We all have dreams here and there.  It’s that fuzzy, confusing feeling when you wake up and debate whether what you were just thinking about was real or not.  Other times, you wake up, even more confused, because you have this instinct feeling that you had a dream, but now it is all a blur.  Ever wonder why this happens?  Why do we remember some, and then forget others?  And ultimately: What is the science behind the memory of our dreams?

While there has always been a great interest in the interpretation of human dreams, it wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that Sigmund Freud put forth some of the most widely-known modern theories of dreaming. Freud’s theory centred around the notion of repressed longing — the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved, repressed wishes. Humans construct dream stories after they wake up, in a natural attempt to make sense of it all.  While previous studies have already indicated that people are more likely to remember their dreams when woken directly after REM sleep, new studies are digging deeper.

According to new research published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Cristina Marzano and her colleagues at the University of Rome have made significant discoveries in explaining how humans remember their dreams. The scientists predicted the likelihood of successful dream recall based on a signature pattern of brain waves. In order to do this, the Italian research team invited 65 students to spend two consecutive nights in their research laboratory.

During the first night, the students were left to sleep, allowing them to get used to the sound-proofed and temperature-controlled rooms. During the second night the researchers measured the student’s brain waves while they slept. Our brain experiences four types of electrical brain waves: “delta,” “theta,” “alpha,” and “beta.” The Italian research team used technology to measure the participant’s brain waves during the five stages of sleep, especially the REM stage.  The students were woken at various times and asked to fill out a diary detailing whether or not they dreamt, how often they dreamt and whether they could remember the content of their dreams.

Participants who exhibited more low frequency theta waves in the frontal lobes were also more likely to remember their dreams.  The researchers claimed that it is the same electrical oscillations in the frontal cortex that make the recollection of episodic memories possible. Thus, these findings suggest that the neurophysiological mechanisms that we employ while dreaming (and recalling dreams) are the same as when we construct and retrieve memories while we are awake.

Although the conclusions of the study seem logical, I found them to be completely observational.  By not providing us with any data, the study is very unconvincing and is instead based on a team of scientists’  knowledge.  I am left wondering many things.  Are these facts or assumptions and was there a difference in data between the first night and the second?  The study is missing a lot of crucial information, and therefore the central question is still unresolved.  As Andrew has mentioned in class, scientists frequently get things ‘wrong’ and our intuition is lousy.  The same goes for this study, which merely jumps to conclusions.

In another recent study conducted by the same research team, they used the latest MRI techniques and found that vivid, bizarre and emotionally intense dreams (the dreams that people usually remember) are linked to parts of the amygdala and hippocampus. While the amygdala plays a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the hippocampus has been implicated in important memory functions, such as the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory.

Here’s my take on it: I was also disappointed with the above study because even though it is a good start as to where in the brain dreams are affected, it still doesn’t tell us why our memory sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.  I am still extremely curious as to whether there is something that is hindering these parts, causing us to forget our dreams or what confounding variables could be responsible in our ability to remember them.

In a new study, conducted by Perrine Ruby, it discovered that heightened blood flow activity within certain regions of the brain could help explain the great dreamer divide. In general, dream recall is thought to require some amount of wakefulness during the night for the vision to be encoded in longer-term memory.

The study included 41 males who had their spontaneous brain activity measured with Positron Emission Tomography as they were sleeping and as they were awake. Half the volunteers were considered “high dream recallers,” and remembered their dreams about five mornings a week, on average. The other half of the volunteers were “low dream recallers,” and only remembered about two dreams a month, on average.  Researchers found that the temporo-parietal junction, which processes information within the body and externally, was higher during both sleep and wakefulness in the “high dream recallers.” They believe this could mean these people are more reactive to sounds or movements in the night and briefly awaken.

This study did not necessarily prove anything; it is still not known what causes some people to wake up more than others.  I believe that the researchers speculated that this allows these people to sense environmental noises in the night and wake up momentarily, but they have not actually tested this out to see if it is true, therefore their conclusions are invalid.  In addition, by limiting the study only to males, the study does not have a wide enough scope to account for the whole human population of dreamers.  A better study would be to include both genders and of all different ages.

SO WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?: Everyone dreams during sleep, but not everyone recalls the mental escapade the next day, and scientists are still not sure why some people remember more than others.  Overall, I was dissatisfied with the findings.  With all studies considered, many scientists may think that they have found substantial evidence on why some people are high or low dream-recallers, however there still needs to be more studies done to explain this phenomenon; and maybe one day we will understand the complex world of dreaming.

We have long been under the pre conception that private schools are better.  But is this totally accurate? Some assume that private schools offer superior everything, justifying their tuition costs. Others contend that public schools provide more real-life experiences or, in some cases, more-developed specialty programs in athletics or science.  Yet for twenty-five years, researchers have largely agreed that private school students fare better academically than do their public school counterparts.  Now, studies are challenging decades of research on the advantages of private schools, leading us to the ultimate question: Are Private Schools Really Better Than Public Schools?  Can we prove or disprove this scientifically?

We already know that scores for students in private schools tend to be higher. But is that because they’re from more affluent families…or is that because the schools are doing better? If you go back for a generation the research suggests that there is a private school effect, that even when you control for background factors, private schools seem to be more effective, particularly for certain populations, at boosting their achievement.  But, let’s see if this is entirely true.

In a well-designed study by the Center on Education Policy, it suggests vouchers for private schools are unnecessary because — once you control for socioeconomic status — students at private schools aren’t performing any better than those at public schools. The study says that it is “the kinds of economic and resource advantages their parents can give [students]” — as well as the level of parental involvement in their kids’ education —that determines success or failure in high school.  The problem isn’t necessarily in the schools; it’s with social inequality.

I was skeptical to learn that students attending traditional, district-run public schools might be outperforming their peers in charter schools and private schools because it is unheard of.  Yet, that is the bold claim at the heart of Christopher and Sarah Lubienski’s new book, The Public School Advantage.  Private school students do, in fact, score better on tests, but the authors wanted to figure out if this advantage is a genuine marker of superior education in private schools or simply an artifact of the more privileged backgrounds of the students who attend them.

To answer this, the Lubienskis decided to analyze math achievement scores. Math, they explain, is an especially good indicator of school effectiveness because it is a subject “learned primarily in school, as compared with other subjects, such as reading, which tend to be more heavily influenced by students’ experiences at home.” The authors examined two main datasets—a longitudinal study of more than 20,000 students who started kindergarten in the fall of 1998; and the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress, which surveyed more than 300,000 fourth and eighth graders.

Using sophisticated analytical tools, the authors concluded that the private-school effect is a myth. After accounting for socioeconomic status, race, and other demographic differences among students, the researchers found that public school math achievement equaled or outstripped math achievement at every type of private school in grades 4 and 8 on NAEP. The advantage was as large as 12 score points on a scale of 0 to 500 (or more than one full grade level) when the authors compared public school students with demographically similar 4th graders in conservative Christian schools.

