Author Archives: Aidan James Bitterman

Does cell phone use late at night cause a type of “hangover?”

I was always told not to use my cell phone right before going to bed because it would make it harder to fall asleep. This might be true, but there are also other negative effects that accompany late night cell phone use.

study done by Michigan State asked 82 upper-level managers and 161 employees of a variety of different occupations to fill out a survey every day for two weeks. The surveys showed that late night cell phone use cut into the amount of hours of sleep the participants were able to get and also caused them to be less engaged and less energetic the next day. 

A large reason for this effect is that cell phones give off blue light, which impedes with the use of melatonin in the body, which is a chemical that promotes sleep.

Recent research has shown that there are also a lot of more negative, long-term effects of late night cell phone usage. Along with a worse night’s sleep, which a study of 12 people found again in this study, Penn State (woohoo) professor Anne-Marie Chang said that there are more alarming negative effects as well.

This reduced amount of melatonin can be very costly in the long run. Recurrent elimination of the chemical has been related to an increased risk of prostate, colorectal, and breast cancers. A steady lack of sleep has also been related to obesity and diabetes.

The effects of late night cell phone usage has been found to be most profound in teenagers aged 15 to 17. Such teenagers were also found to be more likely to use their cell phones late at night.

Why don’t I remember my dreams?

Everybody dreams, but some people remember more of their dreams than others. Here are some things that I did not know about dreams before I started my research. Prior to starting my research, I thought that each dream only lasted one minute, which is apparently not true. Each dream lasts between five and twenty minutes.

Rarely do I remember my dreams. Sometimes I am able to recall what I dreamt about the night before, but more often than not I do not. I have always wondered why this was.

One common idea, while it does not explain why some people do or do not remember their dreams, is that people who DO remember their dreams respond more quickly when their name is called while awake.

This is based on a study of 36 people who were listening to background music and, every now and again, hearing their first name being said. The study called half of the participants high recallers, who were people that did remember their dreams. The other half were low recallers.

High recallers showed a more sustained dip in the alpha brain wave when they heard their name in comparison to the low recallers. Studies have shown that when people hear a noise and open their eyes, more brain regions become active, which reduces the alpha wave.

High recallers showed a delayed decrease, which is a possible sign that their brains are more widely activated when they hear their names. Research also showed that high recallers woke up more frequently throughout the night. On average, they were awake for about 30 minutes during the night, compared to 14 minutes for the low recallers. Results suggest that high recallers might wake up more easily because their brains are more reactive to outside stimuli.

However, according to Everyday Health, people who wake up in the middle of a dream might remember their dreams more vividly just because it is fresher in their mind after waking up. People are also more likely to remember their dreams when they are anxious or depressed, possibly because when someone is worried they are more likely to wake up in the middle of the night. Certain medications could also affect whether or not you remember your dreams.

Does mixing drinks have any effects?

I had never thought about this specific topic until I heard one of my friends talking about it. I was intrigued right away and thought that it would be fun to blog about. I was expecting to find evidence that supports whether or not mixing drinks can get you drunk faster, or something along those lines. What I ended up finding was a lot more interesting.

According to Men’s Fitness, mixing alcohol and energy drinks, like Red Bull and vodka, can increase sex drive. College students who mixed energy drinks with alcohol were found to be more likely to have intoxicated or casual sex.

This is based on a study done by the University of Buffalo. The study assessed U.S. adolescents and young adults ages 13 to 25. The author of the study, Kathleen E. Miller, said that mixing alcohol and energy drinks leads to unintentional over drinking because caffeine makes it more difficult to be aware of your own level of intoxication.

Researchers do acknowledge that mixing these drinks do not make people have casual sex, but it does increase their chances of it.

Obviously a mixed drink, like a coke and rum, tastes much better than a shot of rum straight. This leads people to want to drink more and more of it, and leave them less inclined to keep track of how much rum they actually use in the mixture, and also how many coke and rums they have had.

The more a person drinks, the more inclined they will be to engage in sexual behavior, wanted or not.

According to the University of Illinois, sexual assault and alcohol consumption are related to each other. At least 50% of college students’ sexual assaults are associated with alcohol consumption, and 47% of sexual assaults reported by college men involved alcohol.

In 81% of the alcohol related sexual assaults, both people involved in the sexual assault had consumed alcohol. However, when alcohol is involved in a sexual assault, the victim is less likely to call the experience “rape.”

Does eating carrots actually improve eyesight?

When I was little and heard that eating carrots improved eyesight, I thought it was an attempt to prompt kids to eat their vegetables at dinner. I did believe it though, and started to eat a lot more carrots. I had always wondered whether or not it was entirely true though.

