Well we all do it, or attempt it at least. Andrew mentioned in class that we as humans are HORRIBLE at multi tasking, which is actually pretty comical because most of us think we are great. If we are so bad at this multi tasking thing then why do we all still continue to attempt it when we know that eventually something will have to give.

 According to experts there is actually only a very small amount of people in the world who are actually decent at multi tasking in their daily lives, 10% to be exact. That leaves approximately 90% of the population being lousy at this task and you and I most likely are one of them. Arthur Markman, a psychology professor at the University of Texas Austin, states “dividing attention across multiple activities is taxing on the brain, and can often come at the expense of real productivity.”

Most of us al ready know that by doing two things at once, you are not giving it a 100%, yet we see it all over. The most common form of multi tasking I see every single day is students listening to music while doing homework or studying. I have found that listening to music certainly does not benefit me at all but for others it may work, or at least they think it does. As i decided to find out if this was true or not I came across something that made total sense. Listening to music while doing math or something more scientific may not be as problematic as it would be if you were writing an english paper or studying for your language class. This makes total sense because while doing math you are not using the language part of your brain verses writing a paper you are trying to comprehend two linguistic processes, one being the lyrics you are listening to and the second the words you are trying to compose for your paper.

Professor Gloria Mark, a professor in the department of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, along side her colleagues monitored 36 people over a period of three days and captured facial expressions with cameras, and logged heart rates and skin conductivity to determine stress. Results actually showed that humans switch activities roughly every three minutes through out the day. This is a perfect example of our inability to focus in today’s modern world. With all of the technology and resources constantly around us its almost our nature to switch tasks so frequently. My advice to you is to take one day at a time and one task at a time. Plan accordingly so you don’t have to cram all of your school work etc to the last minute. Block out enough time each day to do what you need, and make sure you are fully focussed on that one thing!

I found a fun video that Ellen DeGeneres did on our society and their multi tasking habits. Hope you enjoy!

Roughly five million Americans across the country have a constant struggle with their own self image. There seems to be this trend with zero being an ideal size instead of healthy as the ideal size. We all see those gorgeous Victoria Secret models who are five foot nine inches and weigh 110 pounds, but how realistic is that notion? For some girls, in their mind, it is completely achievable and will stop at nothing to reach it.

According to Psychology Today females who fall short of this “perfect body image” are more prone to depression and a very low sense of self esteem. Young women are more likely to go through major extremities in order to look like their role model, no matter what the cost. These extremes can then lead to eating disorders such as bulimia nevosa or anorexia nervosa. People who idolize other underweight celebrities want to be just like them. Weight loss will then become the main goal and will be at risk for developing a severe fear of any type of weight gain. The question is “How worth it is it?”

Certainly personalities and psychological factors (which can be third variables) can contribute to the likely hood of whether or not a person will develop an eating disorder. Interestingly enough, according to the American Psychological Association “Specific traits are linked to each of the disorders. People with anorexia tend to be perfectionistic, for instance, while people with bulimia are often impulsive. Physical factors such as genetics also may play a role in putting people at risk.” This link can be a direct correlation, but it is good to remember in this case specifically that it does not equal causation.

I wanted to further my research and dig up some surveys where girls analyze how happy they are with their own self image. One website I came across wrote about certain statistics among young women today. Just at the age of 13 years old, 53% of American girls are already unhappy with their own self image and body weight. Only a few years later, by the age of 17, 78% of girls claim to be unhappy with themselves. I decided to conduct my own study among my group of girlfriends, roughly around the age of 19, to find out what they had to say. My questions consisted of :

1. For the most part, are you satisfied with with your body image right now?

2. If not, how old were you when you started to notice you were unsatisfied?

3. If you could change only one thing about yourself what would it be? (Examples- hair, eyes, nose, weight etc)

The results I got did not completely surprise me but did in fact make me think twice. I asked seven of my very best friends each of the questions and five of them reported that they were not satisfied. The average age that they became unsatisfied was around 13 years old. Finally, the one thing that six of them picked that they would change about themselves was their body weight. That comes out to roughly 85% of the girls that I asked are unhappy which directly coincides with the results of the 17-year-olds who were also unhappy.