On the basis of the data they analyzed, the Lubienskis offer two possible explanations for their findings.  First, public school teachers are more likely to be certified, meaning they are required to continue to take professional-development courses that expose them to the latest research on teaching math.  Second, perhaps as a result of that professional development, their instructional approaches more closely align with recent studies suggesting that test results improve when students know how to reason and communicate mathematical concepts rather than merely learning to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.  However, I found these claims to be more observational rather than a direct cause of their scientific findings.

The study was definitely conducted well with a large sample size and had good logic on why they chose math, however I still have a few concerns and am not convinced that the private-school effect is 100% a myth.  For one, the study does not tell us how long they are tracking the kindergartners for in the longitudinal study.  And frankly, I don’t know how helpful elementary school students scores will be, considering they are in the early stages of learning and constantly make mistakes.  I think it would be more beneficial to focus on high school students scores, SAT/ACT scores and GPA’s.  Instead of basing their conclusions on national exams, that are taken on merely one day, GPA’s reflect the grades of a student over one or more years, and would therefore be more accurate.

As you can see, the answer to the question on private vs. public schools is not black and white.  Even though private schools are known to score better than public school students, it may not be thanks to the school; it can be from their backgrounds, family life, or other factors.  While the study makes a good point that public schools could possibly be scoring better than private schools, that does not mean they’re superior.  What I have concluded is that neither are superior.  Scores vary by students and no matter which school you go to, your success is ultimately up to you.

Whether we’ve experienced it first-hand, saw it happen to a friend, or watched it in a movie, we are all familiar with the cruel act of bullying.  But what bullies don’t know is that the name-teasing, harassing texts, and social media embarrassment, is not an easy thing to shrug off; it is a truly traumatic and scarring experience that no one should have to go through.  So the question at hand is: Does a person ever recover from bullying?

We have all heard of the expression “love at first sight” too many times to count.  And even if you have never experienced falling in love before, one watch of the The Notebook gives you a pretty clear picture of it.  But have you ever wondered how it actually works?  Despite what many think that love only has to do with your heart, your brain and other parts of your body have just as much to do with it. So the real question is: Is there scientific logic behind how we fall in and experience love?

According to a science-based study by Arthur Arun, on average, the mind of a person takes between 90 seconds to 4 minutes to determine whether it is struck by love or not.  He asked his subjects to carry out the above 3 steps and found that many of his couples felt deeply attracted after the 34 minute experiment. Two of his subjects later got married.  Does this prove that love is based on science? No, however it does show a strong possibility that there is a certain methodology to how we fall in love, to which we have little control over.

My concern with the study is that he doesn’t provide any information on his subjects such as their age, their gender, or other factors.  This flaw makes his claim questionable because he doesn’t give us specifics.  In addition, attraction is a very relative term and not entirely easy to measure so it would be important to know how Arun is measuring attraction in his study.  It could be their personality, what the person is wearing, or an appealing body feature.

Some of the highlighted points of the study are as follows:
• 55% of the role is played by body language; this means a brain detects the activities of body movement and decides whether it has received the signals of love or not
• 38% of the decision to be in love is contributed by the voice—its tone and change in frequency
• 7% is the reaction to a lover’s statement or choice of words

Another recent study based on the topic “science behind the love” was conducted at Rutgers University by Helen Fisher, which revealed there are 3 stages involved with falling in love—namely lust, attraction, and attachment.  Each stage involves different types of chemical reactions within the body (specifically the brain). Along with that, there are different hormones present in the body helping to excite all these three stages (lust, attraction, and attachment) separately as well as collectively.

Stage 1: Lust

Lust is said to be the initial stage of getting involved with love. The feel of lust is basically backed up or instigated by the sexual hormones within the body.  Oestrogen and Testosterone are the two basic types of hormones present equally in men and women’s body that excites the feeling of lust within the brain.

Stage 2: Attraction

Second stage of acquiring love is attraction.  This is the phase when a person actually starts to feel the love. His or her impatience for attracting somebody leads to excitement, and the individual is left with no other option but to only think about that specific person.

Stage 3: Attachment

When a couple passes through the above two stages of love successfully, the time of bonding with each other becomes powerful. 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.

By studying MRI brain scans of people newly in love, scientists are learning a lot about the science of love: Why love is so powerful, and why being rejected is so horribly painful.  In a group of experiments, Dr. Lucy Brown, a professor in the department of neurology and neuroscience at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and her colleagues did MRI brain scans on college students who were in the throes of new love.

While being scanned, the students looked at a photo of their beloved. The scientists found that the caudate area of the brain — which is involved in cravings — became very active. Another area that lit up: the ventral tegmental, which produces dopamine, a powerful neurotransmitter that affects pleasure and motivation.  Dr. Brown said scientists believe that when you fall in love, the ventral tegmental floods the caudate with dopamine. The caudate then sends signals for more dopamine. “The more dopamine you get, the more of a high you feel,” Dr. Brown says.

Although this study shows some scientific evidence of love, I think that a stronger study would be to take people of all different ages, both genders, and see if either factors are impacted on the results.  For example, it could be possible that a female’s brain is more consumed by love than a male’s.  Or that a teenager reacts differently than a parent.  This would change the evidence dramatically.

In the end, Drs. Fisher and Brown say what they learned from lovers’ brains is that romantic love isn’t really an emotion — it’s a drive that’s based deep within our brains, right alongside our urges to find food and water.

So what does this mean?

Whether you realize it or not, significant number of chemical reactions are involved in instigating lust, attraction, attachment, and love between couples. Science has yet discovered the exact bodily reactions behind the complexity of love.  However, based upon the above studies it is clearly said that falling in love involves many mechanisms and chemicals within the brain . You simply cannot avoid the sensual reaction of love because it is scientifically wired in our bodies.

We have all eaten Oreo’s, sometimes too many, sometimes even rows, but really, who can resist?  The white stuff in between your Oreo cookies may be a “cream” filling, but new research suggests it might as well be cocaine.  Several studies have shown sugar itself is just as addictive as drugs like cocaine and often cause deadly diseases like obesity, diabetes and cancer. Health professionals are particularly concerned about our daily sugar consumption because it’s in almost everything we eat. Extremely intrigued about this discovery, I wondered: Are Oreo’s addicting in the scientific sense, and if so, how addicting are they?

Scientists have long suspected that our brains crave junk food in the same way they crave other pleasurable substances, such as illegal drugs. Previous studies in rodents and in humans have shown the same area of the brain that lights up on scans when people use drugs, also shows increased activity when study participants consume, or even look at, high fat, high sugar foods like ice cream or bacon.  Some scientists believe certain foods trigger the brain to signal for more, similar to the way addictive drugs prompt cravings; if we don’t fulfill the brain’s request, the body could produce a physical response (like caffeine headaches) similar to withdrawal symptoms.

