Instagram. A photo sharing social Web service that lets you share your life with friends and family through a series of pictures which you post using your smartphone. Activity on Instagram is monitored and calculated through likes on a picture. One gets likes on their Instagram pictures by their followers. The more followers you have, the more likes you’ll probably have. But is posting a picture just because you have a lot of followers guaranteed a lot of likes?

You ever think you have such a great pic, that it’s bound to get likes. Whether it’s a “Throwback Thursday”(tbt), a picture with someone famous, or a picture with all your friends, the occasion and importance of the picture can really affect the amount of likes your picture gets. But theirs one thing that people generally overlook when it comes to posting a picture, and that’s timing.

Lattergramme, a service for Instagram that lets users manage and schedule Instagram posts, did an analysis of over 61,000 posts seeing when photos see the most likes and comments. What they discovered was that if you want your followers to pay attention to you and see your posts, posting at 2 am and 5 pm EST are the best times to do so. The also found out that the worst times are 9 am and 6 pm EST. Posting on Wednesday’s will give you the best day to have interact with your followers.

Latergramme founder Matt Smith broke down as to why posting at 2 am and 5 pm are the best times. “”We think this is because less people are posting at that time and that more engaged users are using Instagram at that time,” Smith told the Huffington Post. Latergramme was also able to find out what times are the “hottest” on certain days. Like on Monday, the concluded that 5 pm is the worst time to post that day and 7 pm -10 pm are the best. Like on Saturday’s, 2 am is the best time to post, and 7 am is the worst. The analysis was able to determine what days you should posts on and the times you should do so in order to getting the most interactions and essentially the most likes.

I found another analysis that complied the research of 10 different studies in determining the best time one should use social media. When it came to Instagram, it was deduced that 2-3 pm and 8-9 pm on Mondays and Thursdays were the best time to post. The 10 studies found out that there really isn’t that much of a difference between “best days to post” because Instagram engagement everyday is fairly steady and consistent.

I then found a Fortune 500 study that took 123 Instagram accounts of Fortune 500 companies and examined all the posts from the companies. They concluded that “Throwback Thursday” is the day people tend to post pictures the most, but in the case of overall effectiveness of a photo, the day doesn’t matter.

If I were to do an experiment in finding the best time to post on Instagram in order to get the most follower interactions, I would start off by hypothesizing that posting at night, during off-work hours on the weekends will get you the most likes. I think that using the knowledge of posting on the weekend would be ideal, for no one will be working so they’ll have more leisure time on social media. I would take in count the correlation between posting on a certain day (Mcm, tbt) + the hash tags used to amount of likes received on a photo. To determine the best day to post, I will add a post likes and comments together, then I would divide this by the user’s follower count. By doing this on every day of the week, we’ll be able to determine which day sees the most engagement amongst one’s followers. I would then take multiple accounts and use them in this experiment. I feel like doing an observational study or experimental study wouldn’t make that much of a difference. If we did an observational study and just observed the amount likes a post gets compared to others, we’d be able to see the real results of the posts without changing the environment of the posts. If we did experimental, we would be able to control the time of when an account posts. I would have 168 accounts partake in this experiment and have each account post once during a week. Since there are 7 days a week, and 24 hours in a day, that’s how I got 168 accounts. One account will post on Sunday at 12am, and the next account will post on Sunday at 1 am, and so on until Saturday at 11 pm. In the controlled experiment, the independent variable will be the time posted and the dependent variable will be the most interaction amongst followers (likes, comments, follower interaction). Whichever account gets the most likes, comments, and followers interaction will essentially prove which time is the best time to post.

Works Cited:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/25/get-instagram-likes_n_6751614.html

http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/11752/what-are-the-best-days-and-times-to-post-on-instagram

http://coschedule.com/blog/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/

So with finals week coming up, I’m sure everybody is as nervous and panicked as I am. Just the thought of taking a test that’s worth so much of our final grade stresses me out. I have already gotten a head start on studying for my exams. I try to at least study for a certain topic an hour a day so I can maintain and remember everything I need to know. The only thing I have a problem with this is the place to do so. When my roommates in the room, the TV is most likely on and it creates the biggest distraction. By next week, I plan on finding the perfect study spot in order for me to ace my exams.

