Author Archives: Alexandra Carley Spanier

What do workout clothes do?

Working out is one of my favorite things to do. I love going to the gym, burning off my sweat, and getting a great workout. After I workout I feel amazing, like a whole new person. When I go to the gym I always put on my favorite workout outfit. My workout outfit is so important to my workout because I love “dressing up” in my favorite workout top and leggings. I always get my workout clothing from either Models or Lu Lu Lemon, but it made me think what exactly does work out clothing do. Besides it looking cute, does it really impact peoples workouts?

All workout stores say that their clothing is the best. One way to really find the best clothing is to look at its material. The best types of materials are spandex and wool. This is because when we workout we sweat. These fabrics are very breathable which is necessary because sweat vaporizes from people’s bodies very slowly. The interesting thing about workout clothing is everyone is different. Everyone’s bodies act differently and respond to movement in unique ways. This is why trial and error is very necessary for people to do to find out what exactly works for them.

Working out causes people to sweat. Sweat is our body’s way of cooling us down. Our bodies make 1 liter of sweat a day. Sweat is made in our sweat glands. There are two sweat glands; the apocrine gland and eccrine gland. The apocrine sweat gland is near our armpits while the eccrine gland is all over the body. The apocrine gland is the most active during exercise and is located right near the hair follicle. When people work out it releases fluid with proteins and hormones.

In recent years the new style is compression clothing. This tight material is so popular because it is said to make peoples workouts better and give them a good recovery when they’re finished. At the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas students tested compression clothing to examine the phenomenon. Through studies they found it increases blood circulation, which gives the athlete more oxygen that they can use during their workout. It also makes the person use fewer muscles because their space relative on earth changes. This makes people have more energy after their workout because they got an amazing exercise, just with fewer muscles. A test was done at the University of Indiana Bloomington to see if the compression clothing even eliminated bio chemicals. To do this she took sixteen male runners with linked up monitors and masks. She put some runners in compression while the others wore regular gear. Her null hypothesis was if compression clothing really makes a difference in running efficiency. The runners then got on a treadmill. Her results showed that compression clothing didn’t improve efficiency but greatly impacted endurance. I think that to further the investigation more studies should be done on athletes. For example running and playing basketball are two different types of sports. They require different muscles and movement. I think compression could impact one more than the other. I also think that environment has a lot to do with this. If it is hot outside, the more a person will sweat rather then an indoor sport. Compression though isn’t for everyone, 20% of people in the United States said they don’t like using compression material at all.

Clothing really does have an impact on his whether it is compression or not. ‘”Enclothed Cognition” was discovered in a 2012 study by two scientists. In this study thefitness4 two scientists divided people into two groups to preform science activities. One group was dressed in nothing but normal clothing and the other were given lab coats. The people dressed in lab clothes had the best results at the end of the activity. This relates to workout clothing because when one gets dressed in this clothing, the more athletic you feel which causes people to go to the gym and get a great workout. This is why Lu Lu Lemon is such a successful brand. The make clothing that is attractive and supportive, even though the cost no less then $50!

Work out clothing seems to be the new thing, all around campus I see people wearing it. When I asked if they went to the gym or are going sometimes they even say no. I find it so shocking that they’re wearing workout clothing but they make a good point, its comfortable and supportive. Will one day workout clothing be the new style to wear everyday

 

Work Cited
http://lifehacker.com/is-there-really-a-benefit-to-special-exercise-clothing-1607198642

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/14/can-compression-clothing-enhance-your-workout/?_r=0

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/psychology-of-lululemon-how-fashion-affects-fitness/281959/

http://www.antiperspirantsinfo.com/en/all-about-sweat/what-is-sweat.aspx

 

Why is music so important?

Music is such a big part of our lives. It is something that is universal and everyone enjoys from every culture. I don’t think a day goes by where I don’t hear some type of song playing. Music is a big thing that connects us all together. I love listening to music while running on the treadmill, walking to class, in the shower, and jamming out in the car. I’ve noticed that whenever I listen to music it suddenly brings me into a happier state of mind. My parents always joke around with question and me how I know all the lyrics of a rap song but can barely memorize things for a test. It made me wonder, what exactly does music do to us. It enters our ears but does something way bigger then just let us jam to it.