According to a new study from Connecticut College students and a professor of neuroscience, Oreo cookies (given to lab rats) are just as addictive as cocaine. And yes, just like most of us, lab rats went for the middle of the Oreo first.  “Our research supports the theory that high-fat/high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in the same way that drugs do,” said Professor Joseph Schroeder in a statement. “It may explain why some people can’t resist these foods despite the fact that they know they are bad for them.”  Schroeder and his team found that lab rats formed an “equally strong association” between the pleasure of eating an Oreo cookie and being in the same environment as cocaine or morphine.

For the Connecticut College study, lab rats were put in a maze with an Oreo cookie on one end and a “control” food of rice cakes on the other. Of course, unsurprisingly, all of the rats went toward the Oreo first. The result? The rats gravitated toward the Oreos. The team then took these results and compared them to another study that injected lab rats with a shot of cocaine or morphine on one side of a maze and a shot of saline on the other.

When I read this, I became very skeptical because comparing the studies does NOT help prove this theory because they did not conduct the saline one nor did they perform the same kind of experimental design.  Rats, of course, don’t always behave like humans, and it remains to be seen whether Oreos are as addictive to humans as they are to rats, which is why the study is very questionable because it isn’t generalizable to humans.

Considering how extreme the accusation is of Oreo’s being as addictive as cocaine, I think that there needs to be stronger evidence to support this claim, whether it be changing the experimental design or the participants.  Others also strongly disagree with the theory that Oreo’s are as dangerous as cocaine.  Dana Smith, a science writer and PhD candidate in psychology at the University of Cambridge, is a researcher on drug addiction, and finds many faults with the studies conducted above, including relative addictiveness and lack of comparison.

“It seems like everything can make us addicted these days. Our iPhones. The internet. Oreos. But just because something is pleasurable and causes a relevant reward area of your brain to light up does not mean that it is addictive. These changes can result in feelings of craving and withdrawal, where your body has adapted to rely on the drug to feel normal. In some cases, withdrawal can be so severe that your body may actually shut down and you can die if you don’t have another hit. No matter how many Oreos you eat, this will not happen to you,” says Smith.

The sketchy part is that researchers measured the amount of time the rats spent in each half of the chamber and claim that because the two groups of mice in their experiment spent equal amount of time in the Oreo as the mice in the other experiment spent in the cocaine area, these two stimuli are equally rewarding, or “addicting.” However, they never actually compared the cocaine with the cookies! These were two completely separate groups of animals that took part in two different experiments – one testing Oreos with rice cakes and another comparing cocaine and saline.  Yes the animals showed similar behaviours in response to the drugs and to the high-fat/high-sugar food, but these things cannot be equated if they are not directly compared.  Furthermore, addiction is completely relative.  A better comparison would be a study on how how hard a rat will work for Oreos versus cocaine.

“We are biologically wired to respond to certain tastes, textures and colors, but that doesn’t mean it’s an addiction,” Gabriel Harris, an assistant professor of food science at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, told LiveScience in March.  Other factors, such as government subsidies that make junk food cheap, may be more to blame for expanding American waistlines than an outbreak of food addiction, researchers say.  More is needed to say that Oreos are as addictive as cocaine or addictive at all,” London said

The idea that junk foods can create addictive-like tendencies is not new, nor is it necessarily wrong. But the claims that this particular study makes are.  Looking at this from a cost/benefit perspective, I think that the costs of eating Oreo’s are generally low, however it is still beneficial to not overindulge in these cookies for your own health’s sake.  After hearing all sides, I am still caught in the middle of what to believe about this claim.  Both bring up good points, however I do feel that there needs to be stronger evidence in the studies to prove that Oreo’s are as addicting as cocaine.

As Thanksgiving has just passed, and the holiday season is upon us, it is often known to be a season full of yummy food…and pounds packed on.  But how entirely truthful is this theory? Is there scientific evidence that can prove or disprove holiday weight gain?

Well, according to a study from the New England Journal of Medicine, it found that people’s perceived weight gain varied between 0 and 6.7 pounds with an average of 3.5, but their actual weight gain was just under 1 pound.  The study measured body weight in a convenience sample of 195 adults. The subjects were weighed four times at intervals of six to eight weeks, so that weight change was determined for three periods: preholiday (from late September or early October to mid-November), holiday (from mid-November to early or mid-January), and postholiday (from early or mid-January to late February or early March). A final measurement of body weight was obtained in 165 subjects the following September or October.

In addition, a study from Texas Tech University conducted by Assistant Professor Jamie Cooper, followed 48 men and 100 women between the ages of 18 and 65 for the six weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. At the beginning and end of the study, researchers measured the subjects’ weights and body fa
t percentages. On average, the volunteers gained one and a half pounds (men about two pounds each, and about a pound for the women), far less than the 7 to 10 pounds often cited this time of year.

As I grew skeptical that the surplus of holiday food at family dinners alone created the extra pounds, I found some possible confounding variables that could lead to weight gain, even if it is a marginal gain.

So why do we think we’re gaining more weight than we do? One of the reasons you may feel like you’ve packed on more weight than you have is because many holiday foods trigger bloating and water retention. For example, any time you eat more carbs than usual, you store the leftovers as glycogen, the “piggy bank” reserve of carbohydrate that gets socked away in your muscle tissue.  Holding onto more glycogen than you usually do can cause you to feel sluggish, and make your jeans tighter, but as soon as you go back to your usual eating pattern, you’ll shed the surplus. Also, high sodium foods, like breads and baked goods, which don’t seem “salty” but are sodium-rich, will cause your body to hang onto excess fluid. While neither of these body shifts are fat weight, they can create a bloated look, and make you feel heavy.

Another reason, which we have heard countless times from Andrew’s lectures, is that our intuition is lousy.  We see a buffet table of food and think “wow I’m going to eat so much and get so fat.”  When in reality, we are generally eating the amount of food that we can normally handle, despite how big our eyes get.  Turns out I wasn’t alone in thinking this.

According to Paleo Leap, a diet lifestyle site, one factor is social pressure and the judgment that others give you based on what/how much you eat.  This study shows how people eating with a group tend to match their intake to the group “average.” So even if nobody’s pressuring you about it, there’s a constant psychological cue to overeat at every meal.  Another factor is stress; holiday commitments can be stressful and lead to comfort eating; and nobody comfort-eats celery sticks. In addition, cortisol (the stress hormone) also promotes weight gain, especially the dreaded “belly fat.”  Then there’s broken routines. When you’re traveling it means you spend a lot of time sitting, you get thrown off your regular exercise routine, and you aren’t always in control of your food.  Lastly, there’s emotional strings attached to holiday eating habits. If Grandma made it just for you, it gets a lot harder to refuse, especially if you have fond memories of eating it in years past.