I then decided to research possible solutions to this particular problem that is amongst our generation. I came across the Dove “Real beauty Campaign.” The dove models imitated a photoshoot of Victoria Secret models without any editing, and compared the two images directly. When I first saw this last year I immediately smiled, I thought “Finally something real is being put out there.” I am happy to say within the last year I have indeed noticed that when I am flipping through magazines I see more realistic images than I once had. I hope young girls today realize how much danger they put themselves in when they obsess over size zero women and feel compelled to starve themselves.

Anorexia has the highest mortality rate among all mental disorders. Anorexia does not and will not discriminate against any kind, leaving anybody vulnerable enough to become susceptible to this disease. There are so many healthy alternatives for weight loss and our society needs to take stand.

Lastly, I have attached a youtube video on a TED talk titled “Looks aren’t everything. Believe me, I’m a model”

Fist before I start composing this blog, I just want to say that country music is indeed my favorite type of music. When I was researching this topic I was remotely surprised by this correlation which prompted me to dig a bit deeper. I typed in music in relation with suicide rates and right before my eyes it came up that country music has the highest correlation all the way through. But why??

Country singer Carrie Underwood

According to a study done by Steven Stack and and Jim Gundlach they believe there is a positive correlation between country music and suicide rates. In their report “The effects of country music on suicide”, which later won them The Ig Nobel award for medicine, they had positively linked the two things. They did the study based on 49 metropolitan areas and found that the towns that played a higher than average amount of country music actually had higher rates of suicide. But my question still remains, why? Some of the songs even consist of lyrics like “God is great, beer is good.” Most of the songs relate to trucks, the outdoors, some beer, God himself, and a great person by your side.

In conclusion I would say that this debate is left up in the air. It really is a matter of your own opinion towards the genre, some hate it yet others can’t get enough.People in the past may have most definitely found links, but can’t explain the science behind it. Like most things in science it will be left unanswered until further investigation.I think a reasonable study would be to have people sit in a room and listen to nothing but country music for a few hours, while measuring their brain activity. Researchers can try to see what is going on inside of the human mind that makes people suddenly more depressed or more susceptible to something like suicide. I would love to get an answer on this topic seeing that I am a huge fan and country music would be my first pick when it comes to listening to music.

Lenzer, Jeanne. “Can Country Music Drive You to Suicide?” BMJ : British Medical Journal. BMJ Group, n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.

“Country Music Kills: Radio Airtime Ups White Suicide Rate.” Science 2.0. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.

Have you ever had a crazy dream and wake up the next day trying to recall different facts? Why do we dream what we dream and most importantly, does it mean something?  Our dreams generally occur 80% of the time in the stage of sleep called REM sleep. REM also known as rapid eye movement sleep is actually the second category of sleep that we fall in to, the first is known as non-REM. REM is about 20-25% of a nights sleep, and is the most important form of sleep that we can obtain. During REM sleep our body appears completely normal, our eyes dart around in our head, and all of our large muscles becomes paralyzed.

During REM sleep we are continually dreaming. The dreams that we tend to have entail more story like quality which then are more visual, vivid, and emotional vs non-REM dreams. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that dreaming at night is actually a stress reliever, it can “take some of the edge off from difficult memories” and act almost as a therapy.

While researching different topics of what dreams may mean, I came across an interesting article that briefly describes a main focus of a dream and then relates it to a meaning. For example, if you have a dream about babies it could possibly represent a new project happening in your life, or a potential growth in a certain area of your life.