When we listen to music we are using our whole entire brain. Scientists are still trying to figure out how exactly music effects us as much as it does, but what they do know is that music has a very beneficial effect on the brain. One of the biggest effects music has on our brain is health benefit. Daniel Levitin, is a psychologist at McGill University in Montreal, who studies the neuroscience of music. Levinitin along with associates put together three experiments to help figure out what exactly is going on in our brain when we listen to our music. Levintin published a 400 study meta- analysis. One study was done with people that were about to have surgery done. As one would think, people are very anxious before getting surgery. One group listened to music before going in and the other was given drugs to help calm them. The studies showed that the people who listened to music were actually the group there were calmer before going into the room for surgery. This is great because music is much cheaper then drugs. Not only does music help with anxiety it also helps with pain. Studies show that since it helps relax people it is great for people who are giving birth or can even be given for anesthesia while in the room getting the surgery preformed. Another reason for this is became music releases endorphins, which makes people happy. These endorphins help counter act and distract people from the pain.

Music also can have a great effect on our immune system. This is because music makes us happier which causes our body to release immune-boosting hormones. This can also lead to have less seizures and fewer headaches or migraines because of the hormones and endorphins released by ones body.

The hippocampus is a part of the limbic system that controls emotion while the prefrontal cortex controls intense emotion. The parietal lobe is the area of the brain in charge of reasoning and administering information. Music has such an impact on our brain that it can even alter these different parts. Music is a great way for stroke victims to learn how to talk again.

Music also has a big influence on people’s mood. Studies show that it significantly increased people’s mood. When someone is upset, the best thing they can do is playing a cheerful song. This is caused by the body’s release of serotonin. Serotonin is a hormone that makes people happy while also releasing the neurotransmitter, dopamine, which makes people happier. It is amazing how much music changes a person’s contentment. Music can also make people more productive by putting them in a better mood. They feel more motivated and empowered.

With such a variety of music it’s hard to tell which ones will change a persons mood. As discussed earlier, music changes people’s brain waves and changes how they feel. Relaxing music helps people sleep. Many people who suffer from insomnia say that one of the best things they can do is listen to music. Scientists believe a person should listen to music 45 minutes before they try to go to sleep to help calm them. Pump up music like pop or electronic dance can even pump up people. Singing along to these songs also gives people more spirit. A study done at the Pennsylvania State University showed that listening to music really did change their mood by making them happier, more relaxed, or optimistic.

Although there is happy music there also is sad music. In one study preformed people were separated into two separate groups. One group listened to happy music while the other listened to sad. When they were done listening to the songs the groups were asked how the felt. The people who listened to the happy music were in a good mood while the people listening to the sad music were unhappy. The sad music also caused them to not have motivation to complete their tasks after.

Everyone is always hearing songs, and although we all hear the same song we all perceive it differently. This is because we all have different personalities and past experiences. In one study seventeen students listened to four different types of music. The students brain regions all acted the same but besides processing they all got different experiences. Sad music was sad for all of them but it brought up a different experience from their past, the same with happy music.

This also made me think, why do we remember songs from five years ago but we can barely memorize what we learned in class yesterday. This is because we have cement memory, which our neurons make networks with and makes us hard to forget them. This means a lot of our memory is filled with old music but since the brain consists of billions of neurons there is still room for new ones.

Music is such a big part of us, and influences us in so many ways. It would be interesting to dig deeper and see if music can have a bigger effect on ones health then medicine.

Unknown

 

 

 

Work Cited

http://www.emedexpert.com/tips/music.shtml

http://bestbinauralbeats.org/how-music-affects-our-mood/

http://examinedexistence.com/how-music-changes-your-mood/

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/15/health/brain-music-research/

https://figureoneblog.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/why-do-we-remember-countless-song-lyrics-but-not-our-studies/

 

 

What exactly is nail biting?