According to the U.K. Ministry of Food, during World War II pilots who ate carrots were at an advantage. This was due to the idea that their vision was enhanced at night. Carrots have a lot of beta-carotene in them, which is a pigment that helps eyesight. A considerable amount of time after World War II, Britain came out and said that they only said this to cover up new technology that they had developed.

Carrots do have a lot of beta-carotene, which helps the body make Vitamin A. Vitamin A is without a doubt important to the body, as it permits people to see at night. Not having enough Vitamin A can literally make the cornea of the eye evaporate. Most studies have not looked directly at carrots but at the benefits of beta-carotene or Vitamin A.

A control study in 2005 considered how carrots stack up against other options that also produce Vitamin A. All the foods had about the same effect. Some research has shown that beta-carotene does not convert to Vitamin A very efficiently.

Do not think that the more carrots you eat the better eyesight you will have. As soon as your body has enough beta-carotene, it will stop converting to Vitamin A. Eating too many carrots could also turn your skin a bit orange, but there would not be any negative health effects.

Another study looked at how carrots can affect eyesight for the elderly. 63,000 men and 39,000 women aged 50 and up were looked at from either 1984 or 1986 until 2010. The study found that about 2.5% of the study’s participants developed enhanced eyesight during the study. The study was done on not only carrots, but several other foods that produce pigments called carotenoids: sweet potatoes, carrots, orange peppers or spinach, broccoli, and kale.

The participants of the study who had the most carotenoids of lutein and xeaxanthin had a 40% better chance of avoiding  age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is a common cause of vision loss. Other carotenoids, including beta-carotene, beta cryptoxanthin, and alpha carotene had positive effects as well.

 

Why do people get hungover?

We know some of the symptoms that accompany a hangover: headache, nausea, fatigue, etc. Although we know symptoms, scientists do not understand that much about why we get hungover.

One source claims that there are a variety of reasons why people get hungover, but the biggest one is dehydration. Alcohol is a diuretic, so you lose water. Drinking alcohol actually makes you more dehydrated. This is because alcohol prevents the dissemination of vasopressin, which repurposes water from the kidneys. Without vasopressin, all the water goes to your bladder, which is also why most people need to go to the bathroom more frequently when they have been drinking.Others think that dehydration, though it does have an impact, is not the main culprit when it comes to causing hangovers. Drinking a lot of water usually does not help prevent or cure a hangover. Dehydration might account for the headache, but not the rest of it. The reason your stomach hurts during a hangover is because alcohol causes inflammation of the lining of your stomach.

The same source brings up a couple other possibilities. One is the buildup of a toxic called acetaldehyde. The other is that hangovers are caused by our own immune systems. A study found that people with hangovers have high levels of cytokines. Cytokines are useful, but too much can cause people to experience hangover symptoms.

Another possible cause of a hangover is said to be the Congeners. Congeners are found more prominently in dark liquor, like red wine, whiskey, rum, etc. Congeners, though they make alcohol taste and smell better, they essentially will make your hangover the next morning worse.

There is disagreement on the cause of a hangover and it is likely that all of these causes are true, and they combine to result in a hangover. One thing that is certain is that the morning after a night of heavy drinking makes you feel like you got hit by a CATABUS.

Why does orange juice taste awful after brushing your teeth?

I have always wondered why orange juice tastes horrible if you drink it right after brushing your teeth. I make sure I eat breakfast before I brush my teeth because drinking OJ after brushing my teeth is awful.

Toothpaste has something called Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS) in it. SLS is found in 99% of toothpastes and apparently it does not do anything useful. The detergent creates a foam in your mouth that makes your teeth feel fresh and clean.

The foam that SLS creates temporarily affects your sweet taste buds. Because your sweet taste buds are essentially inactive, you only taste the bitter citric acid that is in orange juice. This is why it tastes bad when you drink it right after brushing your teeth.

A lot of toothpastes are beginning to stop using SLS because not only does it not have any positive effects, it actually has several negative effects. SLS is also found in some shampoos, causing cosmetic problems for a lot of people. The SLS in toothpastes has also been found to be responsible for giving people mouth ulcers.

SLS is a type of soap and a lot of people are starting to buy these SLS free toothpastes, the biggest reason being that there is no need for soap in your toothpaste. Some companies include SLS because it makes it cheaper to manufacture.

People have problems with SLS because it causes skin irritation, it is used in household cleaners, and it causes gingivitis and other gum diseases. While these are clearly the more significant problems with SLS in our toothpaste, it still makes my orange juice taste bad.

Is “beer before liquor, never sicker” real?