Although I agree with the studies arguing there is not a significant weight gain during the holiday, I was still skeptical on them saying there is no real weight gain at all.  It has me wondering if for some people there is still more than a marginal gain. I propose a further study that looks at body types, preexisting conditions, gender, age, and lifestyle.  Furthermore, weight gain doesn’t equal physical condition so we would need to know other indicators of fitness AND what their normal baseline of diet is.

Science, as it turns out, has a lot more to say about holiday weight gain than “everything in moderation.” By knowing what the research actually says, it can help you go into the holiday party season feeling prepared and in charge.  In conclusion, the average holiday weight gain is less than commonly asserted. So in reality, the “holiday weight gain fear” is nothing to panic over: it’s nice to avoid it, but if you can’t, it’s not a catastrophe.  Remember that the holiday season only comes once a year and you have your whole life to worry about your eating habits!

Here at Penn State, there are 89 sororities and fraternities to choose from.  25% of the school is involved in Greek Life.  We rush first semester so within the first few weeks of school we are thrown into a crazy, competitive, scary process otherwise known as RUSH.  Rush lasts about a week.  It starts with open houses, then first rounds, second rounds, preference day, bid day.

I am currently in a sorority, but I will admit the process of getting to be in one was not a picnic in the park.  When starting off with the 18 sororities, and then slowly dwindling down, it is easy for girls to lose confidence in themselves when a sorority doesn’t ask them to come back to the next round.  I have seen countless girls crying because they felt like they were not good enough to be in one, so I decided to take a look at how sororities truly affect girl’s body images.

In a new study, it found that rushing sororities may have profoundly negative effects on body image and self esteem, as optimistic pledges are often evaluated predominantly on their outward appearance, putting a great deal of pressure on them to look hot to find a spot.  The study, “Here’s looking at you: self-objectification, body image disturbance, and sorority rush,” was published in the Feb. 2010 issue of the research journal “Sex Roles” by Northwestern University graduate Ashley Marie Rolnik.

The study followed 127 girls at a mid-size private Midwestern university between the ages of 17 and 20-years-old, 68 of whom were rushing sororities and 59 of whom were not. 67 percent of the participants were white, 16 percent were East Asian, six percent were Hispanic, two percent were African-American, four percent biracial, and five percent other.  The study attempted to determine whether or not sorority participants were more likely to practice self-objectification, defined as accepting a self-image based on an outsider’s perspective, as well as whether women rushing sororities were more likely to show signs of eating disorders.

Participants were initially asked a series of demographic and personal questions, including their age, height and weight, whether they planned to rush a sorority, and whether they participated in other extracurricular activities. The study’s respondents were entirely first-year students, who were sent e-mail surveys at four intervals, one pre-screening asking if they would be participating in rush, an initial study asking about body image and demography five days before rush, one four days into rush week, one on the seventh day of rush, the day on which students typically receive bids to commit to a sorority, and a final set of questions one month after rush. At the final interview, participants were asked their opinion of the rush process and if they had accepted a bid to be in a sorority.

The study finds that the mean score on the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT), which measures eating habits and opinions, for both rushees and non-rushees, was “well below the proposed cut-off score that indicates a clinical level of eating disturbance.”  Only women who accepted bids to sororities were included in the rush group, and only those who did not participate in rush at all were include in the non-rush group.  The study further finds that “women who participated in sorority rush had higher levels of self-objectification,” adding that there was a negative correlation between body mass index (BMI) and finishing rushing a sorority. Further, in terms of self-objectification, the process of defining oneself according to the physical standards of others, the rush group scored significantly higher.

On another metric, body-shame, which Rolnik measured according to feelings of guilt and shame in terms of appearance, time and sorority interaction were significant variables, as rush participants increased growing feelings of shame about their bodies over time and as they interacted more with fellow members.  Appearance, or perceived attractiveness, certainly had an effect on those who went through with rush.  While the study finds no causation between sororities and self-resentment, it does raise some interesting questions about who chooses to rush sororities, what they are looking for, and what issues they experience in joining a sorority.

“The most consistent finding was that women who chose to rush scored higher on self-objectification and eating disordered behavior and attitudes (particularly attitudes and behaviors associated with bulimia) compared to women who chose not to rush,” holds Rolnik. “Furthermore, the group differences in these variables were stable throughout rush and at the one-month post-test.”

In addition, a 2007 New York Times article describes how one sorority at DePauw University in Indiana dealt with what it saw as an image problem: evicting its overweight members.  “Worried that a negative stereotype of the sorority was contributing to a decline in membership that had left its Greek-columned house here half empty, Delta Zeta’s national officers interviewed 35 DePauw members in November, quizzing them about their dedication to recruitment. They judged 23 of the women insufficiently committed and later told them to vacate the sorority house,” the article reads.  The 23 women evicted were all the sorority’s overweight women, and of the 12 members allowed to stay, six quit the sorority in indignation.

I found these studies to be very thorough, as well as relevant to girls in today’s age who are rushing for a sorority.  I experienced the pressure it can cause on a first-hand basis. The study addressed many of the confounding variables and also included all different races to make the results broader and more accurate.  My only suggestion would be for there to be another study at a different college to see how it compares to the one in the first study.  This could show if some schools are more competitive with rushing than others or if it is equally competitive amongst all colleges.

Don’t get me wrong, sororities are an amazing opportunity to meet new people, get involved, become a leader, fundraise for important causes, and more.  However, along with it comes with a lot of insecurities that as a generation we should make an effort to help diminish so that girls can love themselves for who they are.

Make-up: eye shadow, bronzer, eyeliner, mascara, lipstick, lip gloss.  It really never ends.  The biggest pain to put on, but even more of a nuisance to take off.  More than $40 billion is blown on cosmetics globally each year and hundreds of hours are spent applying creams, lotions and powders.  Personally, I never wear make up to class or during the week because I don’t see the point; I prefer to wear it strictly for going out.  However, there are many people who wear it religiously.

Obviously we all aspire to look good, but do you ever wonder the scientific reasoning behind WHY we conform to norms and wear it?  Well, there are a bunch of reasons that explain why exactly we go to these lengths to look pretty.

1. Women with red lips are in fact perceived as more attractive.

Not only is it a huge confidence booster, but studies confirm that red lipstick is officially the sexiest colour.  In a study conducted by scientists at the University of Manchester, they tracked the eye movements of 50 men who were viewing different images of women and found that men spent longer fixating on the women wearing red lipstick.  They found that they spent 7.3 seconds staring at red lips, 6.7 seconds on those with pink lips, and 2.2 seconds on those who wore no lipstick.   In psychological terms, red is associated with warmth, positive energy, and motivation, with studies finding that red is the colour which excites our emotions, as well as triggering feelings strength and ambition.