Growing up I always seemed to bite my nails. It was just a habit, and I never realized that I was even doing it. My moms always use to scream at me for it. She would threaten me with all different types of things like no desert or coal for Christmas. I really did try to stop but it was a habit that I could just not break away from. I began to wonder what exactly is nail biting. Is it an addiction? Habit? My mom always said that nail biting resulted in bad things but I didn’t understand exactly what.

Nail biting or, onychophagia, is a habit that someone does to relieve his or her stress. People mostly bite their nails during puberty, with around 45% of teen nail biters. A higher percentage of girls bite their nails rather then girls. If one doesn’t stop biting after puberty they usually do by the time their 22. Adults rarely bite their nails. People are still not sure what exactly the science is behind nail biting. Although it’s considered a habit, it is also an impulse control problem or obsessive compulsive disorder. An impulse control problem is caused when a person can’t resist their urge to do something. A person usually becomes tense that leads them to preform their habit, which results in a guilt later on. People who have impulses don’t necessarily want to do it, but they feel like they have to. The longer the person does it, the worse the disorder gets. Scientists have tried to figure out why people have disorders and believe it is because of emotional, psychological, or biological influences. The limbic system, which is the part of the brain, which deals with emotion and motor systems. If someone is upset or experiences anxiety the limbic system is the part of the brain that controls it. This leads to people trying to find a way to relieve stress and for many people that is nail biting. There is also a big relation between OCD and nail biting. With both of these, there is compulsion and the need to do it. Although they are very similar there are a few differences. For example, someone with OCD wants to do it because they are scared of the negative effect later if they don’t. People who bite their nails don’t want to do it, but they don’t even realize. During a test at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, scientists observed a mouse that couldn’t keep his paws of his face or ears. Just like people, the mouse couldn’t stop what it was doing and was diagnosed with a form of OCD.

Everyone has different beliefs for why people bite their nails. Many people believe it’s because of a person’s mother. People blame it on a mothers personality, getting overfed as a child, long breastfeeding, or a having a bad relationship with their mom. Anxiety is another popular belief. Science shows that people who have anxiety “self mutate” themselves as a way to distract and take out their nervousness. Although anxiety can be the cause of this when scientists observed people who had the nail biting habit even when the people felt most relaxed they still bit their nails without even realizing it.

Nail biting hasn’t been a topic studied much in science, which I find is very surprising since it’s a major issue for people. People need to dig deeper to find out the root of nail biting. There are many experiments that can be done to see what exactly causes nail biting. For example, maybe the food we eat causes us to bite our nails. Maybe people who eat crunchy foods resort to nail because it feels normal. Or maybe the time of the day or the country we live in. I know that biting my nails is still a huge problem for me. To stop myself I try to get manicures as much as possible because it makes me stop from biting them. There are also a lot of jells that someone can put on that taste bad when the nail goes into the mouth which can cause someone to associate bad taste with biting. I’m still looking for a cure, but is there really anything, maybe even a medicine?Unknown-1

Work Cited

http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/tc/nail-biting-topic-overview

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/10/01/161766321/nail-biting-mental-disorder-or-just-a-bad-habit

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140710-why-do-we-bite-our-nails

http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/symptoms/nail-biting

 

Why do people snore?

Every time I come home I’m always so excited to get a good nights rest. My queen-sized bed is amazing compared to the one at school. When I came home though for the weekend I could not fall asleep at all. I drank some relaxing tea, got in my comfiest pajamas, and got under the covers only to hear snoring from the next room. I then realized one of the most annoying things about sleeping at home, and that was my dad snoring in the other room. My dad has always snored, and it is so hard to fall asleep hearing it. I can only imagine how my mom falls asleep with all the snoring! I decided to look further into snoring and see if there is anything I could do to stop him from doing it.

