Author Archives: cfl5109

Stupid Worms May Actually Be Good For You

Remember how we learned earlier on in the course how worms inside the human body was making kids more stupid? Well, its turns out according to new findings that intestinal worms may actually be good for you. Not only are these worms not hurting you, but they could actually be benefitting you at the same time!

Intestinal worms are categorized as helminths, or parasites that feed on the body of the host, draining the life out of them. This is true for many helminths such as tapeworms and hookworms, which can cause disease and sometimes death, but it turns out that not all are so bad. Lab studies have shown that some helminths can be extremely beneficial to the host. One lab showed that the presence of helminths in pregnant rats can actually protect the brain of the rat baby from inflammation. Along with this finding, the biggest randomized trail ever performed found that of the 2 million children in India being studied, mass treatment with a worm killing drug did not increase body weight or survival. In other words, since ridding the kids of worms did not improve health, it seems that the worms were doing no harm at all.

It has been thought that the reason for increases in inflammatory disease such as multiple sclerosis in industrialized civilization was due to the hygiene hypothesis, or simply keeping our surrounding environments too clean. It turns out though that the real reason is due to the loss of biodiversity inside our own body called biome depletion. The absence of some mutualistic worms is a big part of this increase in diseases. These helminths have been found to protect lab animals from various allergies and autoimmune conditions as well as reduce some types of cancer. In some controlled studies with humans, helminths have halted the progression of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis as well as treated many people with inflammatory dowel disease without any reported adverse side effects.

Because helminths have been a part of the ecosystem of the human body for so many years, they have become an important working part of that system. Mutualistic helminths can help regulate immune function, forcing the body to build more immune cells, as well as producing their own anti-inflammatory molecules. A study recently showed that adding helminths to lab rats changed the balance of the gut ecosystem, making the bacteria come out to a healthier balance. Because of these findings, people are starting to use helminths therapeutically to treat some illnesses. “Helminthic therapy” as its called,  is not approved by the FDA, but worms can be bought from various companies. People using these helminths such as the rat tapeworm, report that their conditions were treated more effectively and with fewer side effects than with pharmaceutical use.

So why aren’t helminths being used more frequently? Even though it all sounds promising, the safety and effectiveness of these worms have to be further evaluated. Along with this,is that these helminths have to be available, affordable, and FDA-approved in order to really catch on in the medical community. Therefore, it turns out that not as worms are bad and make you stupid. In fact, some intestinal worms can actually be quite beneficial, but even though it sounds like all good news, I think there still needs to be a lot more testing and experimentation in order for these helminths to become widely accepted. So even though some test have been done, more tests on the effectiveness, side affects, and safety of these worms have to be conducted. I think this finding sounds promising and with a little more research it could be a huge step forward in treating inflammatory diseases and even help with cancer!

Some worms can be good!

Your Dog: Defender of Strangers & Asthma

I have grown up having a dog or two in my family my entire life, and I always thought that there were many positives that come along with owning a dog. I always believed that having a dog made you happier, taught you responsibilities, and helped you be more active, but when I heard that owning a dog could prevent young children from getting asthma I was shocked! According to a recent study, children who spent their youngest childhood years with a dog in their house were less likely to develop asthma. I believe this new finding is wonderful and just adds to the list of positive things that owning a dogs adds to one’s life!

Fighting asthma one nap at a time!

“Earlier studies have shown that growing up on a farm reduces a child’s risk of asthma to about half. We wanted to see if this relationship also was true for children growing up with dogs in their homes.” This was said by the author of the study, Dr. Tove Fall, who explained the reasoning for doing the study. They conducted a correlational study, observing the medical records of all Swedish children who were born from January 1, 2001, to December 31, 2010. They also took a look at the families’ medical histories, pet/farm ownership in the first year of life, and other potential factors that could lead to asthma. The team observed the rates of asthma among preschoolers and school kids ages 1 to 6. Results yielded that of the 1,011,051 children born during the study time period, 14.2% of the preschoolers were exposed to dogs and 8.2% of the school-aged children were exposed to dogs. The results of the study found that exposure to dogs and farm animals during the first year of life reduces the risk of asthma in children at age 6 by 15% compared to those who were not exposed to dogs. That is good to hear, but they also found from the study that dog ownership was associated with a higher risk of pneumonia and other lower respiratory tract diseases  among pre-school children.

