Before you fell asleep last night did you make sure to turn off your lights and the TV glow from across the room? I always have liked to sleep in the dark, but I know many people that cannot fall asleep without a light or a TV in the background. Evidence is showing us that this may not be healthy for us at all.

A study in England found that out of the 738 students studied at random, teens that frequently watched TV before bed were four times more likely to wake up several times during the night. The results were very similar when it came to playing video games and listening to music right before bed. Dr. Nanci Yuan, of the Sleep Center at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, California said, “The advent of technology has made every age group, but especially teenagers, have difficulties with their sleep.” Overall there is an increase in the lack of sleep throughout the society, but prominently with teenagers as a direct result of technology.

This study must open our eyes to the truth and I believe it starts with the parents. It is the parents job make sure that their children are in a dark room and are not exposed to technology before they go to bed because they must understand the importance of a goodnight sleep. If an even bigger study was done with a bigger sample size then, people would be most aware and convinced that this is a problem facing or society today.

There are some things that each on of us can do before we go to bed to make sure that we are doing the best that we can to help solve this problem. This includes making it as dark as we can and blocking out all of the light possible. Also having a set routine to go off of can help tremendously.

For thousands of years, many people in the world were always barefoot and never wore shoes or any types of feet coverings. Today, people have closets filled with dozens and dozens of shoes and there are even avid shoe collectors out there. Of course they protect our feet, but could they potentially be bad for the way we walk?

“The human foot works pretty well on its own, and it doesn’t need a lifetime of help from shoes,” says, Adam Sternbergh, in his NY Magazine article. He talks about how over the past couple million of years; our foot has been evolving to work perfectly without a shoe. Sternbergh believes that shoes are ruining all of what evolution has done and that they are might actually be bad for our feet. How could shoes be bad for us? Of course they protect our feet, but Sternbergh means the way in which we walk in shoes compared to barefoot.

We need to understand and trust our feet when it comes to comfortable shoes. In a study overseen by an expert in biomechanics, Dr. Nigg, soldiers were asked to try and wear six different inserts in their foot and to pick the one that was most comfortable for them. In the following months, the soldiers had a much lower incidence of injury if they were wearing the insert they thought was most comfortable, compared to those soldiers that were not wearing any inserts. Dr. Nigg says that we should always listen to our bodies (feet in particular in this situation) and not fight our natural movement patterns. If we follow his advice, than we will lower our risk of injury.

Some people believe we should wear toe shoes to let our feet take its natural movement, but many scientists completely disagree with this statement and say they make no difference. All in all, obviously we are not going to stop wearing shoes because that is just unrealistic, but maybe we should try to wear them less, whether walking around your house or just strolling through your background.

Here at college, we all know how hard it is to get a good night of sleep. Whether you have to study for a huge exam tomorrow or your roommate is keeping you up, we all know that we need sleep, but do we realize the effects a lack of sleep is having on our body?

Research from the Harvard medical school shows that sleep is influential in learning and memory. Slow-wave sleep specifically insignificant in declarative memory, which helps process new learned information. We know much about the effects of the lack of sleep than the benefits of sleep.

Some of the effects of the lack of sleep can be very dangerous. A lack of sleep can lead to tragic accidents. This was evident as it played a role in 1979 during the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island and again in 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl. Effects from a lack of sleep do not just effect actions but also physical and mental. Sleep can cause many health problems including, heart disease, a heart attack, heart failure, and a stroke.

In extreme cases, a lack of sleep may increase risk of death. The “Whitehall II Study” by British researchers, showed how sleep patterns affects 10,000 people. People, who slept 5 or fewer hours instead of a normal 7, doubled their risk of death and doubled their risk of cardiovascular disease. This was a large study and if conducted well, these conclusions that have been drawn should be taken very seriously.  It is time our society as a whole starts to look at this problem.

A very surprising result of a lack of sleep is that people begin to get used to a lack of sleep and they think that their bodies are accustomed to a lack of sleep. Web MD sums up the problem with lack of sleep very well, “But sleep specialists say if you think you’re doing fine on less sleep, you’re probably wrong. And if you work in a profession where it’s important to be able to judge your level of functioning, this can be a big problem.”

As I was strolling through campus today, I turned on my music and all of the sudden; the music began blasting into my ear. Immediately, I ripped them out of my ear and began to wonder if loud headphones may be bad for our hearing and even cause hearing loss.

