Throughout my life I have tendency to play things safe, not taking many risks, maybe one here or there just to mix things up sometimes. The risks people take though are very complexing because it takes a lot of courage to do something that could risk your physical condition, your mental condition or emotional condition. Looking further into this issue of gaining courage to have the ability to share a personal moment or to ask the question that no one wants to address or to stand up to someone. The amount of courage it takes to do some of these things is something I wanted to further look into.

Aristotle a famous philosopher from history believed courage to be the most important quality in a man. He once wrote “courage is the first human virtues because it makes all others possible”.  This was taken from an article by the Huffington post. In this article it goes through how people deal with fear and how courage can help them prevail through their darkest of times.  A study exploring the power of the mind involved 60 volunteers for a study that used fMRI scanning technology to see what part of the brain had activity when the participants showed a form of courage. The certain part of the brain that was active was in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex. This study rejects the null hypothesis that when faced with a moment that requires courage there is no activity in the brain.

Further studies have concluded when put in a situation that fear feeds into brain activity surges into the same area as before into subgenual anterior cingulate cortex. Researches put the participants in a cage where they can’t move at all and the snake comes closer or further away based on the buttons they press. Meanwhile as this is happening the fMRI scanner scans the brain. The results of both this and prior study confirm this section of the brain have a direct correlation when person shows courage. Then again a common third variable one could identify is the fact both used snakes in the studies for a reaction. So it possible could have an effect to do with snake to make the study of the part of the brain a false positive.

In conclusion the hypothesis is currently correct or a false positive. The null hypothesis as previous stated is rejected from the study.

Normally when I get into an argument with a friend things tend to get really personal since you both know so much about each other. When in the argument you tend to bring up certain things that if you thought about it prior to saying it you would not have chosen to say it. Whatever “it” was it affected the other person greatly enough for them not to talk to you for a while. Now originally you’re mad at them anyways so you honestly think everything you said was right. Then looking back at the argument you realize what you actually said and how it affect the other person. Now rationally you probably wouldn’t have ever brought up the topic that hurt your friend. I decided to look further into this seeing how any type of emotion whether it is love, angry, jealousy or sadness you just seem to take rational thought and throw it away.

Psychology today released an article in 2010 talking about an experiment that we discussed in class about risk. Players drew cards from 4 decks. 2 decks were safe the other 2 were risky. The players would either gain or lose money based on what cards they drew from each deck. The safer decks tend to give constant gain over each time you drew. When the other deck was risky causing great gains or loss when you drew. Now most of us have heard about this when Andrew talked about it. However when this example was used in class it was about intuition and decided whether rational thought or instinct thought were right. Now a third variable that the article talks about is before the people went in to do this gambling game the choices may have been influenced by positive or negative emotion changing the way they view the game. If someone was feeling bad before they tend to risk more because it doesn’t matter to them. While if someone who is feeling good would try the risk deck every once and a while but overall stay with the safer decks because the emotion they are feeling are not amplifying the way they decide what to do. The negative emotions tend to cloud the judgement we have while the positive emotions tend to let the brain choose correctly.

Another study that has been conducted by USA today states that emotions rule the brain’s decisions. The study goes on stating that the brain revealed that the amygdala during brain scans which is a place in the brain such as fear dwell. The relevance of this information is when we make everyday decision the amygdala has very little activity but when faced with a decision that affect us personally or affects us in a risky way the area has significant activity showing emotion impacting the way we decide.

Overall based on the studies and the information provided the conclusion of emotion does effect decisions seems to be a correct hypothesis proven by these studies. However this can easily turn into a false positive. The null hypothesis was rejected because emotion does affect our decisions based on the studies but every study done there can always be third variables that lead to different outcomes.

Writer’s block, it happens to everyone. Some people leave things to last minute like me. Now leaving things to last minute is something that I have always done and I am usually always able to finish my work. The process that usually occurs when I leave things to last minute goes as follows. I write really well for the first 30 minutes of the essay, thought and ideas just flowing out of me. Then right in the middle of the essay, I slow down. I go back re-read what I wrote making sure it makes sense to me. After doing so a few times I realize that I have nothing else to say.  This happens to me mainly when I am right in the middle of writing a blog usually. So I decided to investigate further on what I can do to fix this so I can consistently writing without stopping for an hour trying to come up with something that I should have came up within 5 minutes.