2. Make-up enhances one’s eyes.

In recent research, women rated eye makeup as the Number One product enhancing other women’s facial attractiveness.  Eyeliner, eye shadow, and mascara may exaggerate facial neoteny. In other words, adults are often viewed as beautiful when they have features typical of the young, including large eyes (as well as small noses and large lips). Such exaggerated youthfulness tends to have greater appeal.

Furthermore, researchers at Procter & Gamble, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute showed a different study whose female participants were either wearing no makeup or wearing one of three different cosmetic looks — natural, professional or glamorous.  In the first study, subjects were first shown images of women, who were of different ages and ethnicities, for 250 milliseconds. In a second study, a different set of study subjects looked at the same photos for an unlimited amount of time so they could carefully inspect each face.  Study participants then rated the women in terms of competence, likability, attractiveness and trustworthiness.

“We found that when faces were shown very quickly, all ratings went up with cosmetics in all different looks,” said Nancy Etcoff, lead author and associate researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital. “The women were judged as more competent, likable, attractive and trustworthy.”

“In situations where a perceiver is under a high cognitive load or under time pressure, he or she is more likely to rely on such automatic judgments for decision-making,” the authors wrote. “Facial images appear on ballots, job applications, web sites and dating sites.”

From all of the studies, there is a strong correlation between make-up and how a person’s physical looks are perceived.  Now that doesn’t mean that a person is not pretty for not wearing make-up but it does prove that there is evidence as to why make-up is worn and why it makes a difference.  I think we would need to know more about the study and the types of people that were participants in it before establishing if this study was a causation or not.  Even with the red lipstick study, we don’t know for certain that the men were attracted to the women because of the lipstick or if the color caught their attention.  Some confounding variables could be other physical characteristics of the individual that the men were attracted to or the clothing the women were wearing.  Cosmetics can make a woman more attractive, but it is not certain if these results were a fluke or not.

Needless to say, you are beautiful whether you choose to wear makeup or not. Don’t feel pressured to wear make up because other women do.  At the end of the day, have fun with your makeup and apply what you are comfortable wearing.

When going to the movies, it is easy and natural to pass by the food concession stand, with its popcorn and candies lighting up inside the glass, and follow that urge inside of you that’s begging for a snack to accompany you during the movie.  Most people know that the food provided at the movie theater is bad for you but what people DON’T realize is that there is a bigger issue upon us: we are indulging in popcorn, candy, and soda when we’re not even hungry.

Heather Fink, a registered dietitian with Indiana University Health Sports Performance, gave Medical Daily the scoop on how to stay healthy while enjoying a night out at the theater. She assures it’s possible to enjoy a movie without snacks. Even though most people associate food and movies, they do not have to go hand in hand.

“This is a problem across the board. We associate a particular event, like watching a movie, or we could be watching TV or whatever kind of scenario, we automatically assume that goes with eating. And it can, but it doesn’t have to, especially if a person isn’t hungry then there would be really no reason that you would have to be eating while you watch a movie,” Fink told Medical Daily.

The study was conducted by American professor Dr. Brian Wansink, who is also the author of the best-selling book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think.  158 moviegoers were randomly given a medium or a large container of free popcorn that was either fresh or 14 days old. Following the movie, consumption measures were taken, along with measure of perceived taste. The findings indicated that people consume just as much popcorn, even if it’s stale. Also, people ate significantly more popcorn when it was given to them in a large container.

I think this study definitely shows that people are eating food mindlessly and turning it into a bad habit, especially due to the credibility of the author.  However I would have liked to see how many people ate the stale popcorn to see if there was a significant amount who fell into the trap.  Just like the sugary drinks study we talked about in class, there are many other possible third variables such as age, physical activity, etc.  One suggestion I would have for this study is to see if peer pressure has anything to do with the problem.  Many people travel to the movies in groups and when one person gets popcorn, everyone else follows.  I think that this factor would be interesting to see if it affects the results.

This study suggests that are we becoming a society that physically doesn’t know how to watch a movie without a snack. Fink recommends that if someone goes to the movies and is actually hungry that they should go for healthier salty and sweet options to carry along, like pretzels, dried fruit, or trail mix. These will satisfy their cravings while not hurting their health drastically.

Now I know that not everyone is snack dependent at the movies, but if you are, take a moment to make sure you are actually hungry!!

Pizza: one of the most easily accessible and delicious foods on the planet, however also one of the most caloric.  Have you ever watched the person eating next to you press their napkin on top of their pizza and think “Why?! Whats the point?”  I sure have.  In fact, I believed that these people were RUINING their pizza experience.  But it turns out there is a point to this peculiar activity.

In a poll conducted by the New York Daily News, 675 people (45%) voted “Of Course I Blot,” whereas 822 people (55%) voted “Gimmie That Greasy Slice!”  Clearly dabbing pizza grease off isn’t a popular choice, but it may become one if more evidence is proven that it is significantly healthier for you.

Blotting can be especially controversial in New York, where many connoisseurs typically fold their slices and allow some grease to drain off in between bites.  According to LabDoor magazine, there is a new study based on a slice from Domino’s that reveals that soaking up pizza grease with a napkin each time you eat can save you the equivalent of 20 slices of pizza per year, more than 6, 600 calories.  The study claims that dabbing a single piece of pizza results in 40.5 fewer calories and 4.5 fewer fat grams per slice.  The findings are based on the statistic that the average American eats 23 pounds of pizza each year. If this is the case, dabbing your pizza would save you 390 grams of fat per year and could take 1.9 pounds off your waistline, according to the study.

The LabDoor study really opened my eyes to the difference that this small effort can make on one’s health, but I do realize that this study may not be completely accurate or strong enough to prove.  There are a lot of confounding variables such as how a restaurant prepares its pizza, its ingredients, thin vs. thick crust, toppings, etc.  However, I really don’t believe this study could have been a fluke because it makes sense: the more grease there is, the MORE calories there are.  I would still like to have seen more information such as the sample size and if it was controlled or not.

More high-end pizzerias such as Grimaldi’s use better ingredients when crafting their pies — which mean less grease.  “We’re using a fresh mozzarella, not a processed mozerella,” said Gina Peluso, manager of the Brooklyn location.

Another thing that the study didn’t take into account is the health conditions of the participants.  Just like how we discussed in class how people who are genetically predisposed to obesity are more strongly affected by sugary drinks, the same goes for those affected by pizza.  If a person who is obsese or more prone to obesity, may not see any difference in their consumption of blotted pizza vs. non blotted.  I think investigating this factor would be important in seeing if people actually lose weight from blotting their pizza or not.

I’ll admit I have never been a pizza-blotter and I don’t know if I ever will be, but after reading this study, I’m happy to be aware of this discovery and know that when I’m ever eating pizza and want to feel a little less bad at myself, all I have to do is grab a napkin.  Less oil, less problems!

E-cigarettes have triggered a fierce debate among health experts who share the same goal — reducing the disease and death caused by tobacco. But they disagree about whether e-cigarettes make the problem better or worse.