Snoring is very common; around 40% of the population does it every night. Around 37 million Americans are habitual snorers. Although both men and women snore, it is more common in men. Snoring occurs when the soft palate (the upper area of the mouth) vibrates while the lungs breathe in air from congested airways. The airways became clogged when airway muscles begin to loosen or when tissue begins to build up. As the airways get smaller, there are more vibrations, which causes people to snore louder.

Snoring is usually not anything serious, but it can become a risk the older people get. This is because as people age the softer their throat muscles become. Not only can it keep up other people, it can the snorer to not function as well the next day. Heart disease is another big problem scientists have found snorers have.

There are many causes of snoring. For example, mouth anatomy. If a person is overweight it means they have more tissue in their throat, which causes a smaller airway and leads to snoring. Also, if one has tissue hanging from there through it will lead to them having less room to breathe. Drinking alcohol also usually causes to snore that night. This is because it alcohol leads to throat relaxation and leads to too much air getting into your throat. Nasal congestion is a very common cause of snoring. If one has a deviated septum it causes less flow of oxygen into the airways. Although many people don’t realize, sleep position plays a big role in breathing at night. Sleeping on ones back leads to snoring because of gravity’s influence on the throat, which leads to a smaller airway. Around half of the snoring populations have sleep apnea. This is when the throat tissues block the breathing passage. A person even stops breathing for up to two minutes. This can lead to high blood pressure because of the lost of oxygen in the blood, obesity, heart disease, and stroke.

Many people who snore rarely realize they’re even doing it unless they wake up during the night gasping for air. To stop people from snoring there are many options. One is to change your lifestyle. Loosing weight or changing the position you sleep in is just two things that can help. What people do during the day has a huge effect on their bodies at night. A more serious option is to get surgery. This is very common and can lead people to have better night sleeps. Now that I look at it my dad always sleeps on his back. To see if that’s the problem I’m going to tell him to sleep on his side to see if that helps us all sleep better!
Unknown

 

 

 

Work Cited

http://www.britishsnoring.co.uk/snoring_types/nasal_based_snoring.php

https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-disorders-problems/other-sleep-disorders/snoring

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/snoring/basics/preparing-for-your-appointment/con-20031874

http://www.webmd.boots.com/sleep-disorders/guide/snoring-causes-treatment-prevention

 

How smell impacts memory

When I came home from Penn State to visit my family the first thing I did after hugging them was run into my room to see it. I missed a lot of things from my home, but my bed was a big one! After I showered (in my own clean one!) I got into my pajamas and lit my candle. When I lived at home I would always lite my Yankee Nutmeg Spice candle right before I watched TV. This big candle lasted me all of senior year and wit the little wax it had lit my room that night. Every time in the past I lit the candle I didn’t think anything of it. When I lit the candle this time though it was different. All of a sudden a bunch of memories overwhelmed me. I didn’t know how to explain it, but it felt just like I was back in high school again. It changed my mood and brought me almost to what it felt as if another world. I began to wonder, can scent really impact ones mood that much?

Smell is one of the most important senses we have. For generations it has helped humans live and function. Smell is a sense we are always using even when we don’t realize it, whether smelling food or a person. Just a little bit of the wrong smell can make a person no longer like something. Think about it, if your food smelt horrible, would you still want to eat it? Smell enters either from our throat or nostrils into our body. Once these molecules are in our body they travel to the olfactory epithelium, which is mucus, enclosed tissue lining the nasal cavity. The molecules then bind with neurons. The olfactory system is responsible for identifying the different smells we encounter. The receptors in the olfactory system send impulses to the micro region. The micro region then releases odorant patterns to the brain. Our brain is able to remember one trillion scents, since the molecules that enter our nose are all different shapes. This allows the multiple molecules to attach to many receptors.

Smell has such an impact on emotions because of the brain. The olfactory bulbs (which receive odor) are linked to the part of the brain that deals with emotion called the amygdala. In a recent study scientists gave people a smell or words about a memory to see what triggered a persons memory more. It turned out that smell triggered more memories than anything. This is because smells go to the cortex, which is the area of the brain of cognitive recognition. Smelling just an old textbook can bring someone back to the memories of when they used it. Although smell can bring people back to certain memories, it can have a big effect on ones mood.

