I am always drinking soda whenever I have the chance. I know it’s not good for me but I still always catch myself reaching for the soda over the water when the options are presented to me. Making it almost impossible for me to quit it always comes across my mind about switching to diet soda. But does this slight change really make a difference? In reality both types of soda are extremely bad for you especially if you drink it in an excess amount. Both diet and regular soda have its ups and downs.

Although diet soda is said to have no sugar, this doesn’t mean it is as good as water to drink. No sugar does mean though that there are no calories which is usually what draws consumers to a diet product rather than a regular. However, as good as no sugar sounds the artificial sweeteners in diet products lead to cravings for real sugar according to Marissa Puleo. This question is also posed in Eating Well. These cravings given off by the artificial sweeteners may actually cause you to gain weight instead of lose it.

There are also many pros of drinking diet soda other than it containing no calories. Compared to regular soda, diet soda is better for your teeth. The artificial flavoring doesn’t allow bacteria to live on them like sugar does, helping to lessen your chance of cavities.

Regular soda contains real sugar and on average about 120 calories per serving (120z). The sugar that is in regular soda is what causes someone to get cavities, which no one likes to hear when they go to the dentist. However, all of the sugar and calories you get in one serving of a regular soda product does not compare to some of the other drinks out there. Snapple for example contains 200 calories. So although regular soda does have a high amount of calories, there are worse drinks you could be drinking.

According to a study talked about in Men’s Fitness, a group of subjects were asked how often they drink soda and whether it is diet or regular. Nine years later they did a follow up and found that the ones who drank diet soda were 48% more likely to have a stroke or heart attack than the ones who didn’t drink soda. As for the subjects who drank regular soda, there was no harm to them compared to the non-soda drinkers.

In conclusion both diet and regular soda has there ups and downs. In ways diet may be better for you, but in other ways regular could be better for you. Both equally not good for one’s own health therefore, if you are one of those people who can’t go a day without soda (I know I am) maybe try to gradually cut back on your soda intake.

No. The answer to one of my biggest child hood questions. Walt Disney was not frozen and preserved at death. One of his wishes was to be frozen but when he passed away his family did not go through with it and had him cremated instead and buried his ashes at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in California.

This urban legend leads to the question, can a person get frozen and then be unfrozen and have not aged at all and still be able to function?

http://alcor.org/Library/html/BedfordCondition.html

This science is called cryonics. This is when you store someone at a low temperature with the idea you will be able to bring them back at a later date. This could mean even years later. But what could be the reasoning behind freezing someone to bring them back to life at a later time? The idea behind this process would be that if someone had an incurable disease they could have the option to become frozen so that if this disease ever becomes curable they can bring them back to life and cure them.

The smartest way to do this would be to freeze them when they are still alive because if they are pronounced dead that may make it harder to bring them back to life. However, in the present day it is illegal to perform cryonic suspension on someone who is still alive. They would have to wait until that person is pronounced “legally” dead. When someone is legally dead their heart stops functioning but this doesn’t mean their brain does. Even after someone may be pronounced dead they could have some cellular brain functions still working making this the perfect time to freeze a person’s body.

The first time this process was ever performed was not on Walt Disney but it happened shortly after his death. The first person to ever undergo this process was Dr. James Bedford in 1967. Although Dr. Bedford was put into cryonic suspension along with many others following his time, no one has yet to be taken out of it. So this poses the question does it really work? We won’t know the true answer to this until it actually happens but we do know people have been revived from the dead in other ways such as CPR and defibrillators. Along with that, there are other clues that lead us to the answer that this could work however, technology is not at that point where we are ready to bring someone out of cryonic suspension.

http://www.artizans.com/image/GMAC943/james-bartleman-re-enters-cryonic-suspension-after-air-india-inquiry-color/

Why is it that during the cold winter months some people tend to become depressed, even if during other parts of the year they may not be? Is it the cold weather? Or could it just be in one’s mind? During these few months out of the year the days get shorter, it gets darker earlier and the air becomes frigid. But is this really what causes depression, or is there more to it?

There are many reasons for someone to become depressed during the winter time and all of these are what causes someone to have seasonal affective disorder or SAD. The cold weather keeps people from going outside and for most of the day if you have the choice you usually keep yourself inside to keep warm. Now this may not sound like a big deal however, for someone who is used to being active most of the time stopping this can cause them to become depressed because according to CNN exercising lifts your spirits.

Staying indoors more often during the winter time also may cause some people to sleep more, but how is this a bad thing? Studies say that the average person sleeps about 7.5 hours during the summer, 8.5 during the fall and spring and 10 during the winter. Although most of us may think that even with 10 hours of sleep that seems to never be enough when in fact it is more than enough. Along with not enough sleep, too much sleep is a high factor in causing depression according to a study presented in the Huffington Post.

Other causes of winter depression can be a drop in your serotonin levels, isolating yourself along with many others. Both causes stated here are also caused by the lack of sunlight during the day because of daylight savings. It becomes harder to go places and to see friends especially if you live in a place known for their winter storms.