I think this study was pretty well conducted because they had a large sample size and had access to nearly every medical file and background information on the kids, nearly eliminating confounding third variables. Of course there is always a small percent of chance involved. This is a correlational study though, so they did not necessarily found out why dogs had these effects on kids and asthma, they just know that there is something going on. This study is interesting to me because I love dogs and I will always have one so it is good to know how owning one could possibly effect your future family. I think they should continue to do studies on this topic because asthma is fairly common, and owning dogs is even more common, therefore it would be interesting to see what other effects a dog can have on a young child. In the end, you dog can help prevent asthma, but there may also be some adverse findings as well such as the risk of pneumonia. I think dogs are highly beneficial and that every family should have one because the positives, including protecting against asthma, hugely out weight the negatives!

Dogs will always be man’s best friend!

Do toads actually give you warts?

Does touching toads give you warts? This is one question that every kid hears when they are little, and when I heard it I listened to it intensively. I think I have touched a toad one time with my bare hands and I immediately washed my hands multiple times afterwards because I really was scared that I was going to get warts! However, it turns out that touching toads actually does not cause warts at all!

I’m sure everyone has heard the statement that toads cause warts if you touch them at some point in their lives. The origin is unknown, the best guess is that the myth came about because of the texture of the skin on the toads back. Toads have bumpy backs and so it was thought that because they have bumpy skin, if you touch it your skin will also become bumpy. As time went on, scientists have studied the matter and found that there is no connection between touching a toad and getting warts. So, as it turns out touching toads does not actually give you warts! Warts actually come from a form of viruses categorized under the human papillomavirus, or HPV. HPV describes a group of about 150 viruses that cause growths in the human skin cells. In my head, another explanation for warts or a reaction in the skin when someone touches a toad could be a sign that maybe they are allergic to the creature.

Even though touching toads cannot give you warts, in some cases it can be dangerous. Some toads and frogs have toxins that they can secrete as a defense mechanism and can cause intense pain if you touch the milky substance that they secrete holding the toxins. In fact, one golden poison frog have enough toxins to kill 10 grown men, this makes them one of the most poisonous animals alive today.

A golden poison frog

In conclusion, it turns our that touching toads does not actually give you warts! However you still should be careful at which toads and frogs you do touch because the most beautiful ones can be the most deadly ones as we see with the golden poison frog. I still don’t like toads, they creep me out, so I will continue to get them out of the pool using the skimming net and not my hands, but it is comforting to know that if I do happen to touch it that it will not give me warts!

Does peeing on your jellyfish sting actually work?

One question that has always bothered me is “Does peeing on a jellyfish sting actually help it?” My grandparents live on the Chesapeake Bay and have their own dock and boat, so growing up I spent a lot of time down there on the water. Most of the time we spent there was in the summer, and thats when the jellyfish would be abundant throughout the bay. As we tubed and swam in the open waters, we often got stung by jellyfish, and yes it does hurt and sting very badly, but I always wondered if peeing on it would actually help. When you’re out on the boat, there’s no time to go home and take care of it, so you jut have to deal with it, but if peeing on it actually helped it would be invaluable. Of course, we have tried it and sometimes it seemed to work, but I always wondered if it was actually physically helping or if it was more of a psychological thing where we just thought it helped so we noticed the pain less. And the answer to this question is no! Peeing on a jellyfish sting actually makes it worse!

Friends made the idea of peeing on a jellyfish sting popular when Joey peed on Monica’s sting one episode while they visited the beach.

Some of jellyfish’s skin cells are stinging cells, or cnidocytes, these of which have organelles in them called nematocysts that contain venom. These scnidocytes are scattered along to length of a jellyfish’s tentacles which is how they sting you. I’m sure most of us have been stung by a jellyfish before, and yes it does stink, it stings right away and is very painful. Sometimes the sting even gets itchy, but beware, itching will only make it worse because it activates the nematocysts, transferred from the jellyfish’s tentacles to your skin, and causes them to release more venom. According to Joseph Burnett, a dermatologist and the University of Maryland Medical Center, and Christopher Holstege, a toxicologist and professor of emergency medicine at the University of Virginia, the best quick treatment of a sting is to rinse the area out with salt water. The salt water deactivates the nematocysts that are on your skin. Freshwater will hurt it more because the addition of saltwater dilutes the salts outside the cell and in reaction to this change the nematocysts releases more venom.