All of us use headphones and I do not think that we all understand the direct consequences that they may have on our hearing. The World Health Organization (WHO) analyzed a study and found that people aged 12-35 experience levels of sound that are unsafe for our ears. 50% of these people are exposed to unsafe levels and 40% of people are exposed to damaging levels. A decibel (dB) is a unit to measure sound. While humans can hear 20dB, the average talking is done at 40dB to 60dB. Headphones maximum volume is 105dB, which is similar to a rock concert at 11dB on average.

Even though we should all be concerned over this issue, there are some people that should be more worried. These people include musicians, people that attend concerts frequently and all people that work in a loud environment every single day. An osteopathic pediatrician from Vallejo, California, James E. Foy DO when asked how to reduce the chance of hearing loss says, “First and foremost, follow the 60/60 rule in regards to percentage of maximum volume and duration of time”.

All of this evidence pointing towards a correlation between headphone use and hearing loss, there are many things that need to be studied more within this topic. Does it matter what type of headphone is used (in-ear or over-ear)? Are some brands safer than others? A study needs to be done where; different headphones are tested so we can see the immediate impacts. It will be very hard to see the long-term effects at this time because a study of that magnitude will take years to complete and we do not have that much time. It should begin for future generations, but for us, it is too late. We must start to protect our ears today.

We all have found ourselves in situations where we begin to tear up and cry. Whether we are watching a sad movie or so happy about something going on in our life, I have always wondered why we cry. What decides why we cry and is it true that women cry more than men?

As I began to research on crying, I quickly came to see exactly what it is. Stephen , PhD, at Santa Monica–University of California Los Angeles defines crying as, “a natural emotional response to certain feelings, usually sadness and hurt. But then people [also] cry under other circumstances and occasions.” Others believe it is simply a survival mechanism and crying is a message from our body telling us there is a problem and we need to deal with it.

As I continued with my research, I saw something that was very interesting; women have been known to cry more than men and cry more at a time. A study shows us that women on average cry 30 to 64 times a year while men only cry 6 to 17 times a year. All research also shows they cry for a much longer time. The reason for this is unknown but some believe that women tend to watch more sad movies and read more sad books which leads to them tearing up more.

I would love to see a study that was conducted with men and women experiencing the same things and seeing if they cry the same amount. This would be a more controlled experiment and it would lead to more solid evidence pointing either way. Also I would love to know if any animals cry as well and if they do, how often and long compared to humans.

Next time your friend is crying, make sure to comfort them and remind them that we all do cry and it is just part of our human nature.

During class today, I looked over and saw someone drinking out of a plastic water bottle. Not the kind that you refill, the kind that you throw out after using once. Everyone is always talking about how these are so destructive towards our environment, but could they have any effect on our health? I thought there is no way that these plastic bottles that go through extreme temperature changes and water in there for a who knows how long, can possibly be ok for our health. So I decided to do some further research.

As I began to learn about the different types of plastic, I saw that most plastic water bottles are made from #1 (PET or PETE), which is considered safe. Even though there has been reporting of chemicals leaching into the water, the EPA still considers them safe. The dangers of plastic water bottles arise with plastic labeled #7, which is usually polycarbonate. The National Toxicology program conducted a study in which, discovered that these #7 bottles have a chemical called bisphenol (BPA) in them, which to many scientists surprise may be very toxic to humans. Today, many bottles are BPA free, but you never know if you are drinking from one that is not and it is better to be safe than sorry.

Of course to this day we do not know all of the effects all plastic water bottles and we may not know for a long time to come. To be safe, we should do our best to cut out all of the plastic water bottles we use and use reusable bottles that have been cleared as safe to drink from.

The effects that these plastic water bottles have on our environment has a much more negative impact than the effects they have on humans. This past summer, I did a lot of research on this issue and  here is a link that just outlines some of the many awful effects bottled water has on our environment.

There are so many reasons why we should not drink from plastic water bottles and now that we see it may be harmful to our health as well as the environment, I know I will try harder to use reusable bottles.

Gazing across the beautiful Pennsylvania sky, I look at the famous reddish yellow sunset hang above the Valley. It was the type of sunset that would look great on the front of a State College postcard. The kind of sunset that makes everyone want to grab their phones and snap pictures.   We all admire these sunsets, but do we know where they come from and how they are created?

If the sky is blue during the day, then why is the sky turning red and yellow during dawn and dusk? NASA explains to us that, “Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth’s atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.” The sky is actually not just blue during the day but actually mostly violet. Because the human eyes cannot identify violet, we see blue instead. But this doesn’t explain why the sunsets become that gorgeous reddish yellow.