Studies show that when people were given a smell, it sometimes made them in a bad mood, which can lead to poor health, or it made them in a better mood. The studies also showed the positive emotions happen on the left side of the brain while negative occur on the right. Smells can also influence how we see people. In another study people were shown pictures of individuals. They also gave them a smell attached to that individual. Many people said their attractiveness went down if they didn’t like the smell of that person or they went up if the person smelt good.

As I became more interested in smell I wanted to find out what major smells impact us and how. The smell of lemon causes one to concentrate and relax more while lavender helps calm emotional stress. Jasmine helps people who are depressed by calming them while Rosemary improves memory and gets rid of headaches. Cinnamon can also help focus and improve fatigue. Peppermint gives people a clear mind. So, if anyone is ever in need of a smell to help his or her state of mind, one of these is sure to help!

Work Cited

woman-candle2

http://greatist.com/happiness/do-scents-affect-mood

 

http://www.sirc.org/publik/smell_emotion.html

 

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224575

 

http://www.medicaldaily.com/how-does-nose-smell-inner-workings-our-sense-smell-324566

 

What does our waste show us?

Although poop is a topic that is rarely brought up among conversation, I became interested in learning about it. Since it’s rarely discussed, I decided to look further into it. I knew that poop is the waste from our body but is that all it is?

The truth is, poop is actually really important. It shows exactly what’s going on in your body. A person eliminates waste by using nutrients to get rid of what your body no longer needs. Poop is especially important because it can show signs of bacterial infections, digestion complications, and even early signs of cancer but just its size and shape. People all have their own “normal” poop, so one persons poop size and color can be totally different then another person but they both can still be equally healthy. A person’s poop contains 75% water, fiber, bacteria, cells, and liquid. Three main things that doctors look for in a persons poop to see if their poop is healthy are: color, occurrence, and shape.

Frequency is very important. Most of the population poops at least once a day, which is normal. Other people go two to three times a day, which means that their metabolism is moving fast. Pooping more then three times a day means that a person has diarrhea or some type of infection. Form is also really important because it reveals how you digested what entered your body. When a person waste is watery it means that they could possibly have an infection, and should be seen by their doctor right away. Color is another important factor. Waste is colored by the liver, which produces bile (a liquid produced by the liver during digestion). The normal color is a brown. If ones waste is black and they are not on any medicine containing iron, it means that they are internally bleeding or have an ulcer or possibly even cancer.

There are many other signs of bowel trouble besides just color. For example, if ones waste is blood it means they could have hemorrhoids or anal fissures. This happens because ones anal is too tight to let anything pass through. The stools then get caught in the color or rectum, which leads to hemorrhoids or fissures. If someone has diarrhea constantly it could mean that they have Crohn’s disease. This is when the body thinks that bacteria in a persons intestines (which are good) which causes cells to leave the blood and move towards an intestine which leads to the inflammation. Constipation is also a sign of bowel trouble. It is caused by lack of hydration or Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), which is an inflammation of the colon.

Peoples waste habits vary from one another, but they also vary in different countries. Studies show that a less distinct bacterium consists in people in Western Countries compared to people in non-developed countries. In a recent study scientists took poop samples from the United States and Papua (a Nation in the South Pacific). The results showed that Papua had 50 more diverse bacteria than the United States. Scientists believe this is because what people in Western Countries eat causes a change in the guts bacteria. This could also be do to the different hygiene and antibiotics in countries which enters a person. A persons diet can also play a big role in this depending on the bacteria, which enters the gut. Drinking a lot of water (what most people in the US do) reduces the amount of bacteria in a person. In conclusion, people in Western Countries are the healthiest and scientists can tell by the bacteria in their waste.2014-Hot-Soft-Emoji-Cute-Cushion-Shit-font-b-Poop-b-font-Poo-Pillow-Stuffed-Toy

A person’s waste is a very touchy subject, but one that I think should be focused on more. It can tell a lot more about a person’s health then most of us think.

