Author Archives: Christian James King

Why It’s a Wet Winter Thanks to El Niño

If you haven’t noticed, the past couple of weeks and especially the past couple of days have been a wet start to the Winter season. We are already into the month of December and as much as I can recall we haven’t experienced any “real” snowfall yet, but I’ve had to break out my rain jacket on numerous occasions. I could of sworn that the first half of our home games this season were played in the rain which really ruined my tailgating experience. You might be wondering why it is that this Winter is so wet compared to the snow we got in October in 2013, or the even the snowfall we got before break last year. The answer according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a Strong El Niño setting the stage for 2015 winter and next year.

Rain penn state

Forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center issued the U.S. Winter Outlook today favoring cooler and wetter weather in Southern Tier states with above-average temperatures most likely in the West and across the Northern Tier. “A strong El Niño is in place and should exert a strong influence over our weather this winter,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “While temperature and precipitation impacts associated with El Niño are favored, El Niño is not the only player. As you can see it seems all to be El Niño’s fault, whoever he is.

El Niño’s is an irregularly occurring and complex series of climatic changes affecting the equatorial Pacific region and beyond every few years, characterized by the appearance of unusually warm. A translation would be that an unpredictable climate change is making it warm. Other factors that often play a role in the winter weather include the Arctic Oscillation, which influences the number of arctic air masses that penetrate into the South and nor’easters.

precip noreaster

I’m not really sure how I feel about it now that we are into December but it doesn’t feel like Winter yet. Maybe we will all get used to the rain, but I for one was looking forward to the odd chance we get a snow day next semester. 

I was really looking forward to building a snowman but it might have to wait until well after break.

snowman

How to Ace Your Finals

Finals week is a stressful time for any college student; it seems that all the procrastination and work that you were supposed to do piles up on the couple of weeks that you have to complete and study for your exams. On top of exams, there are projects that need completing with group members that never seem to pull their weight and a load of other responsibilities that need fulfilling just when the weather either starts to get terrible in the Fall where all you want to do is watch Netflix in your comfortable bed, or in the Spring when the weather finally climbs out in the 40’s and you can go outside without four layers of clothing on.

Us Penn Stater’s have our work cut out for us and many of us don’t have the luxury for sleep or find it hard to find a good seven hours or so to really be ready and prepared to tackle the day and all of its battles especially when you might need to hit the gym after the Thanksgiving turkey helped put a few extra pounds on you. Fortunately enough there are tips and tricks in order to help you get a good night’s rest so you can obtain all the information you need to ace your exams.

 

Students studying

First thing is first, do not oversleep on the weekend to make up for time you missed out on during your busy week. Not only does oversleeping on weekends not help gain cognitive memory or REM sleep you missed out on in your sleep deprived school week, but according to a new study, sleeping late on weekends can be bad for health as it disrupts the regular sleeping patterns of a person. Although it is unclear if there are long term effects from oversleeping the metabolic changes brought on by oversleeping can contribute to the development of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease in case ruining your sleep schedule wasn’t enough.

Secondly, get seven hours of sleep and you will outperform those in your class that do not by almost a full letter grade. Students with confidence of scoring well will do better than those of us who procrastinate and cram. If it isn’t in your head by bed time then just give up and hope to get a good night’s rest so you can do your best or study with a complete mind in the morning. Cram for your final two days ahead of time. (If you must). Then relax and sleep the day before. You will score higher. The brain needs time to digest and integrate.

And finally, drink water. Bring a bottle of water with you to your next exam and you may boost your test score, according to a new study from the University of East London. The study with almost 500 undergraduates tested this and gained evidence on water helping you on your exams, prior grades were used so it’s not just a matter of smarter students being more likely to bring a bottle of water but an experiment that showed water does indeed help.

If you follow these tips I can’t guarantee you get a 4.00 this semester but there is significant scientific evidence that supports that these sleeping habits and drinking water should help improve your scores so that we all finish the semester with better grades and healthier minds and bodies.

TV Linked to Depression and Slow Memory

This semester we have had two pop quizzes on an experiment on exposure to dim light at night—about the brightness of a TV—caused hamsters to show signs of depression. The experiment was cause for many to reevaluate their living habits and routines convincing them that the hamster hippocampus’ are changed by light at night could mean that our own brains are affected by bright screen and light. Well now there is another reason why us young adults should cut the chords and stop watching television, researchers have discovered that too much TV as a young adult may impair midlife cognitive function.

Tina D. Hoang, M.S.P.H., of the Northern California Institute for Research and Education at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, Kristine Yaffe, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and coauthors examined associations between 25-year patterns of television viewing and physical activity and midlife cognition. Their work examined a relatively large study of 3,247 adults (ages 18 to 30) used a questionnaire to assess television viewing and physical activity during repeated visits over 25 years. The work and study of Dr. Yaffe and Mrs. Hoang seem to be quite reputable as both work for large state University programs and gathered research from a large pool over a large span of time.

The study that spanned over two and a half decades with thousands of participants provided significant evidence that your memory later on in life might be affected by the amount of television you watched earlier. “Participants with high television viewing during 25 years (353 of 3,247 or 10.9 percent) were more likely to have poor cognitive performance on some of the tests. Low physical activity during 25 years in 528 of 3,247 participants (16.3 percent) was associated with poor performance on one of the tests” (Jama).

What is even more surprising is that low physical activity is also linked with TV to produce poor cognitive results (almost twice as bad as those who had good phsycial activity and low television usage). Especially for our age group it was found that low levels of physical activity and high levels of television viewing during young to mid-adulthood were associated with worse cognitive performance in midlife. Slower processing and slow verbal memory were all side effects of television.

fat kid tv

Maybe your grandmother was right, the TV is making you dumb and blind. So in honor of finals week turn off that TV and use some exercise to relieve some stress and to take a study break.