Opponents say that because nicotine is addictive, e-cigarettes could be a “gateway drug,” leading nonsmokers and kids to use tobacco. They also worry that manufacturers — with huge advertising budgets and celebrity endorsements — could make smoking popular again. That would roll back decades of progress in getting people to quit or never start smoking.  When you stop using it, you can get withdrawal symptoms including feeling irritable, depressed, restless and anxious. It can be dangerous for people with heart problems. It may also harm your arteries over time.

Others look at possible benefits for smokers. “Obviously, it would be best if smokers could quit completely,” says Michael Siegel, MD, MPH, a professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health. “But if that’s not possible, I think they’d be a lot better off with e-cigarettes. They’re a safer alternative.”

According to an article from Web of Science, electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are devices designed to deliver nicotine to the body via the route of inhalation. The principle of operation is based on heating a nicotine solution in propylene glycol and/or glycerine (e-liquid), turning it into aerosol (commonly called ‘vapour’), which is then inhaled by the user. The scientific evidence on the health consequences of long-term e-cigarette use is sparse and currently inconclusive.  Young people are the most vulnerable group to initiate use of e-cigarettes. The novelty of the e-cigarette, perceptions about the harmlessness of the product, a wide variety of flavours (fruit, chocolate, peanut butter, bubble gum, gummy bear, amongst others), and peer-influence are just a few examples of factors contributing to the e-cigarette popularity among youth.

Ravindra Rajmane, M.D., a professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, tells Newsmax TV’s Meet the Doctors program that e-cigarettes can be safer alternative to tobacco use, but that doesn’t mean the devices don’t pose health risks of their own.  Since e-cigarettes are virtually unregulated there is no way to know precisely what chemicals and contaminant might be in the vapors users are inhaling.

In one study, Professor Christina Gratziou and her team set out to determine what the short-term effects of smoking with e-cigarettes might be on different individuals, including those with no known health problems, as well as existing smokers with and without lung conditions.  They carried out experiments on 32 volunteers; of whom 8 were lifetime non-smokers and 24 were current regular smokers. Some of them had healthy lungs, while others lived with asthma or COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).

They were asked to use an electronic cigarette for 10 minutes, inhaling the vapors into their lungs. A spirometry test, as well as some others diagnostic procedures were used to measure their airway resistance. Airway resistance is used in respiratory physiology to measure the resistance of the respiratory tract to airflow coming in during inspiration (inhalation) and going out during expiration (exhalation).  They found that using an e-cigarette caused an instant increase in airway resistance that lasted for 10 minutes in the majority of the participants.  Non-smokers, even among lifetimes non-smokers, using an e-cigarette for ten minutes raised their airway resistance to 206% from 182% (mean average); the researchers described this as a “significant increase”.  With current regular among existing regular smokers, the spirometry tests revealed a significant rise in airway resistance to 220%, from 176% after using one e-cigarette for ten minutes.

I found this study to be fair because it had a good balance of smokers vs. non-smokers so we could see how it affects a wide range of people.  This topic reminds me of when we discussed in class if smoking is correlated with lung cancer.  It took over 100 years to ‘establish’ that answer and it might take the same for these e-cigarettes.  Although there is strong evidence that e-cigarettes are harmful, we still won’t know the answer until more experiments are done.

Since it is not definitively known that e-cigarettes have harmful effects due to how new it is, it is important to take the possible dangers into consideration.  We don’t know for certain yet if e-cigarettes are the right or wrong choice, but that may not be a risk you want to take when it comes to your health.

Childhood obesity is a major public health problem, and its incidence has increased dramatically over the last decade.  There are so many factors that can cause one’s obesity such as genetics, parenting, food choices, etc.  But what some people don’t know is the influence that television can have on a child’s physical health.

Children increase their risk of becoming obese by 7% for every hour of TV watched on weekends at the age of 5.  In addition, children watching more than 2 hours per day on weekends are more likely to become obese adults.  This is alarming.

Research conducted at Harvard first linked TV watching to obesity more than 25 years ago. Since then, extensive research has confirmed the link between TV viewing and obesity in children and adults, in countries around the world. And there’s good evidence that cutting back on TV time can help with weight control—part of the reason why many organizations recommend that children and teens limit TV/media time to no more than two hours per day.  Researchers have hypothesized that TV watching could promote obesity in several ways: displacing time for physical activity; promoting poor diets; giving more opportunities for unhealthy snacking (during TV viewing); and even by interfering with sleep.

On National Center for Biotechnology Information, the relationship between television viewing and obesity has been examined in a relatively large number of cross-sectional epidemiologic studies but few longitudinal studies.  Several experimental studies of reducing television viewing recently have been completed. Most of these studies have not tested directly the effects of reducing television viewing behaviors alone, but their results support the suggestion that reducing television viewing may help to reduce the risk for obesity or help promote weight loss in obese children. Finally, one school-based, experimental study was designed specifically to test directly the causal relationship between television viewing behaviors and body fatness. The results of this randomized, controlled trial provide evidence that television viewing is a cause of increased body fatness and that reducing television viewing is a promising strategy for preventing childhood obesity.  However, this study could have been a lot more convincing if they included the sample size and other information the reader needs to take into account.

According to the International Journal of Obesity on Google Scholars, obesity prevalence has increased as a function of the number of hours that TV networks devote to target children populations.  TV shows and cartoon programmes addressed to a very young audience are now aired every day on both public/nation-wide and private/commercial channels.  In more recent years, even pay channels exclusively devoted to children have extensively spread all over the world.  Most of times the new way of approaching children with dedicated programmes is sponsored by companies producing toys and/or unhealthy food, including high-calorie, high-sugar, high-fat and high-salt products.

In another study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , it found that the more hours spent watching television, the more likely children were to be both fatter and less physically active. 89 children from Scotland between the ages of 2-6 years were recruited for the study, in which total energy expenditure and physical activity were measured, and the parents asked to fill out questionnaires detailing television viewing habits. The researchers found a significant association between the number of hours of television watched per day and body fat mass, with every extra hour/day spent watching television associated with a 2.2 pound increase in body fat.

However, the increased fatness could not explained solely by the differences in physical activity, and the researchers concluded that additional factors, such as changes in eating patterns associated with television viewing, played a part in this as well.  I found this study to be a good indicator of the negative influence that television can have on the body, but I do realize that television is not the only factor that this study’s results can be based off of.  There are definitely many confounding factors in these studies that are not taken into consideration such as quantity of food, quality of food, physical activity, etc, which somewhat weakens these studies.

We have many reasons to limit and reduce children’s television watching time in order to prevent an obesity epidemic.  Of course not all people are obese due to excessive watching of television, but there is significant evidence that shows it leads to an unhealthy lifestyle.  It’s important to not have the television on during meal times and it would also be beneficial to keep the TV’s out of children’s rooms.  So, be careful how much you watch–it could affect your whole future without you even realizing!

