonds have been falsely determined rare by diamond companies. They manipulated the scarcity of diamonds by keeping some hidden. What I have learned from this blog is that you can never trust companies. I have also learned that you should look at multiple studies to make a conclusion. If you have any ideas on this topic, feel free to comment  below.

I am 18 years old and am already noticing that my hairline is beginning to recede. Granted, baldness runs in my family so maybe I should have seen this coming. Over 50 percent of men will have to deal with this problem by the time they are 50, and it can be quite demoralizing. So is there an answer to male pattern baldness? Medicine is good right now and it is getting better, but there still is no perfect cure. Right now, the best thing we can do is delay the balding process. Maybe a look at what researchers are currently testing will show us what needs to be discovered and where science must eventually progress to help solve this issue.

To start, the cause to male pattern baldness, more formally known as androgenetic alopecia, is not fully understood. This is part of the reason why there is still no perfect cure to the problem. As of now, what we know is men that experience androgenetic alopecia have hair follicles that are sensitive to Dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Dihydrotestosterone is a hormone that is responsible for male sexual development, regulating hair growth, regulating sex drive, and most importantly, shrinking hair follicles over time. So, to stop hair loss, it seems we have to slow the production of DHT.

The FDA currently approves two treatments for androgenetic alopecia: Finasteride, which inhibits Type II 5-alpha-reductace, lowering DHT, and Minoxidil, a topical solution. However, since minoxidil does not do anything to stop the production of DHT, there are usually no long-term effects.

This is the Hamilton-Norwood scale, which measures the progression of androgenetic alopecia

As a male who is at the beginning stages of this process (I am at a 2 on the Hamilton-Norwood Scale), I want as much research being done as possible. There has been plenty of research to find the best inhibitors of DHT, but I wonder if DHT is not the only cause to hair loss. Two experimental treatments I will examine are caffeine and microneedling.

In 2011, there was a study done in Italy to determine the effectiveness of a cosmetic lotion containing caffeine to treat androgenetic alopecia. The sample the researcher used was 40 volunteers aged between 19 and 55 that were currently in stages 2-4 on the Hamilton-Norwood scale. All participants were instructed that for 4 months, they would massage this lotion in their hair for two minutes once a day. At the end of 4 months, there was a decrease in hair loss in 83 percent of the volunteers and an improvement of scalp conditions (dandruff, dryness) in 53 percent of the volunteers.

This idea of using caffeine to stop male pattern baldness is interesting due to its ability to “stimulate cellular metabolisms”, which can stop the shrinking of hair follicles. Also, caffeine penetrates hair follicles very quickly so results would show much quicker than other treatments.

Unfortunately, this study has a poor experimental design and not many other studies have shown promising results. For one, this study only has 40 participants. That is questionable whether that is enough people to be confident about extending the results to a bigger population. Also, there is not a control group. All 40 participants received the treatment so there is no baseline group to compare hair growth results. I would have been more convinced if half of the participants were given a placebo shampoo to see if they experienced similar subjective results to the caffeine group. Further, there is no way to know if the participants actually used the product once a day like they were supposed to since the participants were not under the researcher’s observation. Overall, much more could have been done by manipulating the explanatory variable, separating the participants into experimental groups, measuring the results more objectively, and using a more adequate sample size.

In another study conducted by Rachita Dhurat, it was found that microneedling (the act of puncturing the skin repeatedly with extremely small needles) might also be an effective alternative treatment for androgenetic alopecia by stimulating hair follicles. This was a case study that followed 4 men that originally showed no results from Finasteride of Minoxidil. Over the course of a 24-week period they received 15 treatments using microneedling. After 6 months, each patient saw new hair coverage that moved him or her up on the Hamilton-Norwood scale from 2 to 3 points. Also, 3 of the patients subjectively reported a 75 percent increase of thickness to hair while the fourth patient reported a 50 percent increase in hair thickness. Finally, all 4 patients maintained the same response from the treatment 18 months later. Look at the first patient’s results!

These results should be taken with a grain of salt. The sample size was only 4 people so there is no way to extend these results to the population. However, with the significant increases of hair seen in these 4 patients, more experiments with larger sample sizes should be conducted to validate Dhurat’s findings.

It should also be noted that all of the patients continued to use their original treatments of either Finasteride or Minoxidil during the experiment. This means finding a causal relationship between microneedling and hair regrowth is nearly impossible due to Finasteride and Minoxidil’s potential to be confounding variables. I would propose an experiment similar to this one with the use of microneedling techniques. However, with my experimental design, I would like to have a sample size that has no less than 30 people and a control group that doesn’t receive the microneedling treatment as a means of comparison. I would also make sure no patients were using Finasteride or Minoxidil so a more causal relationship could be established. I would measure by testing hair strength (maybe a pull test), and objective observations made by someone who is not the researcher, to control for the experimenter effect.