As for urine, the case is the same as freshwater, it only hurts you more. The concentration of salts and other compounds in one’s urine can be too dilute and similar to freshwater, therefore it was the same effects as the freshwater does just causing the stingers to release more venom. According to the Red Cross better treatments are to pour saltwater or even vinegar over the sting area. Acids in the vinegar help to neutralize the jellyfish sting.

In the end, finding out that peeing on a jellyfish sting doesn’t help isn’t too surprising to me. I never was convinced that it worked, but I still wondered, “What if?”, and know that I know the truth it makes sense to me. One thing I would be interested to know though is if some people carry the ability to be immune to jellyfish stings, or a test to see which common house hold items would provide the best healing benefits to a sting. I think there would be some items that would surprise you on how effective they are! So now you know, the only thing peeing on a jellyfish sting will get you closer to is more pain and the suffering of having someone pee on you!

Can I actually cry blood?

From time to time I have heard the expression “crying blood” and I always wondered if someone could actually do that. It turns out that you actually can cry blood! Some doctors have considered haemolacria which is a very rare disorder that cause a person’s tears to contain or be completely made of blood. It can also be caused by various types of injuries, but in many cases it remains a true mystery.

One of the earliest cases of haemolacria was in the 16th century by an Italian physician named Antonio Brassavola who reported a nun who cried bloody tears when she was menstruating. Once again in 1581, a doctor wrote of a teenaged girl in which her flow came through her eyes instead of through the uterus during menstruation. In the results of a 1991 study of 125 participants, menstruation contributed to occult haemolacria. It found that 18% of fertile women had some blood in their tears, while post-menopausal women showed no signs of bloody tears. Therefore, the hormones that are released during menstruation may induce bleeding of the eyes.

Bleeding of the eyes can also be caused by a various number of other things. Injuries can cause the tears to contain blood. It can be a sign of some diseases, tumors, conjuntivitis, tears in the tear duct, or general head injuries. In one case a Canadian man cried bloody tears after he was bitten by a snake. Venom from the snake caused him to cry blood along with painful swelling and kidney failure. Finally, haemolacria can be completely spontaneous as in the case of Calvino Inman. In cases like these and various others, it can be completely random, and doctors do not know the cause of it. The good news is that in most cases haemolacria will disappear, or lessen in intensity, as time goes on.

Twinkle Dwivedi from India reportedly has cried blood up to 14 times a day.

After my research, what I have discovered amazes me! Now I am very curious to see if doctors will ever find the true cause of some of these mysterious cases of crying blood. It a creepy phenomenon and I never thought it to be true, but now I know that it is an actual thing! It crazy and amazing at what the human body can do, and how we continue to find out more about our own bodies day after day. I do not think humans will ever understand the true capabilities, and abnormalities of the human body!

Does sitting too close to the TV actually hurt your vision?

Something that I have always heard from adults is the sitting too close to the TV will damage your vision. Because of this claim, as a kid I always tried to sit as far away from the TV as I could because I did not want to go blind, and even today until I researched the matter, I always try to sit at a distance from the screen. I’ve always had good eyes, I have better than 20/20 vision and I never wanted to mess that up so this claim has always been on my mind, and therefore I as researched the matter.

As it turns out, sitting close to the TV has no effect on your vision at all. That distance at which you sit from the television screen does not damage your eyes in any way. It turns out that sitting close to the TV can actually be a good sign to parents that their kids might be nearsighted. If a kid has trouble seeing the TV he will sit closer to see it more clearly. In fact, children can focus at close distance with less eye strain then adults can, therefore it is less wearing on their eyes then it would be for an adult. Kids will eventually grow out this habit as they grow older. Lastly, there is no long term effects from sitting too close to the TV, but it does cause strain to your eyes. This is why you might have a headache or blurry vision after you’ve focused on a screen for too long, it’s not permanent, but it is temporary strain.