In order to find the perfect place to study, there are a few variables one must consider. The variables to consider are where you study, the noise of the room, and who you are with. In an experiment, studying with music vs studying without would be the independent variable and how you’re performance of cognitive memory (studying) would be the dependent variable. Who you are with and where you study would also be the independent variables in the study. First and foremost, where is the place where you can find the least amount of noise. By noise, I mean any distractions that can get in the way of you retaining your material. Listening to music doesn’t generally count as “noise”, because some people prefer to have something playing in the back ground. When it comes to studying, there is a distinct difference in listening to music as a background noise, and listening to music with ear phones in. Studying with headphones on tends to decrease retention and memory, whereas music in the background can be an aid to study. The difference between the two deals with how close the input of sound is. Headphones have a direct accost the brain by covering the ear, essentially blocking out any information you try to take in with your eyes because your brain is too focused on the music. Background music on the other hand has all environmental noises included in it, and to hear this music to the exclusion of other input requires intense concentration. A study at Stanford University wanted to see how listening to music can affect the brain with cognitive memory. What they found was music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory. They were able to conclude that music can positively affect cognitive production. I then stumbled upon another article dealing with music, but this one had a different spin on the idea. Nick Perham and Martinne Sykora of Applied Cognitive Psychology conducted an experiment using 25 undergrad students as participants. The students partook in several serial recall tasks, mainly presenting them 8 consonants and them repeating it back in order to them. What they found was studying in a quiet room had the greatest performance among the participants. But the key finding in this study was that the participants performed better while listening to music they didn’t like as opposed to listening they do like. Making sure that each participants had the same likes and dislikes in music, it was discovered that listening to music they didn’t like was like, “a cacophony of sound, in which the segmentation of each individual sound from the next is difficult to identify”(Perham). The music they disliked had less acoustic variation from one moment to the next, which had a less detrimental effect than music they liked. Music that was liked by the participants had the greatest degree of distraction out of all the methods of cognitive memory. Another study I found showed that with 115 children studying, those who were in the room with noise levels lower than 50 decibels were more productive than those who were in the room with noise levels above 60 decibels. The children in the higher noise room reported to have higher blood pressure, raised heart rates and levels of stress hormones increased. I was able to find one more study regarding the effect of music while studying because I believe this is one of the biggest factors in focusing and retaining the information you need. Early in 1975, researches wanted to find out if listening to music vs silence would promote the best memory recall amongst college students (Etaugh & Michals, 1975)16 males and 16 females were used and were to read a passage with music and a passage without. Using a controlled experiment is one of the best ways to discover the differences because you can control the noise and see clearly how the two differentiate. What was found that males performed exactly the same with music and non music environments, yet females performed worse with noise than without. The same study idea was used in a recent administrated survey by professors Kotsopoulous and Hallam (2010). The survey asked questions to 600 students from varying ages of countries USA, Greece, Japan, and the UK. The survey asked questions about study habits, what type of music did they listen to, if they listening to it during studying, and whether they wrote and did homework while listening to music. What they found out was music was listened to mostly when thinking and writing,  but not normally listened to when studying and retaining information.Subjects reported that music helped most with concentration, easing stress, and reducing boredom. However, subjects could recognize if the music was interfering with their focus and therefore would return to silence. While regarding all these research experiments I believe that it’s safe to hypothesis that listening to music can cause poorer study habits and reduce cognitive memory. This will affect tests scores so you could also hypothesis that listening to music while studying for a test could result in a lower test score. So essentially, when it comes to studying, being in a quiet place can have the best results, though listening to music as a background noise can be acceptable as well.

The next thing to consider when trying to find a perfect place to study is where it is. What do they always say in real estate? Location. Location. Location. That’s right, where you work can have a big impact on how well you study. Most students would say that they are fine with studying in there room, but for others, their room could be the thing that’s keeping them from studying. When you leave your room, you have to organize yourself in order to study before you go. Plus, you only take what you need to study when you leave your room, avoid distractions from your roommate or television in the process. From personal experience, I found it much easier to study and grasp the information I needed by leaving my room and going into the quiet study lounge down the hall. By doing so, I take my self away from the unwanted noise, and I’m able to concentrate at the work at hand. Students who normally leave the room to study do so because they know that they could get sidetracked or even worse, fall asleep. If a student gets distracted easily, studying in a classroom or library could be the best place for you. Extracting all the “fun” out of a room could be the thing that gets a student to lock in on their work. So when finding a perfect place to study, it is possible to do so in your dorm room. But for maximum results, being in a place like a library that has a plethora of information access, is quiet, and essentially “boring” can be the thing that really gets you to lock in on your work.

Other key factors that can help determine the perfect study place is who you are with and the lighting. Who you’re with is huge because normally, studying alone can eliminate distractions. But, having someone to study with isn’t such a bad thing. In fact, having an organized study group can be the best thing for you, for you’re with other people who covering the same material, most likely in a quiet environment, and you have someone to help you understand something if you don’t get it at first. Having an active study group is great for studying for problems can be discussed and worked out using the knowledge of the ones around you. Lighting is also something the can factor into how you study. It’s tough to read in dim lighting, but it’s even more annoying trying to read with harsh artificial light coming right at you. Finding the perfect lighting along with the perfect people can make your study sesh 10x better.

When finals comes these next two weeks, I hope that I will be prepared because of my studying. I also hope that I find a perfect study spot for these tests so I can concentrate and use my time well. With regarding the research regarding studying with music, the affects of other people in the room, and where you study, I believe that studying in a quiet room, preferably a library, by yourself (or with a focussed study group), with adequate lighting is the perfect place to study for an exam.