To conclude, male pattern baldness is a serious issue that affects men’s psychological health and self-esteem. Finasteride and Minoxidil are good treatments but their success rate is not much higher than 60 percent so continuous research must be done. Though this problem seems to be connected to DHT, eliminating it may not be the best answer. There may be other factors driving the relationship between DHT and hair loss that have yet to be discovered. So there are two options: Science must either further its research in treatments that better eliminate DHT, or start researching new ways and other mechanisms that can be responsible for male pattern baldness. Though it may seem insignificant compared to other issues in the world, we must not stray away from finding a cure for this phenomenon. With the persistence of the scientific method, there is potential for a 60 percent success rate to one day be a nearly 100 percent success rate this way, no man ever has to be stripped of his dignity.

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While sitting on my computer pondering what to write my next post about, I realized something: my gum lost its flavor. I had become so focused on writing my last post that I chewed away all the delicious mintiness. I quickly popped in a new piece. Back to work…It was then that I remembered an article I had read a while back about the benefits of chewing gum and decided it would be a great discussion to post about. I did some looking around, and boy is there tons of research done on chewing gum. So much so, I think you would all benefit from learning a bit about that chewy stuff many of you constantly crave.

Humans have been chewing on gum like substances for thousands of years. In 2007, students from the University of Derby uncovered 5,000-year-old chewing gum. Made from birch bark tar, the gum was believed to have antiseptic properties along with other medicinal benefits. The Ancient Greece used resin of the mastic tree to make mastic gum, which woman used to clean their teeth and enjoy its sweetness. North American Indians were known to chew on the sap of spruce trees. The Maine Pure Spruce Gum was the first commercial chewing gum, developed by John B Curtis in 1848 after he and other New England settlers picked up the practice from the American Indians. What we know today as chewing gum wasn’t developed until 1869, when Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (a veteran of the Alamo) discussed his idea of chicle (a rubber substitute) with Thomas Adams. Adams used chicle in production of his failed toy and rain boots companies, but applied flavoring thanks to the idea Santa Anna. Soon after, companies like Black Jack and Chiclets took over the market, using the formula we are most familiar with today in producing their gum: instead of chicle they use styrene-butadiene rubber based synthetic rubber. Years after the gum craze had hit America, scientific observations and experiments began to see what, if any, benefits this delicious treat has.

A study published in January 2015 in PLoS ONE, found that gum traps harmful bacteria that can cause dental cavities. When you spit it out, that bacteria is removed. Biomedical engineering students chewed gum in lengths varying from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. They spit the gum in sterile water afterwards and analyzed the samples. The students found that the longer the piece of gum is chewed, the more species from the mouth it captures. They noted however, that the crucial time for picking up these species was in the first 30 seconds, and after that less and less species were picked up as time went on. But, this concept is limited to sugarless gum. Sugar-sweetened gum actual makes oral bacteria more prevolant. When these microbes ferment sugars, the biofilm on your teeth grows more acidic, which leads to cavities. The researchers are hoping their findings leads to advances in the gum industry towards producing oral-benefiting gums.

Another study, published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, found that chewing gum after giving birth by C-section appears to help new mothers recover faster. The study was done by taking 200 pregnant woman and separating them into two groups: 93 women would chew gum for 15 minutes every two hours while the other 107 would follow traditional treatment (no clear liquids until a patient passes gas, and no regular diet until the first bowel movement). The gum was found to stimulate bowel function sooner, allowing for shorter hospital stays and lower healthcare costs. Chewing gum stimulates saliva which is calming for your stomach and it also is believed to prepare your bowels for food, as it signals food is on the way. By not actually eating food, the digestive movements are stimulated without being forced to actually do work.

A widely held belief is that chewing gum helps with mental stimulation, memory, and test scores. While many studies have been done on this topic, there have been mixed findings. Many people refer to a 2011 study at St. Lawrence University that found that gum is an effective booster of mental performance. However, most people don’t realize the study found that only the first 20 minutes of gum chewing is helpful, and even those 20 minutes are not as helpful as widely believed. Research conducted at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, did find substantial results though. The third of students who chewed gum while studying performed better on a 20-minute memory tests compared with a third of the students who did chewing motions and a third of students who chewed nothing. They noted that chewing gums raises the heartbeat by 3bpm, increasing blood flow in the cerebral area. The memory association between the flavor and scent of the gum and previously studied concepts are believed to help recall learned material.

Personally, I’ve always found chewing gum to be helpful when studying. To me it’s very stress relieving and puts you in a constant rhythm. Plus it tastes good, and it apparently helps your teeth. After this post, its time for another piece.

Sources:

http://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2015/01/21/chewing_gum_removes_bacteria_from_your_mouth_109038.html

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/aug/19/chewing-gum-effects-mind-productivity

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/education-nation/commentary-chewing-gum-may-improve-test-scores-n21731

http://www.chewinggumfacts.com/chewing-gum-history/history-of-chewing-gum/

http://www.rodalewellness.com/health/recovery-after-c-section

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6954562.stm

http://www.psychologistworld.com/memory/chewing_gum.php