So where did this statement come from? It probably got its roots from the beginning of the television age in the 1960’s. As TVs were just starting to enter American homes, it turns out that early television sets had been emitting X-rays, especially General Electric color sets, which could be harmful to someone who was viewing the screen too closely. The problem was soon corrected but the caution to viewers remained. My personal belief to add to the harmful rays, is that as televisions became more popular, kids would start to pay more attention to the TV than to their parents, therefore mothers told them they would go blind if they sat too close to or watched too much tv that way they wouldn’t be distracted from their family time.

So in the end, no, sitting too close to the TV does not damage you eyes, it can actually be helpful in spotting early signs of nearsightedness in children. At one point in time it was harmful at the dawn of household televisions, but now it is merely a myth parents use to scare their children! This gives me great relief because it means I’m not going to loose my sight just from watching the TV too closely in my dorm! I hope it gives some ease to you too!

Can I actually time travel?

It is one of the great scientific questions of recent human history, “Can you time travel?”, and the short answer is yes. Thanks to the brilliant Albert Einstein and his work on a theory called Space Relativity, we are understanding that it is actually plausible to travel through time. The more scientists explore the idea, the more we are finding out about it. As of now we know a couple things: yes it is possible to travel through time, it is most likely that we could only travel into the future and not the past, and it would be very hard to achieve the feat.

You can tell by looking at him that he was onto something big…

Albert Einstein’s theory of Space Relativity state that space and time are really aspect of the same exact thing – space-time. He says that there is a speed limit of 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 mph) for anything that is traveling through space-time. He also says that light always travels the speed limit as it goes through space. For example, lets say you took off from Earth in a space craft that could travel very close to the speed of light at the age of 20. While in space you celebrated 5 birthdays, but when you land back on Earth all of your friends who were also 20 when you left are now 70 years old. There’s no way! Oh yes there is. As you travel closer to the speed of light time you experience time at much slower pace then everyone stationary on Earth does. Therefore by the time you land you will have experienced time at a much slower pace, while every one of your friends here on Earth have experienced a faster, fuller 50 years.

There may be multiple methods of achieve this time travel. The first option would be that of using a wormhole. Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen suggested the existence of wormholes in 1935. We haven’t found one yet, but there are many theories on these scientific anomalies. Kip Thorne, an American theoretical physicist, stated in the 1980s that a wormhole could be made into a time machine. According to Einstein’s theory, a wormhole could act as a bridge through space connecting two distant point (a short cut through space). So, if we could accelerate one end of the wormhole to near light speed and then reverse it to its starting position while leaving the other end stationary, the moving mouth would age less slowly than the stationary due to time dilation. But using this method, we would need to create a wormhole, but once created we would only be able to travel as far back in time as when it was created, this removes the possibility of traveling far back in time.

WORMHOLE!

This brings us to time dilation. Recently we have proven Einstein’s theory of time dilation to be true, and it could allow us to travel into the future! Time dilation refers to the idea that time will pass slower for a clock in motion than it does for a clock that is stationary. Gravity also affects how times becomes elapsed, the greater the gravity and the velocity, the greater the difference in time. Clocks that move faster and affected less by gravity and therefore time moves faster!

So to answer the question, “Is time travel possible?”, maybe. We don’t really know if all of Einstein’s theories are completely true, they may be proved wrong in the future. Also we don’t have the ability to do and created what it takes to achieve the feat, we cannot create a wormhole and we can’t create ships that can travel nearly the speed of light yet. So in conclusion, in theory if all of Einstein’s amongst others’ theories hold true, yes it is possible to time travel, but for now it’s a no!

Sorry Marty!

 

 

Cole Land Initial Post

Hello everyone! My name is Colvin Land, but you can call me Cole. I am from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania which is known as the mushroom capital of the world! I went to the greatest highschool in the world, Salesianum High School in Wilmington, Delaware. Fun fact, Salesianum has over 140 state championships, including back to back titles in basketball right now.

Back to back state champions in basketball!

Anyways, I am taking this course because I originally came into Penn State as an engineer, but recently decided that wasn’t for me, so in choosing new courses to add my advisor suggested this course. I read the description for this course and it sounded right up my alley, I never absolutely hated science, but it was also never my favorite, so this class seemed like that in between so I took it! I just recently picked up the class this week, that explains my late post!

I’m not planning on becoming a science major because I hate chemistry and physics, and I don’t like doing labs very much. Also, I’m very interested in money and how the economy works, therefore I am looking to pursue a route more focused on business!

Thank you for your time!