Works Cited:

http://alac.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=9

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-30831/Silence-golden-studying.html

http://digest.bps.org.uk/2012/08/music-we-like-is-more-distracting-than.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+BpsResearchDigest+(BPS+Research+Digest)

https://intro2psych.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/can-music-help-you-study/

http://testprep.about.com/od/Study_Skills/tp/Places_To_Study.htm

Concussions. The term is far to similar in athletics, let alone football. With the movie “Concussion” coming out this holiday season, it really got me thinking. How big of a problem is concussions in the NFL? Well in sports in general, it’s a huge problem. An estimated 1.6-3.8 million sports- and recreation-related concussions occur in the United States each year according to the BIRI (Brain Injury Research Institute). That’s a lot concussions, no matter what the sport. If you were to break it down even further, you can find out how many concussions happened in the NFL alone in 2015 using this really cool website. You can see how many players got concussions each year in the league and at what position those players were who got the concussions. You’re also able to see how many players on each team got a concussion and how may games they missed. So far, during the 2015 NFL Season, there have already been 108 concussions. In 2014, there were 123 concussions. Fortunately, each year since 2012, head injuries have gone down by at least 20 concussions each year. Still, with this year only being in week 12, it looks as if that mark set in 2014 will be passed.

The term concussion is defined as when a bump, blow, or jolt to either the head or the body that causes the brain to move rapidly inside the skull. A concussion, or a mild dramatic brain injury, changes how the brain functions normally on a daily basis. The effects of a concussion can be long term and detrimental to a person’s health. Sports is normally where conclusions happen, and it has been noted that in organized high school sports, football is responsible for 60% of all concussions. Brain injuries are also the leading cause of death among any other sports injury.

One widely known sports star that has been affected by concussions is Jim McMahon. McMahon was the quarterback for the Chicago Bears from 1982-1988. McMahon, who was a Super Bowl champion and pro bowl quarterback, had his career cut short due too many concussions. In 2011, he filed a lawsuit against the NFL, for he believed the league did a poor job in handling concussion related injuries. In 2012, McMahon, at age 53, was diagnosed with dementia. Dementia is a brain disease that causes a long term and often gradual decrease in the ability to think and remember that is great enough to affect a person’s daily functioning. McMahon would go on to discuss his dementia in an Interview with ESPN.

Another player who’s life was affected by receptive head injuries was the late great Junior Seau. The 12 time pro bowler played 20 seasons in the league and was a stand out linebacker for the San Diego Chargers. Although no concussions were reported officially during his career, Seau’s wife stated that he had more than enough head related injuries throughout his career. Seau tragically committed suicide in 2012 sparking the debate whether or not concussions had anything to do with it. It was later released by Seau’s family that he suffered brain damage due to CTE, a condition related to concussion brain damage and depression. The autopsy on Seau revealed that his brain was similar to those who were exposed to repetitive head injuries. This is a cause for concern, for the same incident happened with Dave Duerson, who shot himself and his suicide note requested that his brain should be looked at for brain trauma.

Still wanting to know more about how concussions can have long term effects on the body, I stumbled across several a articles that explained it to me. The first linked the NFL to concussion related deaths. Doug Terry, a Ph.D student in clinical psychology at the University of Georgia says that when he conducted his experiment, he based his research off of the findings of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. They revealed that NFL players are at a higher risk of dying from complications with neurodegenerative diseases than the average population. “Concussions are a probable link to deaths caused by neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis”(Terry).

Terry’s on going experiment revolves around a similar sport to football: Rugby. Terry analyzed the effects of concussions on UGA rugby players. He noted that most of the players on the team had had concussions in the past, but since they were relatively young, they recovered quickly and didn’t have any lasting effects from their previous ones. But he also went on to find out that about 40 years later, NFL and Rugby players have memory issues or Alzheimer’s at higher rates than the normal athlete. Terry combined memory tests and functional magnetic resonance imaging scans that the athletes completed to help strengthen his data. The tasks include tests of working memory most, and doing this simultaneously. ““When someone does a working memory task, their brain will use more resources. After you get a concussion, your brain uses more oxygen, more neurons are firing and more glucose is used up by the brain. Your brain has to work harder to do the same thing. There’s evidence of that in functional MRI directly after a concussion”(Terry).  To help ensure his data was correct, Terry also used NueroCom Balance Manager to help test the effects of concussions. It’s an objective measure of balance that uses two force plates to measure your center pressure. It tests all your systems of balance and can see if balance is impaired many years after a concussion occurs.” Since the experiment is on going, UGA has yet to take action of these results, but he hopes to the results can have a major effect on how UGA and schools alike manage concussions.

When deciding if the NFL should take protocol in the seriousness of a concussion, there are a few variable that must be considered. First off, how likely is one to receive a concussion during a football game? Well since football accounts for 60% of all concussions in high school sports according to the Brian Injury Research Institute, my thought is that it’s quite likely to occur. Secondly, the game is played by tackling someone to get them down, so how could they fix that?Well there are several ways the NFL can go about this. They can make stronger, and safer equipment in helmets and shoulder pads that protect the head and keep it stabilized. There are several anti concussion football helmets out there that really should be wore by the whole league if they are not wearing them already. If you don’t fix the helmets, get rid of the facemask completely. No facemask would lower the chances of huge/illegal hits. No player is going to risk running head first at another one with no facemask. They could change up the rules to if a player misses time due to a concussion, the player that hits him must sit out the same amount of games the player who got a concussion missed. This can be a affective and fair proposal to go about things. They could also have concussion monitors work the field so if any player seems to be showing signs of a concussion, they can call a timeout and have that player examined. If all else fails, shortening the schedule to 10 games a year could do it. Less games=Less concussions.