In a recent article they talk about ways to beat writer’s block. In the article they suggest to eat food that stimulates brain activity such foods have high amounts of protein and amino fatty acids. Examples would be eating fish, eggs and beans. Now personally I am not a seafood guy, also I can’t just eat eggs whenever I can’t think about what to post on the blog. So some further options they give are going for a walk. Now this might take up some time but it is better than sitting in the same place waiting for inspiration to hit you. You should rather go on a walk and see if you can find the inspiration by exposure to the world.  As the list continues on what people could do to cure their writer’s block the main point that each of them focus on is taking your mind off the problem. Now this is an example of a false positive that people have a misconception of how to deal with writer’s block.

Then I decided to look up an actual study done on writer’s block seeing how it works. The first study that the article talks about was a study in 2005 when they analyzed participant’s brain as they told a story to see what parts of the brain were used when the story was being formed and told. The results show a significant activity in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain. Showing that the brain that not the creativity side of the brain but the speech and spatial awareness was the parts that were most engaged.

Then in the same article another study conducted in 2013 participants were asked to actually write a story while under an fMRI scanner. The results yielded a lot of activity in the frontal cortex where creativity comes from in each individual person. At the end of this article, based on the studies they also give some tips on how to stop writing block from wasting time. Some examples would be getting inspired by a different story to intertwine with your own ideas. Also to try writing without stopping to make thought continue to flow and go back later to make the edits of where thoughts could have gotten mixed up or confused.

In conclusion the studies conducted shows there is a correlation between the creativity part of brain and writer’s block. This happens because our creativity gets stopped up, we can’t think of the next thing to say based on you questioning the quality of the work and the time frame you have to complete the work.  So leaving things to last minute increases the likelihood of people getting writer’s block. As a final conclusion for asking the question of how to cure writer’s block the answer is to not procrastinate so the stress behind writing is bearable.

Over the few months that I have been here, I have noticed that in every lecture class there has been at least 20 people coughing throughout the duration of the class.  A term commonly used when this topic is brought up is the “Penn State Sickness”. I decided to look into this topic further.  Why is this so common when people are come together in a large group? Why don’t we see this when we go to football stadiums or basketball game?

Turns out there is not a lot of facts that can determine why people cough in lecture classes. There have been a few article from NBC stating that people get sick based on all of the germs the body has been exposed to but they don’t have any scientific backing. They mainly consist of people stating things without any show of research or statistics for their findings. Then as I was exploring I came across an article  talking about why students tend to get sick after finals. In the article they state, based on current studies there is no well-accepted medical explanation for the posts-finals cold or flu. Some might say has to do with the irregular sleep patterns causing the immune system to break down. Others might consider stress sends mixed emotions throughout the entire body causing the immune system to break down. As the article goes on it continues to talk about the body and how it reacts to when the immune system is not working properly. This shows how people get sick by a weak immune system, but the question that still haunts me is why? Why are students constantly coughing in lecture halls? Why hasn’t our bodies develop a long lasting defense against the sickness?

As I continued to research other factors that might play a role in sickness. I came across a review stating that moderate alcohol consumption does have health benefits. But it turns out that beige drinking (which is what a lot of college students do) has a negative impact on the body since the immune system doesn’t function right when sickness attacks because of the high doses of alcohol already introduced into the system. Now this article which is backed by the National Government and Health Association which most people would presume to be crediable. However as most SC200 students know that is never the case when comes to studies. The main problem with the information is that it is effected by the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. The data displayed is the data that only that support their claims. Since there was no other studies conducted this a false positive result. Since most people think this is true but it is not. Originally this might have been the truth based on one study but other third variables could have tempered with the results effecting any correlation between the two.

Overall further research and studies have to be conducted to get a better idea on why people seem to get sick in close environments since most of the articles posted don’t seem to be backed by multiple test and trials.

Most of time people second guess themselves. They always think about “what could have been”, “what if I did this”. The main problem about difficult decisions is making a choice in life that you will never know the outcome if you chose to do something differently.