 

 

 

 

 

Work Cited

http://www.webmd.com/ibs/what-is-ibs

http://www.webmd.com/women/features/digestive-problems

http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/health-answers/what-your-poop-telling-you/

http://thescienceofeating.com/food-combining-how-it-works/tips-tricks/what-your-poop-says-about-you/

http://www.livescience.com/50512-poop-bacteria-microbiome-lifestyle.html

 

Do mood rings really work?

 

Everyone can guess another persons mood by the look on their face, but mood rings are believed to show what they are actually feeling. Mood rings have been around since 1975. Creators Joshua Reynolds and Maris Ambats created the stone ring to allow people to see what they are feeling inside. Each color represents a different mood: violet means happy or romantic, blue is calm, green is neutral, yellow is nervous or enthusiastic, and brown is nervous.

As a kid I always thought the mood ring could actually tell my mood, until I noticed the colors sometimes didn’t match up with it. The pebble in the ring is filled with thermo chronic liquid crystals. As a person’s mood changes, the temperatures of our bodies do also. The crystals in the ring absorb energy based on our temperature, which causes the ring the change in color. At a persons standard body temperature the ring is either blue or green. When a Unknownperson is really stressed or thrilled blood flow moves to their organs rather than around the body, which makes our fingers cooler. The cool temperature of our fingers causes the ring to turn yellow. If a person is in the freezing cold the ring can even turn black.

Overall, the color of the stone in the ring is based of your body temperature. The colder you are the colder the ring is, while the warmer you are the warmer the ring is. Another surprising fact is that mood rings are affected more by your surrounding temperature than the actual temperature of oneself.

Mood rings definitely do not show the actual mood of a person, despite which most of mood-ring-259x300us thought as a child but they are still very popular. They are most popular with elementary school kids, but definitely not a reliable source of ones mood.

Work Cited

http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryfaqs/f/moodring.htm

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/question443.htm

http://humantouchofchemistry.com/how-do-mood-rings-work.htm

http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-do-mood-rings-work/

The science behind the famous dress debate

Overnight the color of the dress phenomenon blew up all over social media. If you are unsure of what this is, it was the debate over whether a dress was white and gold or blue and black. Social media went crazy, with talk shows discussing the debate and celebrities tweeting arguing what the true color of the dress was. Scientists became so intrigued that they even started their own investigation to see what color the dress really was.

Scientists began to examine the dress and they too had different opinions of the dress color. Through investigation, they realized that people see shapes and colors differently. How you see the dress is how your brain perceives that color. Ron Chrisley, director of the Centre for Research in Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex, believes that this is all a deception. While many people argued that it had to do with a persons eye color an how “open minded” one is, it really depends on the light that is being reflected in our eyes along with the surrounding colors of the image.

People see the dress in two different ways because one person either disregarding the blue while another person is unable to see the gold. A persons color sense is happens when light produces different wavelengths on a person’s eye. This wavelength then goes to the retina, which is located in the back of the eyes, which send signals to a person’s brain.

Bevil Conway, a neuroscientist at Wellesley College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, did an experiment just like many other scientists across the country. He asked 1,401 people what color dress they saw. The results were: 57% blue and black, 30% white and gold, 11% blue and brown, and 2% as something different. Through much work, they figured out that people who saw the dress as white and gold was because their eyes saw the color lighting as daylight. Mostly women and senior citizens saw it as white and gold because studies confirm they function more during the day. Younger people saw the dress as blue and black, because the brain is more active during night.2015-02-28T01-57-54-9Z--1280x720.video_370x246

The dress debate may never end, but it sure is interesting. Scientists are still doing studies to find out more information of what causes people to see two complete different colors. Their research has begun to shed new information on the eye and natural and artificial lighting.

Work Cited

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/science/the-science-behind-the-dress-color.html?_r=0

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2015/feb/27/science-thedress-colour-illusion-the-dress-blue-black-gold-white

http://www.livescience.com/50842-dress-debate-color-perception.html

How do we get the color of our eyes?