A study was conducted on every day thoughts and experiences and how they affect our dreams.  Thirty five adults were divided into two different groups which each viewed emotional images two different times but 12 hours apart, while a MRI scanner was measuring any type of brain activity happening within. One group viewed the images in the morning then again later in the evening while staying awake in between both exposures to the images. The other group viewed the first set at night then went to sleep, woke up the next morning and viewed the second set. The people who slept in between seeing the images had significantly less of an impact from the images than the ones who stayed up the whole time. These results had indicated that dreaming decreased the stress and emotional effect of the images. They also had found that during the sleep “certain electrical activity patterns decreased, showing that reduced levels of stress neurochemicals in the brain soothed emotional reactions to the previous day’s experiences.” -Yasmin Anwar

If you would like to interpret your own dreams, I would suggest keeping your own dream journal next to your bed at night and writing down anything you remember anytime you wake up. The next morning you can go through it and maybe certain words will trigger what the rest of the dream  was about and you can put some interesting conclusions together for yourself.

Sources:

DreamsCloud. “14 Common Dreams and Symbols and Why They’re Important.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 13 Jan. 2014. Web. 08 Oct. 2015.

“Dream Sleep Takes Sting out of Painful Memories.” Berkeley News. N.p., 23 Nov. 2011. Web. 08 Oct. 2015.

Love is an extremely hard word to define, and as quoted by George Jean Nathan, “Love is an emotion experienced by the many and enjoyed by the few.”

Did you ever wonder how or why two people fall in love? How does one become attracted emotionally or physically? The process begins with dopamine, which is a chemical released in our brain that triggers our testosterone. This immediately affects our genitals, sweat glands, and senses. This could cause nervousness and the forbidden “clammy hands” when we first create chemistry with another individual.  As a result of the dopamine being released emotions are triggered and the happiness comes into full effect.

The next step is the focus of desire, the individual becomes more aware and observant of the other person and their own actions as well. Norepinephrine is a stimulant that is released which is responsible for alertness that will cause a person to notice small details about the other individual and remember it. PEA is the other stimulant that cones into play in this stage of attraction. It is an “endogenous stimulant of the human brain that amplifies the activity of major neurotransmitters for increased longevity, slower aging, higher performance, a sense of wellbeing, and a renewed youthful-functioning body.” It can be the reason for potential giddines  or maybe even a sudden loss in appetite.

Next the brain reward system comes in to play. The reward system will send chemical messages  to parts of our body like our stomach and our skin etc which then will send the messages back up to our brain. The brain then will want to seek more of this pleasurable sensation. During this primary stage of love something as simple as a photo of the person can increase this focus and change in mood.

Complication may come in to play at this point, some are fearful of rejection which by nature will override that crazy happy feeling of pleasure. This is the final stage of falling in love where the attachment sets in. “Attachment is a bond helping the couple to take their relationship to advanced levels. It instigates the feeling of bearing children and falling in love with them wholeheartedly.” Oxytocin is the hormone responsible for this attachment feeling, “it formulates the depth of love.” According to psychology, interestingly enough, the relationship you will have with your partner one day, reflects the relationship you had with your parents in your childhood. For example, if you were very clingy and attached to your parents when you were a growing child then this will most likely reflect on your adults relationship with your lover and you will be clingy with a stronger sense of attachment.

“Why We Fall in Love: The Science of Love.” Examined Existence. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2015.

“The Science Behind Falling in Love.” Psychology Today. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2015.

It’s a habit we all can’t seem to shake.. checking Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook right before going to sleep. We all need to squeeze in those last minute late night tweets or comment on your girlfriend’s FABULOUS picture, but what is it really doing to our health?

According to research done by the American institutions of the National Sleep Foundation the “dependence on television, mobile phones and computers can be harmful for health.” America, which has become a technology dependent society, is doing more damage than they think. Charles Czeisler, a scientist at the Harvard Medical School suggests that “exposure to artificial light just before bedtime increases the metabolism and reduces the release of melatonin, a hormone responsible for regulating sleep.” The light that reflects off a cell phone or television for example affects your sleep because the reflection of light passes through the retina into a portion of the hypothalmus and delays the release of melatonin. Our body requires melatonin before bed.