The Walk is Worth It

Sometimes getting to and from classes at Penn State feels like running the Boston Marathon. For many students a walk to class (even if you live on campus) can be 15-20 minutes long and even longer when the harsh Winter months hit and the University and professors don’t cancel class. For those of us that don’t drive our green lamborghinis, ride a bike, or zoom around on a fancy glowing hoverboard to commute to class it can sometimes be a hike. Often times I find myself running up and down Shortlidge sweating especially when I overslept for my 8:00 a.m. and need clicker points. Even with other alternatives like the Blue and White loop (that seem to fill up to capacity as the days get shorter and the temperature gets lower) most students at Penn State choose to commute by foot to their classes. This doesn’t seem to bad anymore as research by The George Institute for Global Health has found that the number of steps walked each day having a direct correlation with long term mortality.

With the rise of obesity all around the United States and the Western world, researchers and scientist have been trying to figure out ways to reduce mortality caused by the health problems associated with obesity and the solution might just be simply walking. The more steps you walk the healthier you seem to be and the longer you live.

walk penn state

In addition to living longer your brain makes quicker decisions and is all around just as “fit” as you can be. What makes walking especially important is that the leg strength and health correlates with brain health.

So the next time you walk from East Halls to the IST building for a final just remember that a longer walk and fitter legs might just produce a fit brain. It’s no wonder why Penn State is surrounded by such a large group of intelligent professors and students, it’s because we have to walk so damn far.

Children With Pets Have Less Stress

Children With Pets Have Less Stress

I never grew up with animals; unlike my Father who grew up on a farm in New Mexico with horses, chickens, cats, and dogs the only pets I had until I was in High School were fish that always managed to die on me. I couldn’t really blame my parents though because of my dad’s military career we really never had the chance to get any pets much to the pleasure of my mom and brother who are highly allergic to anything with fur. Some of the places I lived (Japan, Italy, England) wouldn’t allow animals on the base or in housing and apartments we lived in. Although I understood why I wasn’t allowed to have any real pets I was always devastated and felt like I was missing something or left out when I asked for a dog every Christmas and was disappointed.

It turns out that a children with pets have less stress. A pet dog may protect your child from childhood anxiety, according to research published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Pet dogs had already been linked with health benefits for adults, as promoted by the US Public Health Service (USPHS), but now the CDC is reporting that mental health and anxiety in children drastically improves with pets.

Dogs also have also been reported in a current study to reduce BMI, which could be a useful tool in helping stop childhood obesity. researchers from Bassett Medical Center in New York investigated the hypothesis that pet dogs are positively associated with healthy weight and mental health among children. This could be because the responsibility of having, walking, and caring for a dog in which a child is more likely to exercise or even from low stress levels which influences dietary decisions.

kid and dog
Whatever the reason this just gives many of us to splurge especially this holiday season in our attempt to justify obtaining a four legged friend. I know I have another reason to whine to my parents of all the benefits I potentially missed out on.

Use This Course To Vote Smart

Use This Class To Use Your Vote

Something that Andrew always said that was the goal of the Science 200 course was to be a good consumer of science. This means knowing how to identify what good science and studies look like and differentiating them with what is simply misleading and unsupported hypotheses. Being a good consumer of Science and scientific information is a very important skill and one that will especially become useful when election season comes around.youth vote

In fact, one of the course objectives of the course is to learn the societal implications of thinking scientifically, specifically the contemporary utility of science for everyday life, for business and for governance. The majority of our Science 200 class are Underclassmen (especially Freshmen) and many are coming of age where they have the opportunity to participate and vote in their first election which will happen to be a Presidential election. If science will be part of the solution to every problem in the 21st century then it is important that we consume science in a manner in which we know where each candidate stands. Whether it is global warming or just the support and funding of scientific research many candidates have a wide range of views and policies on science.

Many people our age do not choose to participate in voting, our demographic has the lowest voting turnout. For those of us who do choose to vote however it is important we keep conscious that each candidate has their respective stances on issues such as vaccinations, climate change, and funding of education and sciences. For instance, did you know Sen. Rand Paul was a climate change skepticOr that Sen. Sanders spoke out against a resolution which would dismantle strong environmental rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency.

i voted

No matter how you vote next year I hope everyone uses what they learn in this course to take in consideration who and what they support. No matter how you hope I hope we represent ourselves, this class, and our generation well.

Initial Blog Post

Hi, My name is Christian King and I am a sophmore in DUS. Last Wednesday during the last day of drop add I went in for an advising apointment and realized that I had not taken a Gen Ed for science yet (hence the late blog). I looked over my options and SC 200 apealed to me because 1) I have a knack for memorizing facts and consuming information (whether history or science) 2) I have no idea what I WILL major in but definitely know it WILL NOT be in science or math 3) I enjoy large classes in Forum rather that having smaller classes. These three things made it obvious for me that SC 200 was a perfect fit and whoever designed the course had people like me in mind.

In High School I excelled as a science student until I took Chemistry and Physics. I like facts and consuming information but there is something about formulas and math that makes me really loathe certain aspects about science especially. I know a science major will be something I will struggle obtaining and truely not enjoy. However I do enjoy learning about science that is not math intensive. Just reading articles on sites like reddit, especially like on subreddits like r/science and r/futurology is something I enjoy.

To illustrate how much I hate science here is a picture of me getting frustrated in Chem class in High School.

IMG_0479 (2)