The ability to prevent concussions completely in a game that requires hitting another is impossible. They’re bound to happen during a big hit or tackle. But, as I stated before, there are ways around it. The NFL could prevent most concussions from happening if it puts more time into the concussion protocol and finds ways to not change the games completely, but protect it’s players at the same time. However, as of now, the risk of getting a concussion in this league is too high. Players are at risk of long term effects on their memory and brain while playing the sport. And with the amount of ex football players revealing that football and head injuries have affected their life for the worst, it’s only a matter of time before the league takes action.

But as of now, Yes. Concussions are a true problem in the National Football League.

Works Cited:

http://www.concussiontreatment.com/concussionfacts.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/concussion-watch/#players_2015

http://www.protectthebrain.org/Brain-Injury-Research/What-is-a-Concussion-.aspx

http://www.redandblack.com/uganews/science_health/university-student-tests-the-long-term-effects-of-concussions/article_0aa38d62-a0b5-11e2-ae8e-001a4bcf6878.html

“Practice makes Perfect”. One of the most influential, repetitive sayings in the world. The phrase is all to familiar with young students hearing it when they would study for their classes. It’d be heard by the athletes who would spend hours trying to refine and work on their game. I heard this all throughout my basketball career when I was a kid. My trainer would tell me that everyday I needed to get at least 50 shots up everyday in order to become better. Muscle memory he called it.

Muscle Memory can be described as the observation that various muscle-related tasks that seem to be easier to perform after previous practice. It’s as if the muscle remembers the repeated action so the same power and force is used in every action. The precision and accuracy of every motion is the same. So when my trainer told me to shoot 50 shots everyday, he wanted me to do so in order for my shot to remain consistent and develop. He would also have me shoot 2 feet away from the basket with one hand in order for me to emphasis using my legs on my shot and shooting at the top of my release. By doing this repetitively, I was able to incorporate muscle memory in order for my shot to remain consistent.

With that in mind, it’s crazy to think that “practice” can make someone perfect at something. No one is perfect, no one can be perfect. Thats the argument that can be made against the phrase. I came across an article where a research team lead by Brooke Macnamara of Princeton University analyzed the data of 88 research studies regarding the skills area of music, sports, education, and more. What was found was that there is a positive relationship between practice and mastery, but only 12 percent across all areas of expertise is practice varying the skill level. That’s too small of a percentage to believe that practice alone can make someone perfect at something. Macnamara would later go on to say, “Deliberate practice is unquestionably important, but not nearly as important as proponents of the view have claimed.” It was also noted that the percent of variation of skill level was different for each domain studied. It was found that with exercises and sports, 26 percent of individual differences was due to training, yet in the work area, less than one percent of variation of skill was due to practice. It was concluded that many other factors play a role in the expertise and perfection of an action that practice can’t just be it. One factor that can do so is age, for the developmental period for acquiring skills can be differ. So to say that someone who starts “perfecting” their skill earlier in their life will most likely be more advanced.

I then found another experiment that essentially backs up the point of the latter one. Zachary Hambrick, a professor at the University of Michigan says the deliberate practice is not sufficient enough to explain individual’s differences in performance. He argues that someone who doesn’t practice as much could still produce an elite level of performance. Hambrick and his team looked at 14 studies involving chess players and musicians. They monitored how their practice routine affected their performance. What they concluded was that the time spent practicing only accounted for 1/3 of the measurable skills differences for the musicians and chess players. The sliver lining in this experiment is “If people are given an accurate assessment of their abilities and the likelihood of achieving certain goals given those abilities, they may gravitate toward domains in which they have a realistic chance of becoming an expert through deliberate practice”(Hambrick).

The definition of insanity was defined by Albert Einstein as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That may be true, but could you say the same for practicing? Well when you practice at something, you are doing the same thing over and over again, but you are expecting different results by becoming better at that action. I believe that practice and the repetitiveness of an action an result in an advanced ability. I also believe in the concept of muscle memory and how procedural memory can play a huge role in the perfecting of an action. However, I also believe that just practice alone can’t make one perfect at something. Even though the saying is older than our great grandparents, it doesn’t hide the fact that the statement “Practice makes Perfect” is wrong.