People are now sleeping less than their body requires and as a result are waking up the next morning feeling drowsy and unprepared for the new day. Social media before bed is the number one thing that causes sleep loss in our society today. Recent studies have linked this insomnia to depression, obesity, lower grades and even problems with regulating emotions.

Specifically, it is recommended to unplug all technology and not check in with any social media at least one hour before going to bed for the night. One hour gives the body enough time to prepare for optimal amount of continuous rest. The National Academy of Sciences conducted a study which led them to gather a dozen adults to participate for a two week period. After gathering the participants they asked half the group to read on an iPad for four hours before bed for five nights consecutively. The other half of the group read a traditional printed book before bed with a dim light setting, after one week the participants switched roles. Scientists had found what was expected, the iPad users had reduced levels of melatonin, it took them longer to fall asleep and even spent less time in restorative REM also known as rapid eye movement sleep. The participants also reported that after eight hours of sleep they still felt tired.

It is important to remember how necessary sleep is to our very being. We are responsible for feeding our body the essentials that it needs. People do not realize that sleep is just as important as nutrition or exercise. Turn the cells phones off and put those computers to sleep before you lay down for the night in order for your body to work to its full potential the next day.

“Kids Should Unplug before Sleep, Study Suggests.” N.p., 24 Jan. 2014. Web. 27 Sept. 2015.

Dennis, Brady. “IPads, Tablets, Smartphones Disrupt Good Sleep, Study Finds.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 22 Dec. 2014. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.

How would you feel if your doctor asked you what type of child you wanted? Boy or girl? Blue or green eyes? Brown or blonde hair? Tall or short? These questions seem odd to most people but the truth is this seems to possibly be the new trend. Dr. Jeffery Steinberg had already tested the water and now even prides himself in being almost 80% sure he can increase your odds of having a “designer baby.” The procedure that Steinberg uses is called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis or known as PGD. Its original purpose was to screen embryos in order to early diagnose any problems involving disabilities. This procedure has now gotten as technically as picking out your baby’s features and attributes piece by piece.

As we talked about in class, with this new feature comes the “ethical debate.” Is this ethical? We recently learned that unethical experiments really cannot be sought out, but since this is still in the air, doctors like Steinberg will continue to practice it until told otherwise. Sternberg says “Designing your baby is on the verge of becoming reality. The question for parents, doctors, and society is progress and if they are on board.” Many people around the globe have gone to Steinberg for help with picking a preferred gender for their new born. After researching him specifically he even describes the science involved with picking your baby’s gender. He explains, “Science initially worked to allow for an accurate method of safely separating sperm to allow the majority of those sperm capable of producing the desired gender (“X” sperm or “Y” sperm) to be exposed to the female egg (oocyte).”

People are beginning to argue that this new advancement has gone extremely too far already. Check out this clip that ABC news covered on the matter. Another concern that comes into play is the poor vs. rich debate. Will only rich people be able to have the “perfect children” leaving everyone else to have regular non manipulated children? Will there be a separation in society from the “perfect” vs the “regular” people? According to Art Caplan who is an ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania this may be an actual concern in the near future. Is this new trend playing with the big man upstairs, or is it going to be the way of our own futures?

Sources:

“Select the Gender of Your Next Baby.” Gender Selection Centers. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.

ABC News. ABC News Network, n.d. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.

We have all heard of some of the greatest love stories of time, Allie and Noah, Haley and Nathan, Baby and Johnny.  Well the big question is are they soulmates? Is this uncontrollable intense love realistic or purely the making of Hollywood dreams?

Allie and Noah from “The Notebook”

The word soulmate is defined as “a person with whom one has a strong affinity, shared values and tastes, and often a romantic bond.” This word comes with the notion of an ideal person who you are predestined to be with for all of eternity and  will bring you pure joy. But…there is  catch, according to this website your soulmate is “set at birth” can occur in the future (meaning they are not born yet) or in the past (meaning they could already passed away.) That is not the only bad news the website carries, it also reminds us that we live in a world with nearly seven  billion human beings, and you my friend could have a soulmate who was born anywhere in it.