Clowns are not exactly everyone’s biggest fans.  They often come off as scary and intimidating, especially for children.  You have probably witnessed a friend, a family member, a stranger, or even yourself express fright when encountering a clown at a circus or birthday party.  And there’s actually a name for this fear: coulrophobia.  However, since it is not an old phobia, but one that increased in recent decades, little is known about coulrophobia.  I, for one, was never scared of them, but I am very curious about what triggers this fear!

With coulrophobia, there are many different reasons why psychologists believe people fear clowns.  Scientists and doctors now agree that it is a result of not knowing who lies behind the excessive makeup, red nose and hair color.  Clown makeup and clothing makes them unrecognizable as humans; this unfamiliarity causes people to panic.  The clown makeup often limits the amount of expressions they can display or worse, over-exaggerates them; they don’t talk like normal people.  Another reason is that many people choose to dress up as “evil clowns” during costume parties and Halloween, thus helping to contribute to the fears of others.

But overall, it is the unfamiliarity of clowns that seems to provoke people’s fears the most. On at least a subconcious level, people with coulrophobia are left wondering things like, “Just what IS under that makeup?” Basically, clowns just don’t appear to be human, and that is what frightens people more than anything.

Accordingto Rami Nader, a psychologist and director of the North Shore Stress and Anxiety Clinic in North Vancouver, B.C., the psychological roots of the phobia may be traced to the fact that clowns are basically wearing disguises while displaying artificial emotions (even silly ones) that perhaps hide their true feelings.

“You can’t really tell who they are,” he says. “You can’t really see their face. You don’t really know what that all means behind the mask.”

Nader says he only rarely sees people with the disorder, however, coulrophobia is common enough to warrant at least one study, conducted by the University of Sheffield in England in 2008.  Researchers asked more than 250 children (ages four to 16) what they thought of the idea of using clown imagery to decorate a hospital children’s ward. According to Dr. Penny Curtis, who helped conduct the study, “We found that clowns [were] universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable.”

Coulrophobia is found to be much more prevalent in children, and in fact the majority of children are at least made uncomfortable by clowns.  The phobia is estimated to afflict around 12 percent of American adults, and the numbers may be similar in other countries.

So, if you do have coulrophobia, the important thing to take away from this is that you’re far from being alone in your fear. Even if you don’t happen to know anyone else who has it, there are many others out there who are just like you when it comes to their reactions to clowns!  And if you do know people who have this fear, now you can understand their phobia better and can help them get through it!

We have often been told by others, “dark chocolate is healthy!”  However, it’s a little difficult to believe considering chocolate is pure sugar and can be very fattening.  I have always been a fan of dark chocolate but I never considered it a “healthy” food choice.  I am among the people very skeptical about it, so I decided to give into my curiosity and find out for myself what exactly constitutes dark chocolate as healthy.  And I’m sure others will have a better understanding on the science behind this phenomenon as well!

So what is it about dark chocolate?  The answer is plant phenols — cocoa phenols, to be exact.  Studies show that eating a small amount of dark chocolate two or three times each week can help lower your blood pressure.  Emphasis on small.  If you stick to a small quantity, dark chocolate can improve blood flow and may help prevent the formation of blood clots.

Eating dark chocolate may also prevent arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries).  It also increases blood flow to the brain as well as to the heart, so it can help improve cognitive function, and can even reduce your risk of stroke.  In fact, researchers at  the Johns Hopkins University found that dark chocolate shields cells in your brain, and accordingly protects it from damage caused by stroke.  This really impressed me!

Dark chocolate is loaded with many antioxidants. Antioxidants help free your body of free radicals, which cause oxidative damage to cells. Free radicals are implicated in the aging process and may be a cause of cancer, so eating antioxidant rich foods like dark chocolate can protect you from many types of cancer and slow the signs of aging.

Dark chocolate also contains some of the following vitamins and minerals in high concentrations: potassium, copper, magnesium, and iron.  The copper and potassium in dark chocolate help prevent against stroke and cardiovascular ailments. The iron in chocolate protects against iron deficiency anemia, and the magnesium in chocolate helps prevent type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. 

In a Harvard study, it found that eating a small square of dark chocolate daily can help lower blood pressure for people with hypertension.  The study joins the growing research into the heart-healthy benefits of flavonoids, compounds in unsweetened chocolate that cause dilation of the blood vessels.  The study analyzed 24 chocolate studies involving 1,106 people. It found that dark chocolate, the kind that contains at least 50 to 70 percent cocoa, lowered blood pressure in all participants, but most notably in those with hypertension.

Eric Ding of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a coauthor of the study, says researchers also found that chocolate increased insulin sensitivity, good for lowering diabetes risk.  Dark chocolate also appears to affect cholesterol. The Harvard researchers found some evidence for a small decrease in LDL (bad) cholesterol and a significant increase in HDL (good) cholesterol.  This combined evidence definitely expanded my opinion of dark chocolate in a positive way!

It might seem too good to be true, but as you can see, there is real scientific proof that dark chocolate is good for you!  Now I’m not saying I’m going to live and breathe dark chocolate now (even though I wish I could) but I feel a little less guilty now about indulging in a piece or two here and there!  So if you’re going to treat yourself to some chocolate, definitely pick dark because you can be doing your body some good while enjoying something tasty!

In today’s age, we are a generation of social media addicts.  Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, you name it.  When we’re not scrolling through these apps or websites, we literally get withdrawal from them.  Ever wonder about the scientific reasoning behind our social media obsessions?  Well, you’re about to find out.

If you’ve ever felt the desperate urge to check that new e-mail, Twitter reply or refresh your Instagram feed, it’s because of the dopamine in your brain.  In a blog I found, it says that dopamine is a chemical produced in various parts of your brain and controls moods, your motivation and sense of reward.  Dopamine means that the anticipation is greater than the reward: the urge to check that text is greater than the satisfaction we feel once we’ve read it and we can sometimes experience a little low when the text wasn’t what we expected.

Part of what makes the internet and its messages so attractive to your dopamine systems is that it’s unpredictable. Dopamine is stimulated by uncertainty; not knowing everything. So, when we get an alert on our phone, we’re unsure. It could be anything, a text, e-mail, a reply on Twitter or a Facebook message, we don’t know until we check it out nor do we know who’s it from or what it’s about. Dopamine loves that.

According to a new study from UCLA, when we need a mental break, that’s our brains craving social interaction.  “The social nature of our brains is biologically based,” said lead researcher Matthew Lieberman, Ph.D., a UCLA professor of psychology and of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences. “When I want to take a break from work, the brain network that comes on is the same network we use when we’re looking through our Facebook timeline and seeing what our friends are up to.”