Works Cited:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/does-practice-make-perfect-not-nearly-as-much-as-you-think-9580402.html

http://lifehacker.com/5799234/how-muscle-memory-works-and-how-it-affects-your-success

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/practice-doesn-t-always-make-perfect/

http://www.sott.net/article/262018-Does-practice-really-make-perfect

Ahh television. One of the easiest ways to be comfy and lazy is to watch TV. It’s entertainment, for some a way to escape the harsh ways of reality. If anything can be said about television, its that it’s main goal is to please us. It’s objective is to satisfy it’s audiences while still sending out information that the audience can decode and take in as a message. TV is entertaining, funny, and exciting. Watching TV can make you more intelligent, more up to date, and heck, it can even give you something to talk about at the Water Cooler at work. But how much TV is too much TV?

It’s obvious that watching too much TV isn’t good for you, but how bad is it. A recent study has discovered that watching too muchTV can actually kill you! By tracking over 86,000 people over 18 years, it was discovered that watching to much television increases the risk of suffering fatal pulmonary embolism. “Pulmonary embolism is a blockage in the artery that carries blood from the heart to the lungs, and is usually caused by a blood clot formed in a vein in the leg. Up to 60,000 people die as a result of pulmonary embolism each year in Britain”. Watching TV for over 5-6 hours a day, with an increased age (40-59) doubles your chances of suffering from a fatal blood clot. The study, which was done by Japanese Collaborative Cohort Study, resulted in 18 deaths from 36,007 men and 50,017 women. This study was the first to discover a link between prolonged television watching and fatal pulmonary embolism. This study also shows that correlation does not equal causation for pulmonary embolism doesn’t cause one to watch TV.

After reading this article, it got me thinking about what’s really on Television that we watch. I thought it would be interesting to know the effects of what we see on TV and how we react to it. One classic example that can help clear this up is Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment. Albert Bandura, who conducted this experiment with his colleagues at Stanford University, used an inflatable doll and children to help see correlation between what he see on TV and how we react. A short video was shown to preschoolers where their would be a Bobo doll with a clown face printed on the front and sand in the dolls base so the doll bopped back and forth after getting hit. A man was then shown hitting, punching, and kicking the Bobo doll all over the room. Obviously, all children saw that part of the film, but with the way they conducted the experiment, they would show different groups of children alternative endings. In the first ending to the film, the man who beats up the doll is rewarded with praise and food. The second ending showed the man who beat up the doll, punished for his actions. And the third ending was shown to a group of children where they only saw the opening sequence. After the show, the children were lead to a playroom with a Bobo doll inside the room. Bandura and his colleagues then watched how the children acted when seeing the doll. What they concluded was that the children who were shown the first and third endings imitated the aggressive acts they saw on Bobo while the second group of kids tended not to do so. Yet several children in the second group acted violently toward Bobo as well. This discovery was important because it showed that mere exposure to television violence (whether or not the violence was visibly rewarded on screen) could spur aggressive responses in young children. However, Bandura was also able to conclude that the punishment the children saw, when the man got punished for beating Bobo, inhibited their aggressive behavior.

The findings were to suggest that children learn social behavior through observation learning. That is to say that kids, especially at such a young age, learn traits such as aggressiveness through watching the actions of another person.

If I were to conduct an experiment as such, I would do it in the same fashion. An experimental design would be the best for this experiment because the method can establish the effect of cause and effect the best. The variables are also controlled so it can rule out other competing explanations for the results. I would also use the experimental method because of the replicability the method has. Alterations can be made to find or eliminate other results.

In this experiment, the value of having a controlled design was key. Only the endings of the film were varied, so that any subsequent differences among them could be attributed to the differences in media content.

TV now is closely monitored by the FCC. They essentially control what is seen and heard on the airways. A TV Rating system was set into place after public concerns to profanity and graphic violence in television programs. TV ratings are as such: TV Y, TV Y7, TV G, TV PG, TV 14, TV MA. TV Y is appropriate for all children while TV MA is for Mature Audiences only and may be unsuitable for children under 17. Having a rating system and parental guidelines allows Television to be “noticeably” cleaner because children are advised not to watch that isn’t suitable for them, yet it is still on the airways.

In the end, Television can be violent. Television can show sexual content and it can be graphic. The FCC montiors what is on the airways pretty tightly, so nothing too harmful is shown. However, the violence of television is determined and really judged by the actions of the people who watch it.

Works Cited:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/watching-too-much-tv-can-kill-you-researchers-warn-10478297.html

Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment on Social Learning

Have you ever thought of how your body would look and feel if you lifted weights? Have you ever wondered if you’re getting the most out of your lift? This question occurred to me today as I walked out of the IM building after a good lift session. As I walked out of the building, I felt exhausted yet rewarding. Depleted yet happy. For me, I feel like happy when I work out because I know I’m doing something more beneficial than just lying around. When I was done my workout, I walked by two kids wearing their usual “Way to long cut offs”. I could tell that one of the kids lifted regularly as opposed to his much scrawnier friend. He walked tall with a swagger about him opposed to his hunched over amigo. Once I was done analyzing the two, it got me thinking. How can lifting help you out in your life? What differences does lifting weights have on the body as opposed to someone who doesn’t lift regularly? And how can you get the most outof your lift? Lets dive in to this.