Spike W.S. Lee who is an assistant marketing  professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School school of management believes the term “soulmate” may be the wrong way to look at it. Actually, he even believes it may be “detrimental to long-term contentment.” Lee even did a study where he asked couples if they felt they were looking for “The One”, or a “Life long compromise-filled journey.” The results showed that the ones who responded that they were looking for a “Life-long compromise-filled journey” actually seemed to be happier in the long term and people who look at their partner as a soulmate seemed to show more disappointment.

In conclusion, I agree with the article, the the word soulmate is a bit strong. I think it gets peoples expectations unrealistically high and brings a sense of false hope. The fact about life is science can only go so far or prove so much, there comes a time where fate, or God steps in. This whole thing will then bring in the science vs. religion debate, but no matter what you believe or what you put your faith in, I personally think that every day you have certain encounters with certain people for one reason or another. If there is a possibility that someday you are lucky enough to find someone that you are “hollywood crazy” about, then so be it.

Are you a big texter? Or are you more of a face to face kind of fella?

As I was sitting here doing homework I found myself CONSTANTLY checking my phone. I was subconsciously doing it at least once every three minutes. I took notice of the habit and then thought to myself “wow, it takes up so much of my day and all I am doing is texting friends to talk about basically nothing.”

I began to wonder about this trend and thought it would be a good blog topic. As I was researching facts about texting I learned some intriguing  things. Texting back and fourth constantly is actually more popular among the female population than male population. This is because men feel the need to text to convey information to one another, women do it for intimacy and relation. Women then begin to think a guy is not interested and doesn’t care but on the other side the man has no idea that the woman is even concerned. The big problem with texting goes back to MISCOMMUNICATION. There is no verbal communication with face to face contact to indicate facial expressions, or voice tone, there is simply nothing. You have no idea if the person is joking, laughing, or even mad for that matter. People today lack social skills and we have texting and computers to blame for it.

Emotions have a whole new meaning. Laughter and excitement suddenly become an extreme, society feels the need to shower their emotions with CAPITAL LETTERS. Typing “lol” is not enough, are you really even laughing? Half the time while you are texting someone they are doing seven other things and are not even paying attention to your joke or conversation.

What about the over texters? Is it okay to have more then one thought? Will you be judged if you send multiple texts or is it acceptable? People who send multiple texts to the same person at one time can be perceived as being “too strong.” On the flip side of it, if you are in person it can come off as completely normal.

What about texting actually affecting our mental heath and sustainability ? According to Psyweb.com recent studies have shown negative effects on the human mind, “Most researchers agree that today’s tsunami of screen technology has and will affect the development of children’s brains. There is speculation that people will lose the patience necessary for delayed gratification, and also the ability to tolerate mental stillness.” (Marshall, 2012) In the long run too much of anything is never good for anybody, therefore our constant habit of texting is eventually going to catch up to us. Texting does not only affect us mentally but physically as well. The constant movement of your thumbs while texting causes a “cramped sawing motion of certain thumb tendons,” this can then cause inflammation of the tendon, which then will over time become apparent and cause the person pain. This pain can be reduced by physical therapy   and anti-inflammatory medication.

So, next time before you fire up those thumbs and text away, think twice. I do not know about you, but in 30 years, carpal tunnel or other texting related pains all be the last thing I will need . I enjoy interacting face to face and spending time with a person, texting is extremely impersonal and can be quite annoying.

Congratulations! You are having twins!

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to have a baby? How about two at once? Twins are something nobody expects but can definitely be a fun surprise. One day the thought of what it would be like to have twins had crossed my mind. I began to wonder what my actual chances would be in the future.  I was surprised by some statistics and facts that I had stumbled upon.