One hotly debated topic is whether or not “liquor before beer” really does mean that you are “in the clear,” and whether “beer before liquor” really does make you “sicker.” Many people argue that such a saying does seem to be true, while just as many will argue that it is not.

Kyle Brubaker definitely believes that the clever rhyme does have validity to it. In his experience, he has seen that drinking beer before hard liquor is not a good decision. He writes that our liver can detox about one drink per hour, whether it be a shot or a beer. In the meantime, the rest of the alcohol sits in the bloodstream.

If you take a few shots, which hits the liver harder than a few beers would, the liver will focus on detoxing those shots before the beer. The less concentrated beer is better to have in your bloodstream because hard liquor will make you more dehydrated the longer it is in the bloodstream.

Liquor often hits people harder because the standard shot, which is one and a half ounces, contains the same amount of alcohol as the standard beer, which is 12 ounces.

A lot of people do not believe this is true. One of the biggest counterarguments is that it does not matter which alcoholic beverage you consume before the other or in what order, it matters how much you consume and in how much time.

Others say that it does not matter what order you drink the beer and the shots, but if you are not drinking it with water, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. This also makes sense, because the water would dilute the alcohol content of what is in your bloodstream.

Some people believe in the myth and some people do not believe in it. It seems to all depend on the person. Some people have seen in their experiences that drinking beer before liquor makes them feel sick. Other people have seen with experience that “beer before liquor, never sicker” is nothing more than a myth.

Can big men shoot?

Free throws are a huge part of the game of basketball. Often a game’s outcome can come down to a made or missed foul shot. When the game is on the line, an opposing will intentionally foul a player like Dwight Howard or DeAndre Jordan, because of their inability to make shots at the foul line.

Dwight Howard’s career free throw percentage is .573, which is horrendous. All NBA players should be able to make a free throw on a more consistent basis. There are some big men that can shoot. Kevin Love, Spencer Hawes, and Brook Lopez are all reliable when shooting free throws. A big men that can shoot is something rare in the NBA today.

One possible reason that big men are not as good shooters as guards is because coaches do not think it is their job to be a good shooter. Coaches say that the job of big men is to play good defense and get rebounds, not pull up from the three point line or be reliable when shooting free throws.

Others make excuses like “he has big hands/big limbs,” making it more difficult to shoot the ball. Centers are supposed to be tough, physical, and fight for rebounds. They are supposed to dunk and block shots, not hit shots from the outside.

Big men are even looked down upon if they can shoot, according to this article. They also do not practice shooting, because it is not their biggest job on the court. Shorter players, like guards, are not going to be able to grab a rebound over a 7 foot Center, so their job is to hit threes. Big men have other things to practice, like getting rebounds, boxing out opposing players, working on their post moves and inside game. This are things that guards are not expected to do.

A Center that shoots and is less physical is seen as weak and soft. Brook Lopez often gets ripped on for being shooting from the perimeter and not getting as many rebounds as a Dwight Howard of a DeAndre Jordan. Even his coach thinks that the big man needs to do more work on the glass than he does from the perimeter. The fact that big men are less successful on the line is due to what they’re expected to do on the court, not their actual ability.

How real is home-field/home-ice advantage?

Our football student section at Beaver Stadium was recently named the best in the country. We are loud, passionate, and make it hard for opposing teams to hear and focus. Whether home-field advantage is real or not has been a hot topic in sports the past few years. Some teams, after clinching a playoff spot, will spell their starters and play mostly reserves. Other teams want that home-field advantage.

Beaver Stadium

This past May, the Tampa Bay Lightning took this another level during their playoff series against the New York Rangers. The Lightning were not going to sell tickets to anyone who was not a Florida resident, as they were trying to give their team the biggest “home-ice” advantage they possibly could.

Clearly the Tampa Bay Lightning think that the idea of such an advantage does exist. The data vary by sport. From 2003 to 2012, postseason match-ups were won by the team with home-field or home-ice advantage 73% of the time in the NBA, 59% of the time in the NHL, 59% of the time in the NFL, and 51% of the time in the MLB.

By these data, you can clearly argue that home-court does exist in the NBA. For the MLB, though, it is much harder to argue, as it is almost 50-50 whether or not the team with the home-field advantage wins the playoff series.

A lot of things can change how important a home-field advantage is. Look at the Seattle Seahawks. Their fans get so loud and into the game that it is near impossible for opposing quarterbacks to relay the play to the rest of their offense.

Another study from 2011 took into account three seasons and how many more games a team could have won had they played all their games that season at home. For the NBA it was 10.11%, for the NFL it was 6.4%, for the MLB it was 5.46% and for the NHL it was 5.22%. Statistics from both of these clearly show that home-court advantage is more important in the NBA than in the other four major sports.