Turns out that recent studies have concluded that we as humans have two operating systems that determine how we decide to do things. The first system described is fast instinctual responses that is controlled by our right side of the brain.  The second system that humans have to make a decision slower, causing you to think more analytically about the situation rather that a first gut response. This is controlled by our left side of our brain. Now most people would see this information and say “well it’s obvious what system we want to choose, the slower analytical one since it uses logic and reason to get results.” Now if you are one of these people you might not be as right as you think. It is true that using reason and analytical methods are good but it turns out that the instinctive side already has the answer before the second system has sense of it. The instinctual side of your brain tends to make you more stressed when you approach a more dangerous act like the example provided in the study. The instinctive side has the correct answer based on the situation because the more risky a situation is the, the more stress is put on your body.

This study then overlaps with another study talking about how animals in the wild never second guess their instincts since it is the main reason they stay alive. Like the example of the Monty hall problem we discussed in class, these animals were able to make the correct choice over humans since they don’t over complicate the problem by trying to use a higher thinking to choose correctly. Based on the overall conclusion of the study, humans have the tendency to overthink and over analyze to get results. This is why in this case a simply minded pigeon can outsmart the average human.

The age old question of does playing an instrument actually make you smarter? This comes from people trying to better themselves off by becoming musically enlightened.

People have been debating whether or not this is actually true. Since more scholarly people do have practices in playing an instrument. People do claim that they call this the Mozart effect. This effect talks about an  epileptic children listening to Mozart music then after 10 minutes of doing so. They performed better at spatial reasoning skills.

Now in another study they talked about how music had an impact on intelligence stating that learning music notes help with math skills. Also it helps with linguistic intelligence by the music people create tend to have great meaning behind it. Now with linguistics they apply the same concept to use words instead of notes to convey a deep and complex meaning that has some sort of great significance.

Taking up an instrument might be worth while if you are looking to get smarter or otherwise you can stay the same boring you and keep living life.

All nighters. Something that every college student thinks they will have to do at some point in their life especially when it comes to finals.  Now what if someone told you that you could get a better grade by sleeping then person staying up all night studying for the test.

 

Now i am not saying that you shouldn’t study for your test because that what every person has to do succeed in school. However the research conducted by live science shows that people can retain knowledge while it is being played in the background. The first study conducted was two people were taught to play the piano during the day and then at night one of the people played the song they were taught. The next day they both came in and the one that played the music as he slept perform the song better than the person who didn’t. This shows a correlation between learning and sleeping while the music was played in the background.

Now further into the research they did EEG scans of brain activity while certain people slept. These scans showed spindle activity which is associated with memory waves the brain sends. The study shows that sounds that are played while learning a concept or doing a certain action pair with spindle activity. Theoretical this allows people the ability to learn while sleeping when you play a song or a certain noise while studying. Then you replay that same sounds while you slept to further retain the information.  However this effect creates a paradox since it is known that listening to music while studying negativity impacts your cognitive performance when tested.

So it is still up for discussion whether or not that sleeping will impact how well you do on tests since of the conditions that people will have to set up to be able to learn while studying.

Remember that time you had to lie yourself out of situation you were caught in? Remember the rush of adrenaline and the stress you felt by doing so.  Now imagine the rush you felt was you actually hurting yourself internally without you realizing it.

All people have been in a situation that they have thought they had to lie to their friend for their own good. What if by lying the person was endangering their own life. According to big think the more people lie the more stress they bring into their life. By this relation of lies to stress the  research natural news made talking about how stress can physically change your DNA making you not live as longer as you were meant to.

Now this might seem like some propaganda that people piece together to make people do something. Even if there was research that backs the findings the chance that it could happen to me is like 1 in a million. So why does it matter? What affect does this have on me?

Well most people do think this way, if you already weren’t questioning it for yourself.  Now if we refer back to the big think article about stress being related to lies this was backed by a study done in 2004 with Mothers of the same age with healthy children versus mothers with chronically sick children. The mothers then filled out a questionnaire that showed mothers with the sick children had shorter telomeres then mothers with healthy babies. Indicating that the mothers with the sick children were 10 years older than the mothers with healthy children. Arguing with an experiment done by actually people is hard now there might just be a chance of it just happen to those select mother based on other criteria but i wouldn’t bet that the stress they felt from taking care of their loved babies had no affect on their health.