The researchers showed study participants photos of people, similar to the kind you see on social media.  Each picture was captioned with either a physical description of the person or a statement about how the person was feeling. People looking at the emotion-captioned pictures experienced major activity in their prefrontal cortex, revealing a social connection just from gazing at a photo. They found the same pattern of brain behavior when people took a mental break, leading them to conclude that we’re wired to seek out other people whenever we’re not working.

Blame that Facebook stalking on your dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, the brain structure responsible for making us see the world through a social lens. When this part of your brain is activated, you’re more perceptive of other people and can make faster judgments about what emotions they may be feeling—about 10 percent faster, to be exact.

In addition, a recent study by Harvard University shows evidence as to why social media platforms are so popular and highly addictive for many people.  Through a series of experiments, the researchers learned that the act of disclosing information about oneself activates the same part of the brain that is associated with the sensation of pleasure, the same pleasure that we get from eating food, getting money or having even having sex.

The study made it clear that our brain considers self-disclosure to be a rewarding experience nonetheless.  In the experiments, the Harvard researchers asked test subjects a series of questions about their and others’ opinions while hooked up to an MRI machine. The researchers found that the regions of the brain associated with reward were strongly engaged when people were talking about themselves, and less engaged when they were talking about someone else.  Not only do we use social media to stay connected with others, but we also use it as a way to boost our self-esteem.

Even though social media use is usually harmless, it’s important to not become too dependent on it and have an extreme addiction.  Just like how we discussed in class the correlation between texting and test grades, too much social media activity can impact academics, relationships, and other parts of one’s life.

We should all be aware of why we are so drawn to social media but we should all be equally aware of how much time we spend using it!!  Try to have as much willpower as you can and don’t neglect all your responsibilities for your iPhone!

Ever fall asleep while Insta-scrolling on your smartphone—or purposely leave it on your bed while you snooze? You’re not alone: 44 percent of cell phone owners have snoozed with their phone next to their bed to make sure they didn’t miss any crucial calls or texts, according to the Pew Internet Project. But while you may think nothing of it, snuggling up to your phone could be hazardous to your health.

Just like how we discussed in class how the brightness of a TV at night can cause physical and mental problems, light from electronic devices is also not a good idea.  Most teenagers physically cannot go to sleep without first scrolling through their phone, laptop, or tablet, anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.  I’ll admit I fall victim to this habit too.  However, what most people don’t realize is that the glow of these electronic devices in pitch darkness is actually disrupting us from getting a good night’s sleep, especially when the devices are kept on all night.

Cell phones (and tablets, TVs, and other gadgets with LED screens) give off what’s known as blue light—a type that studies suggest can inhibit the production of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin and disrupt our circadian rhythms. This may be because blue light emits wavelengths similar to daylight, which can make our bodies think it’s daytime, at any time.

Easing into bed with a tablet or a laptop makes it harder to take a long snooze, especially for sleep-deprived teenagers who are more vulnerable to the effects of light than adults.  During adolescence, the circadian rhythm shifts, and teens feel more awake later at night.  Switching on a TV show or playing on your phone just before bedtime will push off sleepiness even later.  The next-day result?  Drowsy students struggling to stay awake, despite the caffeinated drinks many now consume.

There was a study published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes that concluded using a smartphone late at night also makes you feel depleted in the morning, thereby making you less focused and engaged at work.  Researchers found that smartphone use after 9 p.m. was associated with decreased sleep quantity at night. That decreased sleep quantity was associated with morning depletion the next day, and morning depletion was associated with decreased work engagement for that day.

“Smartphones are almost perfectly designed to disrupt sleep,” study researcher Russell Johnson, an assistant professor of management at Michigan State University, said in a statement. “Because they keep us mentally engaged late into the evening, they make it hard to detach from work so we can relax and fall asleep.”

Exposure to excessive light at night could be doing more than hurting our ability to work the next day, too. A recent policy adopted by the American Medical Association recognizes that light at night — including that from screens — could increase the risk of disease, such as cancer, in addition to its sleep-disrupting effects.  Using your cell phone definitely isn’t worth it.

To fall asleep when you want (and need) to, you should power down all electronics an hour or two before bedtime.  Although it may seem like a hassle, it is much more beneficial for you in the long term.  So try to keep your phone far away when you’re trying to sleep; it will still be there for you in the morning!

We all have our own addictions and among mine is definitely coffee.  I started drinking it my junior and senior year of high school; little did I realize how dependent I would be on it in college, like most college students are.  Coffee has many pros and cons but I want to shed light on the benefits it can have that many people are often not aware of.

Coffee is actually very healthy.  It is loaded with antioxidants and beneficial nutrients that can improve your health.  Just like in class when we discussed “is smoking bad for you?” there is not necessarily only one right answer, however I am here to prove that coffee can be good for you.

Studies show that coffee drinkers have a much lower risk of several serious diseases.  Those who drink coffee, compared to those who don’t, are less likely to have type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia.  Type 2 diabetes is characterized by elevated blood sugars in the context of insulin resistance or an inability to secrete insulin.  Although this may not seem like a big deal to people who know very little about the disease, type 2 diabetes is actually a gigantic health problem that is currently afflicting about 300 million people worldwide.

In addition, caffeine blocks an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, which leads to a stimulant effect. This improves energy levels, mood and various aspects of brain function.  Caffeine can also increase adrenaline levels and release fatty acids from the fat tissues, which leads to significant improvements in physical performance.  The New York Times reports, “Scientists and many athletes have known for years, of course, that a cup of coffee before a workout jolts athletic performance.”  Coffee is so important for athletes who are constantly staying active and being drained of energy.

What’s even more amazing is that coffee consumption has been linked to lower levels of suicide.  A study done by the Harvard School of Public Health determined that drinking between two and four cups of coffee can reduce the risk of suicide in men and women by about 50 percent.  The proposed reason is because coffee acts as a mild antidepressant by adding in the production of neurotransmitters like serotonin and noradrenaline.

Contrary to popular belief, coffee does have many potential health benefits.  A cup of coffee is in fact therapeutic and can positively impact a person’s day or even the rest of his or her life.  Of course, it depends on individual consumption, but moderate amounts of coffee are good for most people.  So enjoy that early morning Starbucks cup guilt-free; it can be improving your health without you even realizing!

Hi guys, my name is Rebecca Schneider and I’m from Livingston, NJ. I’m a freshman at Penn State with a major in Journalism. I’ve never been a science person ever since I was in middle school; English was always my strong suit.  So like most communications majors, I freaked out when I found out at NSO that a science course was required.  I decided that this one looked the most appealing.  Although I will most definitely not be a science major in the future, I can already tell this course will be interesting and useful for the future!

This right here is an addicting shopping website.

Since I love to instagram food, here’s a picture (not mine though) of a donut ice cream sandwich from Holey Cream, where I went once, and which, in my opinion, is one of the yummiest (and artsiest) food places in New York City.