Well for starters, I have just starting lifting weights regularly about 2 months ago and let me tell you, I can already see the difference. I feel better. I look stronger, and I feel more confident in myself. It’s gotten to a point where I look forward to going to the gym. Now my roommate on the other hand doesn’t go to the gym at all. He’s very studious about his work and tends to stay in a lot. Now he hasn’t gained any substantial amount of weight, but I have noticed he’s not as skinny as he was back in August. That’s kinda my motivation now to keep lifting. But I wanted to look up more about the pro/cons and differences between lifting and not.

So the question I originally proposed is: What is the statistical significance of lifting weights on a regular schedule opposed to not be on a regular schedule?

My hypothesis is that lifting regularly will be more statistically significant than lifting at random times or not at all. Weight lifting will also have positive effects and benefits on one’s body.

I believe this is common sense, for you will obviously see a change in muscle growth if you lifted regularly. But I wanted to consult several experiments just to make sure.

The first experiment I stumbled upon online seemed just like what I was looking for. It was conducted by a man who wanted to find out the same question I was asking. He used several references in determining his answer. Prior to the experiment, he hypothesized that the strength of those who lift weights will be 1.4 times stronger than those who don’t lift. It was conducted for 6-7 months with the participants who lifted worked out every other weekday for 45 minutes to an hour. The results were recorded regularly with the participants who did not lift also being recorded. How they are being evaluated is based on their bench press, squat, dumb bell curl, and the amount of pushups and sit ups one can do. This is what he found out. The bench press of participants who lifted was 30 lbs stronger than the ones who didn’t lift. The squat was 14 lbs stronger while the participants who lifted conducted an average of 7 more pushups. Those who lifted regularly also curled more and completed more sit-ups. Ultimately, it was concluded that people who lifted regularly gained 12.8239 more than the people who did not. The hypothesis was supported in this case and was backed up by the data recorded.

After reading that, I found another research article that discussed the benefits found with weight lifting on the human body. Julia Wilcox, a writer for Forbes magazine, wanted to find out more about the effects of weightlifting. Wilcox analyzes the work of Gretchen Reynolds (New York Times Writer), and Pat Manocchia (CEO of the LA PALESTRA Center For Preventative Medicine in New York City). Several things she determined on her research were that weightlifting can “regress obesity and resolve metabolic disorders. This was concluded at a research experiment at Brown University where mice were injected with a “push-up” gene to examine the effects on metabolism. Also, Reynolds noted that bikers who take part in plyometric exercises and resistance training have “far more genetic remodeling within their muscles than cyclists who did no strength training”. The signaling molecules in muscles of people who strength train have double the molecules meaning better endurance in their body. It was also concluded that an athlete’s power can be improved by weightlifting due to the improved coordination of muscles.

After going over several experiments and date, I decided how I would conduct an experiment if I were to do so. Essentially, the experiment before hand is something I would do if I conducted an experiment based off my hypothesis. I would have one control group, which would be the people who did not lift weights. And then I would have an experimental group of the people who will lift regularly. By setting up a controlled date and time for the people to lift weights I will begin my experiment. Once I am done, I will use my survey analysis to make a conclusion and determine if my hypothesis was indeed correct.

If all goes according to my calculation sand hypothesis, I would conclude that the effects of weight lifting regularly will be more statistically significant than lifting at random times or not at all. Weight lifting would also have positive effects and benefits on one’s body.

Works Cited:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/juliewilcox/2012/05/31/health-benefits-weightlifting/

http://www.informedbynature.org/science-fair-projects/info/id/MjUz

Ahh Sleep, the best thing to some of our days. Something that we do, twice, heck even three times a day. The one thing we can look forward to sometimes at the end of a long day is just that. It’s addictive and it’s a necessity in one’s daily routine. That’s why it peeked my curiosity to go as far as to say, is sleep a drug?

Drug abuse is defined by deliberate use of a drug or too much of a drug. It can also be defined by a person who is dependent on a drug, leading to some sort of an addiction. People do drugs and sleep for numerous of reasons, one is because they are addicted to it. Addiction is defined as a condition which results when a person ingest a substance or engages in an activity which can be pleasurable, but continue use can interfere with ordinary life responsibility. Obviously, this can be the case with sleep, for people can waste their days away by sleeping for too long. I can most definitely admit, that after a long night, I have slept till 2 or 3 in the afternoon and if i have the option to do it again the next day, I most certainly will.

“We all get addicted to something that takes away the pain”. Funny how a Boys Like Girls quote can actually be so true and prevalent in society. Sleep is a painkiller, in the meaning that when we sleep, we don’t feel the pain anymore. We essentially use sleep as a way to get away from what is hurting us in life, for at least several hours. Someone who is addicted to a drug, means that they can’t go without it. The same can be said for sleep. It’s near impossible to go several days without sleep, as the record for longest time without sleep is held by Randy Gardner (11 days, 24 minutes).
When researching “Why we sleep?”, I stumbled upon an article that gave me different theories to look at. One of theories I found interesting was the Brain Plasticity Theory. It highlights the importance of sleep and how it correlates to changes in the structure and organization of the brain. REM sleep, the stage where dreams occur, plays a critical role in brain development and can be seen through todlers who sleep about 13 to 14 hours per day. Teenagers on the other hand are recommended 8-10 hours, while adults should sleep 7-9 hours per day.The affect of sleep deprivation on the young can be crucial in the development of the brain.