Next time that you encounter a problem that looks bad.I would personally recommend when it comes down to a situation where you think it is best to just lie and worry about it later, don’t because telling the truth gives immediately gives closure also saving you the stress of maintaining the lie. At the same time keeping your body younger and healthier.

Drinking Beer, is it a party starter or is it the newest way to study? As a adventurous college student that I am, I explore on the weekends. I go out to parties happening outside of campus. There i have noticed that many of these parties have beer for the older students here to drink so they have a great time. I noticed the effects that beer has on some of them, making them do stupid and crazy things. Such as attempt to do a back flip inside or seeing if you can punch a hole through the wall. All funny and great stories to be told later but ultimately just bad decision making by them. So can beer really help me in doing well in school?

In this study that science direct put up shows a scenario of people who were drinking versus people who stayed sober through the entire article. Results showed that the sober did do better on the test they took afterwards but according to further studies the people who drank developed more creative ideas and they solved problems faster then sober ones did. After going through the study the conclusion was drinking beer helps when doing things that need creativity such as writing, inventing or coming up with ideas. The flip side doing math or science will actually be harder since you cant think logically. You might come to a solution some how but you couldn’t explain it if you tried.

A similar article was released by Iowa State stating that drinking beer is better while studying than drinking coffee. The article talks about the benefits drinking beer does for you while drinking coffee gives you energy but not the creative and intuitive problem solving skills that alcohol gives people. 

So the next time you have to sit down and write that boring long essay crack open a beer and start drinking and watch the creative process happen before your eyes. Just be sure to check your work when your sober so it make sense before you hand it in.

Through the typical college life of a Freshman student I found myself constantly being tired all of the time. I never quite understood why i was like that, I knew sleep had a slight factor to it but I always thought that if I just sleep later in the day it wont really impact my energy levels or my daily life. Then the second week of school hit me and it hit me hard I was dowsing off in class all the time. Missing keys thing like homework assignment due dates and the answers to hard math problems that we go over. So I decided to take a look at what I could to do improve my energy levels.

Then after I researched about sleep patterns and why men tend to get tired throughout the day. I found out that the reason this happens and occurs is even though I am getting a certain amount of hours of sleep per night then getting more during the day the body needs other things to stay healthy and full of energy.  For instance in this men’s health article it says testosterone levels play a role in whether or not people will be tired. Indicating to keep our testosterone levels from being at a unhealthy low being more actively physically plays a huge role on counteracting being tired all the time. Which is kinda ironic that we have to do something that physically exert ourselves for us to feel less tired. So less watching Netflix on my bed and more time going for a run or playing a sport. Then this got me thinking what about the opposite side of things? Why are women so tired to do things all the time? 

This lead me into doing research about how women are affected by fatigue and where it comes from. After a extensive search through google  I found out that physical exercise also would improve energy levels for women but also whether or not they are feeling upset about something. This tend to be more along the lines of hormonal swings of emotional back and forth causing extreme stress leading them to be tired more often then men are. The mood swings drain most of the energy out of women causing them to be less social and less out going. So next time you hear a girl says “i”m just tired” it might be because she is upset about something and thinking about it makes her physically exhausted.  The article also talks about right amount of sleep and the diet they go on.  This correlation between levels of hormones and energy plays a role in schoolwork, being social or even just doing everyday activities like getting up. I hope this brought some insight and some motivation to not watch that next episode on Netflix and to be active.

My name is Eric Horowitz. I come from Freehold, New Jersey, a small town by Belmar beach.

I am currently undecided on what I want to do with my life. I chose to do this class because I have no interest in going into anything that relates to or has to do with science at all. Which is perfect since the course description said “a class for people who loath about science”.

The reason I personally have turned away from science is because I have never been good at understanding biology, chemistry or physics. All which I had to take in high school. Since this class seems to be an option to fulfill a science requirement for my major I chose this class.

This is picture I took from my phone of Belmar when it is not crowded with people from all over.

This is a popular video some kids at my school made.