People are always comparing their eye color, whether is the usual brown, unique green, or the rare blue. People always think that if they have the same eye color as someone, they have the exact same eye, but that is not true. No one in the world has identical eyes. Everyone’s eyes are different and have unique features that make them up.

When people are first born they have blue eyes, but that changes over time into other unique colors. Not until a child is three years old is their eye color fully developed. A person’s eye color is genetic, with brown as being dominant and blue eyes as recessive. A person’s eye color is made of up two very important things. The first is melanin. Melanin is a natural pigment that can make a person have either black or blue eyes. Melanin is also in our skin, which makes us have different tones. Rayleigh also impacts a person’s eye color. This is the dispersion of light. Wavelengths from the sky make a persons eye color noticeable. Everyone has a different amount of melanin in his or her eyes since it is based off the amount of sun exposure a person has acquired. There are a higher percentage of people with brown eyes close to their equator rather than in the north because melanin protects ultraviolet rays of light.

People have blue eyes when colorful wavelengths reflect on a white eye. People with blue eyes sometimes look like they have a different color when indoor because there is not as much wavelength. The most popular eye color, brown, is created because there is a high amount of melatonin in the front of the eye because the light reflected on the eye is absorbed. Hazel and green eyes have less melanin than brown with enough room to absorb blue color, making them lighter. Grey eyes are very unique because they don’t have any melanin but in its place have collagen, which is a protein. Everyone has blue eyes as518264147_c_570_411 a baby because we lack melanin when we are first born.

Eyes are all different and unique. Eye color can even show interesting things about people. For example, people with blue eyes all came from the black sea by an ancestor who lived ten thousand years ago. Our eye color is just another part of us that makes us all different.

Sources

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/11/science-eye-color-reveals-lot.html

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/how-eyes-get-their-color

http://thewannabescientist.com/the-science-of-eye-color/

Does chocolate really kill dogs?

When sitting around with my friends at a sleepover our favorite thing to do was eat all the chocolate things we could find. From chocolate chip cookies, brownies, or just plain Hersey bars, we ate all of it! Although we loved to munch on everything, every mom would yell at us “make sure the chocolate doesn’t fall on the floor, we don’t want the dog to eat it!” I always thought to myself though, does chocolate really kill dogs? Or is it just a myth? What makes us able to eat it but not dogs?

As I found out, chocolate can be deathly to dogs, but there are many factors that go into it. Inside the cocoa bean is chemical called theobromine. This chemical is plant alkaloid, which means it contains the elements oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. In 1841 theobromine was found in the cocoa bean. Theobromie is an energizing chemical for humans but can also cause humans to experience nausea and anorexia. Although it has some effects on humans, nothing compares to what it does to dogs. The chemical can cause a decrease in a dog’s blood pressure by widening its blood vessels. It also takes a very long time for dogs to digest chocolate, compared to humans.

Although chocolate has a negative effect on dogs, every dog breed is different for the amount of theobromine that affects it. For example a Yorkshire terrier compared to a Golden Retriever has to consume different amounts for chocolate to affect it. In that way it’s similar to humans and alcohol; usually people who weigh less get sicker but alcohol quicker. 300 milligrams per kilogram of body weight is equal to the amount of chocolate a dog can consume without getting severely ill.

All chocolate affects dogs differently though. For example, dark chocolate has a more negative effect on dogs than does milk chocolate. Dark chocolate causes dogs to have a higher risk of seizures. It also contains methylxanthines, which is a chemical that is deathly to all types of dogs. It also contains more theobromine, which is heavy on kidneys and leads to vomiting and shock. Humans also know when to stop eating because we get full, while dogs don’t know when to stop. A dog can eat ten percent of its body weight in just a matter of minutes without stopping. This leads to over eating and severe sickness. Though white chocolate is still very bad for humans, it’s not as bad as milk or dark chocolate. This is because it doesn’t contain theobromine, but instead is prepared with cocoa butter. Even a dog consumes a high amount of white chocolate they can still get very ill due to the high fat and sugar content which causes the pancreas to shut down.