Another theory I found interesting was the Restorative Theory. Essentially, sleep serves as a way to restore the body from what is lost in being awake. “Sleep provides an opportunity for the body to repair and rejuvenate itself”. Harvard Medical School did several studies on animals, and found that if they are deprived of sleep, they will lose all immune function and die in a matter of weeks. It was found that essential restorative functions in the body like muscle growth , protein synthesis, tissue repair, and growth hormone release occur mostly during sleep. It was also noted that neurons in the brain called adenosine are released in the brain when we are awake. The build up of adenosine in the brain gives us humans the perception of being tired. When we are asleep, our body gets rid of the adenosine, quite like how sleep gets rid of “the pain”.

Is Sleep a drug? An argument can be made for the activity, for it is essential something we can’t live without. As human beings, we become dependent on sleep, and need it in our lives to live a healthy lifestyle. It can escape us from the harsh reality we call life, and can temporarily take away any pain you are feeling, to in a sense, give you a feeling of euphoria. I don’t know, but that sounds like a drug to me. Tell me what you think! Do you consider sleep a drug?

Sources:

http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep/why-do-we-sleep

https://sleepfoundation.org/excessivesleepiness/content/why-do-we-need-sleep

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_(record_holder)

It’s obviously. Don’t go on your phone during class, and you’ll pay attention more. Without the distraction of social media and the urge to use one’s phones, students can increase their performance in school. It’s not hard to believe that not using your phone during class can help your grades, but just how much does it make a difference? According to TIME magazine, banning phone use in class would be equivalent to an additional hour a week in school.

An experiment was conducted between researchers at University of Texas and Louisiana State University where phones would be banned from schools in 4 different cities. They would record the test scores of students before and after the ban on cellphones during class. It was found that exam scores climbed by as much as 6% since the ban. Having strict cell phone policies in class allow students to be more focused on the content being taught in the classroom. It was also stated that the people most affected by this ban were the “underachievers” or “low income” students, for they are the ones that are more likely to be impacted by the presences of a mobile phone. The students who were classified as “underachievers” were noted in their 14% increase of grades with the ban put in place. It’s no secret that the presence of a cell phone can be a cause of distraction for students. Especially in today’s day and age, kids live and die by their phones. Yet, with such encouraging data and research about the problem makes the idea of banning phones in all classrooms seem not to farfetched.

Ahh, the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament. A once a year tournament that drives over millions crazy with it’s unpredictability and excitement. Every year, each person goes into each year’s tournament with confidence thinking they picked the best bracket. The first ever 100% correct bracket, when in reality their bracket gets busted in the first couple days due to a cinderella team or close upset. Yes, this is a challenge that seems impossible. And for good reason. There are 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 possible ways to fill out a bracket. That’s a one and 9 quintillion chance of getting a perfect bracket. Understandable though, people play each year in hopes of winning Warren Buffet’s One Billion Dollar Challenge.

To put that into perspective, someone has more of a chance to win the Mega Millions lottery two times in a row buying one ticket both times. Having a perfect bracket is like flipping a coin and having it land on heads 63 times in a row. Jeez.

Now it is more possible to have a perfect first round. Even though it’s not a perfect bracket, a perfect first round is nothing to scoff at. In fact, someone has a 1-17,000 chance of picking a perfect first round. Now a 16th seed has never beaten a number 1 seed, so you really only have to worry about picking 28 games correctly early on. The person who has made it the farthest into the tournament with a perfect bracket is autistic teen Alex Herrman in Glenview, Illinois. He picked correctly the first 2 rounds of the 2010 NCAA March Madness Tournament. Having a perfect bracket through the first two rounds has a 1 and 13,460,000 chance of happening. After finding out the probabilities and possibilities of having a perfect bracket makes me think anyone who actually thinks they have a perfect bracket is just down right stupid.

With playoffs looming in the MLB season, teams are getting ready for a final playoff push. The Hunt for October is upon us, and as I watch some of these games, a thought comes to mind. I’ve always wondered how hard it was to hit a 100 mph fast ball. I mean 100mph is really freaking fast. With the pressure on these players to get a hit, let alone contact on the ball, seems pretty difficult.

When you look into it, a pitch has about 0.4 seconds for a 95-100 mph fast ball to reach home plate. That means the hitters have less than half a second to choose if they are going to swing or not. When you compare this to the amount of time it takes for a person to voluntarily blink, which is about .15 seconds, it makes the ability to hit a baseball seem even harder. The moment of contact when a bat strikes a ball lasts just 1/1,000th of a second. The hitter has about .2 seconds from the pitchers hand to it’s release to recognize what type of pitch the pitcher has thrown.