According to the New York Times about every one in thirty babies in the United States is a twin, but why? Does that number seem low or has it increased over time? Statistics have actually shown that women who conceive children older are more likely to have fraternal twins. The key factor here is the age of the mother, the older a woman is will increase her chances due to the fact that an older woman produces more of a certain hormone called follicle stimulating hormone. This hormone could cause more than one egg to drop at once each month which will then increase the chance of fertility. Another aspect of this higher rise in twins could be from the increased use in fertility drugs. Fertility drugs greatly boost a women’s chance of having multiple babies at once.

Can there be other factors that would increase the chance of twins? The answer is yes, of course other factors come in to play. As I was researching I had found some more key factors that increase the chances, for example heredity, if twins run in the mother’s family (this is usually the case more so than the father’s family) it is more likely that they will conceive a set of their own. Another ingredient that comes into play is body mass, the taller or larger the mother is, the more likely she is to get pregnant with twins. Another factor can depend on the number of pregnancies a woman has previously had, for example every time a woman gets pregnant she will increase her chance for twins in the future. Finally heredity plays a roll here, twins are actually more likely to occur for someone of African American decent and less likely in Hispanics and Asians.

Based on my research I can presume that twins may not be directly in the cards for me, but hey there is always a chance. Twins have always fasciated me and I can’t imagine how cool (or not cool) it would be to have a twin sibling or have a set of my own some day!

works cited: “Your Likelihood of Having Twins or More | BabyCenter.” BabyCenter. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Sept. 2015.

The great tragedy of the Titanic is one that most people know a thing or two about, but what people still have yet to figure out is how did the unsinkable ship sink? The Titanic was a ship with approximately 2,200 passengers aboard ranging from upper class to lower class, adults to children. The case was put to rest many years ago with the conclusion that it was solely the Iceberg to blame but in 1985 the case was reopened due to this unsatisfying ending. Robert Ballard was the scientist who took it upon himself to solve this unsolvable mystery. Ballard along with other scientists indeed discovered that the ship did split into two parts actually around the time that the movie the “Titanic” was filmed, hence why they put the scene of the boat splitting into two. On the night of April 14th 1912, only a few days into the voyage, the site of the iceberg was exposed for the fist time. The Titanic did not hit the iceberg head on, forcing it to swipe the ships starboard side and causing it to pierce six holes in the ships steel plates. The  ship instantly filled with water and roughly two hours later actually submerged fully into the water and sunk completely.

The thoughts that came about in the 1990’s placed the blame on the steel used to build the ship, it was believed to be “brittle” but this theory was later put down when scientists realized the actual piece they tested did not match up to the same higher quality of the remainder of the boat which did in deed pass all tests. Another theorist proposed the thought that the timing of the ships assemlby could have played a key role in the mystery. The Titanic was built along with two other massive “sister ships” at the time named the Olympic and Britannic. The ships did have enough people to build them, however since they were all done simultaneously the material used could have been lower quality due to the pressure of all three ships.

The boat was not “weak” by any means, 38,000 tons of water filled up the enormous ship, the pressure lead it to crack into two pieces, and did so with reason. I would conclude the following:

1) The quality could have certainly been better, but the Titanic was a luxury ship, not a battle ship.

2) The ship was not designed to crash into an iceberg and and there was no way to prevent disaster after it did.

3) Even if the ship remained afloat longer, it did not even have enough life boats to sustain even 1/3 of its passengers.

4)  No one could have predicted this tragedy and precaution for an accident that extensive was a challenge for the time period that the ship was built in.

Hello!

Well… My name is Lisa Acerba and I come from the city of brotherly love, the amazing city of Philadelphia! I have lived in Philly my entire life and cannot imagine growing up anywhere else. I come from a large Italian family where saying the words “no thank you” at the dinner table is simply not an option!

I am basically doing this course for the simple fact that I am not a science person in the least. Science was always a very confusing subject in high school and I definitely don’t plan to major in it or incorporate in in my major in any way. I am excited to learn about some of the exciting topics that were mentioned in class and am looking forward to some real controversy!

For your entertainment!