The scientific explanation to explain why the sky is blue seems straight forward and somewhat common sense, but why does the sky change its colors during the sunset or sunrise? Why is it not always blue? During my research I came to realize that, during a sunset or sunrise, the sun is farthest from our surface, which means that the light from the sun must travel at a much farther distance through our atmosphere. Since light travels in a straight line, it must go through everything in its way. Obviously, since light must travel farther and red light waves are the longest, the light must travel through more.

Gases, dusts or pollution can get in the way of the white light from the sun, which can create the red light during a sunset. Potentially, the more pollution in our atmosphere could be creating more beautiful sunsets. Crazy to think about…

Next time you are walking down the street and observe the sunset hanging above you, just think about the science that goes into the creation of sunsets and how man can have such a big impact on sunsets.

Earlier today, I was sitting in my dorm and just decided to check out the social media websites. Before I knew it, thirty minutes had gone by and I had scrolled through my entire Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds multiple times.

We have all been in the situation in our dorms and decided it was time to do work. At this point many of us sit down, turn on our computers, open the Internet and log onto Facebook or Twitter. These sites are getting in the way of our schoolwork and social media is taking over our lives because we are on it 24/7 and we are losing touch with the world around us. While we are spending time on social media, we are losing time we could be studying and becoming more successful in school.

A study conducted in 2010, studied 219 United States students aged between 19 and 54. Non-Facebook users had an average GPA of 3.82 while; Facebook users had an average GPA of 3.06. Additionally, non-Facebook users spend on average, 88% more time studying than users. A quarter of the users even admitted that Facebook has had a harmful effect on their schoolwork performance.

There could be many explanations to the outcomes of this study and it is very hard to prove whether Facebook actually hurts school performance from looking at this one study. During this study, only 219 students in all of America were studied and to make this study stronger, a couple of hundred, if not thousands of students should have been studied. It is very hard to judge a whole group of students off of the number that was studied. Business Wire reports that by the age of 2, 90% of American kids have history online. This is scary… it really is. We do not know the effects that this has on children later in life and while these children are constantly growing we must ask, is technology as a whole ruining our generation?

As I was sitting on a bench in the middle of campus last week, a bee buzzing around caught my eye. After hearing about the decline of the bee population for a while now, I began to wonder if humans are the cause of this decline. Firstly, I have never realized how important the bees are for our ecosystems. Since the bees are pollinators, they fertilize the flowers so can grow.  Without bees we may lose many different plants and even other species. This would make it even more difficult for humans to survive.

A study released from Nature Scientific Reports took place in between 2000 and 2010. In 2000, over 700,000 acres of land was planted with oil seed rape within England and Wales. By 2010 this number doubled and the number of seeds treated with the pesticide went from 1% to 75%. The study showed that the amount of pesticide use and bees decline did show a positive correlation but, “losses varied in between regions and low spring temperatures were also linked to higher bee losses in Wales (Benjamin).”

Humans may have an impact of the bee population, but much evidence points towards a Parasitic Mite being responsible for the decline. In 2012, a study from the journal Science, explains that in 2007 the mites arrived on the island of Oahu (Hawaii) and in a year, 65% of bees were killed. With these mites came an increase in the deformed wing virus, which is detrimental to the bees and leads to death to 10% of the population annually according to a study released by the American Society of Microbiology.

With all of this evidence, we must question whether humans are the cause of the bee population decline or this decline is just a part of nature. More studies must be done concerning the parasitic mites and also the deformed wing virus so we have more statistics. Whether the bee decline is a result of humans or just part of nature, we must protect all of the bees that we can while we still have the chance.

Hi my name is Jared Perecman.  I am from Bucks County Pennsylvania, which is about 45 minutes outside of Philadelphia.  I attended Council Rock High School South with a graduating class of about 500 other students.  Around 25 other kids from my high school are up here at Penn State as well.  Currently, I am enrolled in DUS, but  hope to eventually major in some part of business.  I am a huge sports fan and for anyone that likes the Phillies, here is a good memory.

The main reason I am doing this course is because science has never come easy to me.  All of my time throughout high school, I have had interest in science, but the concepts never clicked with me which is the main reason I do want to major in it.  When I saw this course, it looked like the perfect course for me because I enjoy thinking critically and questioning everything around us.  I am very excited to see what this course has to offer.

I also cannot wait to experience nights like these at PSU.