That’s what most professional baseball players have mastered already. With having to decide to swing within a hundred milliseconds, a good eye is definitely needed. The typical reaction time for a human being is about 400 milliseconds. By recognizing what pitch is being thrown, you’ll have a more likely chance of adjusting to the pitch in order to make contact with it. Players figure out what type of pitch is being thrown by looking at the stitching on the ball. For example, if it is a 4 seam fastball, the laces are rotating over in, so you don’t really see the laces.One person who did this exceptionally well was Ted Williams. Ted Williams was the last person to hit over .400 batting average in a major league season. Like Williams said, “I think without question the hardest single thing to do in sport is to hit a baseball”. If the best hitter in the history of baseball can say that, then it must be true.

So back on November 24th, 2014, Odell Beckham Jr. broke the internet with his ridiculous one-handed catch. If you haven’t see it yet then watch this. The catch is absolutely ridiculous. You would think it’d be near impossible for him to do that again, yet Beckham Jr. is known for his practices with one handed catches. He’s mastered the art of catching with one hand so well, that he could probably go for 100 yards in a game all off one handed catches.

There must be some type of explanation as to how Odell Beckham Jr. can make these catches with such consistence. Well, ESPN’s Sports Science took Beckham Jr. into their lab to see just how he can make these catches and explain the science behind these grabs.

At 5’11”, Beckham Jr. makes his amazing catches by using his large 10 inch hand width. He has bigger hands than Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant even though Bryant stands 3 inches taller than Beckham Jr.

On a normal pass of about 45mph, Beckham’s window of opportunity to catch the ball last only 0.16 seconds. Thats about the same amount of time it takes for a football to complete a full spiral (0.15 seconds). Thus Beckham Jr. must jump 4 tenths of a second before the ball arrives, making timing an even more crucial part of his catches. In order to catch the ball, Beckham Jr. must jump and reach the ball at it’s maximum height of 8 ft, while jumping backwards at a speed of 11 mph I might add. When catching the ball at full extension, Beckham Jr. must clench the ball when it hits his hand in 8 milliseconds. He also must apply 20lbs of force to the ball and stop the 45mph pigskin in just 2 tenths of a second. Thats a lot going on during a catch of a football.

Odell Beckham Jr. has made the one-handed catch his signature move. He’s surprised all of us with his acrobatic catches and his wild antics. Odell Beckham’s catches leave us in awe, but like everything else in the world, their is a science behind it.

Ever since 1985, the NBA has held an annual lottery system which determines the order of picks for the upcoming draft. The picks of which the lottery system determines are selections 1-14. These are the teams that did not make the playoffs. The rest of the draft is ordered by win-loss record. To determine the winner, fourteen ping pong balls numbered 1–14 are placed in a standard lottery machine and four balls are randomly selected from the lot.  In all, there is a total of 1,001 lottery combinations. The lottery is weighted so that the team which finished with the worst overall record is given a 25% chance in winning the lottery. The team which finished with the second overall record is given a 19.9% chance of winning the lottery. And so on and so forth.

The term “lottery pick” denotes a draft pick whose position in the draft is through the lottery. NBA draft picks are now athletes through the U.S. College Basketball program or other eligible players, like international players. These players chosen in the lottery are expected to become superstars or cornerstone players. Research shows that since 1980, 27 out of the 35 (77%) 1st overall picks went on the become all-star players. Oddly enough more 3rd overall picks went on to become All-Stars than 2nd overall picks (2nd: 34%, 3rd: 49%). In general, teams with losing records hope to strike gold with their high lottery picks, for they could find their new face of the franchise.

It has been noted that recently, teams have been abusing the lottery system in order to land a high draft pick. I mean the system was put into place so teams wouldn’t tank a season for a high draft pick. Yet, the Philadelphia 76ers come to mind when the topic of lottery reform is brought up, for the Sixers have been accused of tampering with the system. Although they technically haven’t broken a rule yet, they are still the topic of conversation. Having a combined record of 37-127 the past two seasons, with 4 first round picks in next year’s draft, the 76ers look to the lottery in their eternal search for their next superstar ever since the departure of Allen Iverson. In all, the NBA lottery could use some reform, but it is the most surefire way in drafting a phenomenal basketball player that could turn your franchise around.

What’s up everyone, my name is Liam Matthews and I’m a freshman here at Penn State. I’m from Collegeville, PA, which is about 50 minutes outside of Philly. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved sports. I particularly followed the Sixers, Eagles, and Phillies. I could tell you anything you need to know about the 76ers and their rebuilding plan, the Eagles and their playoff aspirations, and the Phillies and their farm system. I would read any article or reading I could find on these teams. I loved keeping up to date with them, for I hope to have some type of occupation with one of these organizations. That’s part of the reason why I was originally in the college of communications. Now in DUS, I still love to follow and write about these teams. I never had a true interest in science beyond high school. I think this course will be rather interesting. I chose this course to expand my curiosity, and really learn more about all these concepts and theories. The items covered in this class interests me, but I don’t plan on majoring in Science for it doesn’t interest me the way communications does. I hope I can keep my grade up in this class while I also get enlighten by the context and concepts of the course.