Since dogs are a mans best friend, I don’t think anyone wants to ever hurt them. So next time you’re eating chocolate and dropping it on the floor and assume it wont hurt the dog, be careful because its effect dogs more than you think.

 

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Sources

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/how-dangerous-is-chocolate-for-dogs.html

http://scienceillustrated.com.au/blog/ask-us/could-eating-chocolate-really-kill-your-dog/

http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/2012/02/14/the-curious-toxic-chemistry-of-chocolate/

What Really is a Nightmare?

One of the things that I still haven’t out grown from when I was a child is my fear of nightmares. When I was a kid, I spent most of nights running into my parents’ room and snuggling in between them, after just being awoken from a nightmare I thought was real. Almost every one I know had that fear. Before I went to bed I would make my parents look under my bed and in my closet of fear that the “monster” in my dream would come to life.

People dream every night when they sleep. Many people still wonder why we dream, or what our dreams really mean. Individuals suppose that dreams happen for different reasons. For example, many people believe that your dreams display what you learned throughout the day, show your future, or connect us to the gods. While many people believe dreams have significance to them, others credit the “activation-synthesis hypothesis,” which states that dreams don’t actually have any importance, and it is just our imagination. The worst type of dream people experience is a nightmare.

A nightmare occurs after a person has been asleep for several hours and occurs because of rapid eye movement (REM). According to American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) fifty percent of children from the age of five to twelve have the worst nightmares, while only about two percent of adults have nightmares. Author and dream analysis, Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, states that nightmares occur during REM because our brain involuntary deals with the stress or issues we faced during the day. At night we are isolated in ourselves. People who also eat late night snacks or eat very unhealthy had a higher rate of nightmares because of the carbohydrates that cause more body digestion and increased brainpower. Even food allergies have been seen to increase the risk of a nightmare.

There are four stages of REM- sleep onset, light sleep, and deep sleep. Around every ninety minutes your brain is experiencing REM, which starts at the base of the brain with signals called pons. Pons travel to the cerebral cortex, which is used for thinking. The pons then move to the spinal cord which makes a persons muscles emotionless. This is used to makes a person not act out their nightmare. The pons then move to the Cortex which tries to understand what they are. Since the Cortex is unable to comprehend pons, it makes its own thing up with them and creates nightmares. The most active part of the brain during REM sleep is the Amygdala, which is known for having depressive thoughts and emotions. The Amygdala makes people more fearful and scared of the nightmares.

Although dreams happen for many different reasons, the most common cause of a nightmare is ones past. In studies people had a constant occurring dream and had no idea what from. It turns out that sometimes the brain remembered memories from the past that the people didn’t even remember. Nightmares happen all the time, but will science one day find something to prevent what haunts our brain at night?

 

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Sources:

http://www.medicaldaily.com/bad-dream-more-just-dream-science-nightmares-327586https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/nightmares

https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/nightmares

http://valleysleepcenter.com/the-science-behind-dreams-nightmares-and-sleep/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-behind-dreaming/

 

Hi guys I’m Alex and I’m from Westchester, New York. It is about thirty minutes outside the city. I  went to a pretty small high school; my graduation class was only a 115. Penn State is a huge change! I’m currently a freshman  in the College of Communications. I plan on majoring in either Advertising or Public Relations.

Science was never my favorite subject in high school. The only “science type” class I really loved was forensics. I found it so interesting and unique, but Biology and Chemistry were never really my thing. My mom majored in Biology and always helped me but I never loved it. I decided to take this course after I read the description of it and saw the amazing topics that we were going to learn about this semester. I think its really interesting to learn more about the concepts of science rather than just straight facts.

In mUnknowny free time I love hanging with friends, going to the city, and baking. I also did track in High School and I love to ski. I went to Colorado last year skiing, which was so much fun. I’m also a big fan of EDM music. Below I pasted a link of a Swedish House Mafia Concert I went to at Madison Square Garden. Hope you enjoy!