The importance of home-field advantage could be the fans and how loud they are, providing energy for the players and getting into the heads of opponents. Or it could be the comfort of sleeping in your own bed and having your regular routine, which you only have for home games. Whatever it may be, let’s make sure we bring the football team a huge home-field advantage this Saturday against Rutgers!

Is it better to be short in hockey?

Whenever I tell people I played hockey in high school, I get confused and shocked looks in return. This is almost certainly due to the fact that I stand five foot four inches tall and weigh about 140 pounds. I guess this is a big reason why I always root for the shorter athletes. Nobody really expects them to do much or be able to perform the way a tall, or even average height athlete might be able to.

Me and Conn

Short hockey players are thriving in the game today. There are countless successful NHL players under the average height in the league, which is 6 foot 1. Brian Gionta stands at 5-7, Nathan Gerbe at 5-5, and Martin St. Louis at 5-8. These three are only a few of a much longer list of short NHL standouts. This article in the New York Times accounts for the reasons why short NHLers are no longer disadvantages, and could even have the upper hand on the ice.

One huge advantage that shorter players have in hockey is that they can really get low and thus can generate more speed. They also have a lower center of gravity and can more easily bend their knees. This is important for these three key reasons. When your knees are bent, you can generate more power, make each stride longer, and make it hard to push you off balance.

It doesn’t matter how small you are. If you bend your knees and stay balanced, it is going to be hard to knock you down and take the puck from you. You obviously can’t score without the puck.

The game is changing and it has been changing after the NHL lockout that saw the 04-05 entire season being canceled. The game is now less physical and it is much more important to be fast than big. The game protects against huge hits to prevent as many concussions as possible. These rule changes made it easier for short players to thrive because speed is now more important than size.

The NYT article has a quote that says it doesn’t matter if a player is short as long as they aren’t scared to go into the corners to fight for loose pucks and such. Height is not an essential trait to have to play hockey like it is in basketball. Just look at me.

 

What song brings you back?

One of my favorite songs is a song by Kenny Chesney called “I Go Back.” Not only is the song really catchy, but I really like the lyrics. My favorite words in the song are the following: “We all have a song that somehow stamped our lives. Takes us to another place in time.” For me, a song that makes me feel nostalgic is called “We Run This Town” by Luke Bryan. Listening to that song always brings me back to the great times I had with my best friends back home. It doesn’t upset me, because I am thrilled to be here at Penn State. Instead I feel happy that I had those times with such great friends.

For the longest time nostalgia was seen as a negative, or something that is bad. It was linked to depression for a long time. I never knew that nostalgia was linked to such things as depression until I read this article. It wasn’t until 1999 that nostalgia was no longer seen as “living in the past.” Nostalgia brings out a lot of positive feelings in someone. To quote the article, “it has been shown to counteract feelings of loneliness, boredom, and anxiety.”

The article does acknowledge the bittersweetness of nostalgia. I mean, who really wants to grow up? I know I certainly don’t. I want to be able to be a kid forever. But the feelings are bittersweet because we are able to remember great times that we have had.The reason I am talking about music is that the article I first came across talked about songs that bring about feelings of nostalgia.

Although the actual article is about why nostalgia is good, I thought it would be fun to talk about a song that makes me feel nostalgic and for all of you guys to think of songs that make you guys feel nostalgic. A lot of us are freshman here. We have not been away from home for as long periods of time as we will be here. Nostalgia is good for us so that we can “fall back on memories,” to get us through the tough times.

There are people who don’t benefit from positive feelings of nostalgia. The article says that some people overdo the whole nostalgia thing, which isn’t a good thing. It also isn’t good to compare it to the present and to think that times were better in the past. Also, people who are “avoidant” don’t get the same benefits that another person might get from feelings of nostalgia. The bottom line is that nostalgic thoughts are good for most people.

Initial Blog Post

Hey fam, I’m Aidan Bitterman. I’m from Princeton, NJ and went to Princeton High School, where I played baseball and hockey. I have two brothers and two dogs. I am a HUGE Mets, Jets, Nets, and Devils fan. I am a sports and country music enthusiast.

I am taking this class because, well, they told me to at orientation. My major is journalism and honestly I have never liked science. I would never look forward to my science classes in high school, except some things I do find very interesting. If there was a class on Sports Science, I definitely would have taken that. I always thought Sports Science on ESPN was really interesting.  I also write for The Daily Collegian. Here is a link to a preview I wrote for our men’s tennis team.

photobomb

Here’s a picture of me photobombing like a pro