In conclusion, to answer my initial question, yes winter depression is a real thing but only affects a small percentage of the population and can be treated. If you are aware you have SAD try to take control of this and become proactive. Stay active as much as possible. This could mean joining a local gym or doing some exercises at home. Also keep yourself busy and surround yourself with friends and family as much as possible. Plan family outings, and schedule a weekly girl’s night or guy’s night if possible. Stick to a schedule. This means try to go to bed at the same time each night and wake up at the same time each morning and never convince yourself that you need more sleep, because more than likely you don’t and it will just hurt you. Lastly, don’t be afraid to reach out to loved ones for help or if you notice anyone acting unusual, especially during the colder months of the year, reach out to them and let them know you are there for them.

The phrase, “do you remember anything you said last night” always tends to scare me no matter how many times I hear it. Did I do it again? Did I really talk in my sleep once again? More often than not I wake up and that’s the first conversation I have with someone. They are always telling me how I had a full conversation with them last night however, I never have any remembrance of it. Why does this happen and why does it only happen to some people?

According to Live Science sleep talking only happens in short periods of time, meaning it only occurs for a few seconds at a time. Another word for this is somniloquy. Somniloquy usually happens during the REM and non-REM sleep phases. The rapid eye movement stage (REM) is when your eyes move in different directions fast. This does not however happen during the non REM stages.

Sleep talking doesn’t happen to everyone. During REM stages is when people tend to dream, which is why sleep talking occurs during this cycle. As we sleep our vocal cords turn off, however some may experience these to turn on during this stage causing us to speak out loud what we may be saying in our dream. Although during this time we may be speaking, it is more likely than not that what we are saying out loud makes no sense to the person who is listening.

There is no specific cause to sleep talking but it can come about from stress, depression, a fever, sleep deprivation and more according to Sleep Management and it has also been observed to be passed down in families. It is most common in younger kids and people tend to grow out of it as they get older and it affects both males and females equally.

Those of you who are known to sleep walk might also sleep talk as well because they tend to be linked together. If you fall under the five percent of adults who sleep talk there are some actions you can take to help prevent it. This can include getting into a regular sleep schedule (although that seems to be very challenging for a college student), getting a good amount of sleep (again hard for a college student), and trying to cut back from large meals before bed and stress. If you follow these three steps it can help prevent you from sleep talking.

Being a female athlete and particularly one who has had her share of concussions, I have always wondered why it is that females are at a higher risk to concussions than males are. However many people don’t actually know this fact because when someone thinks of concussions they automatically tune in on football and male athletes.  So I have decided to write my first official blog on why females are at a higher risk of getting a concussion than males are.

Soccer is one of the most common sports to get a concussion in, especially for females. Girls who play soccer suffer from concussions sixty eight percent more than boys who play soccer. The same applies to basketball. On MomsTeam it states that in basketball girls suffer three times more concussion than guys. But why is this the unfortunate truth?

In studies, scientists tend to talk about soccer, basketball and baseball or softball more than other sports because these are the three sports in which girls and guys have a similar way of playing them. There are two ways you can look in to this case. One is the anatomy side of things, and the other is the statistical side of things.

A females head is smaller compared to a males therefore causing girls to be more prone to concussions than guys. Studies say that females have twenty six percent less total mass in their head and neck than males do. According to CBS it states that females necks are less developed than males meaning they aren’t as strong as males which again causes them to be more prone, when in impact, to concussions than males would be.

However, although a male and female’s head and neck are structured differently this still may not be the reasoning behind females being more susceptible to concussions than males. It is known that males tend to not report things as much as females do, so could this be the reason? Statistics say that females have a higher rate of recorded concussions in specific sports than males but is this simply because there are more females than males who report their head injuries. Unfortunately we as a society may never know the truth behind this. What we can do though is continue to take serious action when presented with a head injury.

Concussions continue to play a huge part in sports and particularly high school sports.  As a prior high school athlete I was always required to complete a concussion course before the beginning of each school year so I could be aware of symptoms and what to look out for in case of an injury. Even if this fact is true, that females are more prone to head injuries than males, it doesn’t mean males don’t get them. It also doesn’t mean just athletes get them. Everyone needs to be aware of concussions and what the symptoms may be because this is not an injury to take lightly.

Hey everyone! My name is Erin Stephenson and I am from Leominster Massachusetts. My town is about 40 minutes west of Boston and is pronounced like “lemon-ster”. Although I am from Mass I do not have a Boston accent however, others tend to say I do. If you have ever studied Johnny Appleseed in elementary school you would’ve heard about my town because that is where he is from. If you haven’t heard of him check it out here.

I am currently a freshman in the DUS program but I am planning to major in the Business field. I am taking this course because science is not my favorite subject so I figured this would be a good class to take as a general education class for my science credits. I didn’t want to study anything in the science field because of my slight hatred for science so I decided to take another path. However I am looking forward to learning about the different topics we will be discussing in this course.

Below is a picture of the Boston skyline. Although I don’t live in Boston exactly I am still proud to call it my home!