I want to begin my blog by stating with great philosopher Plato’s quote: “Music is a moral low. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. ”

Indeed, music, its rhythm and melody works emotionally on all living creatures. Music can appease and energize, mollify and embitter, be evocative or cause aggression. Music has another important feature- it reacts physiologically upon the brain.

Here are some examples of how classical and rock music influence humans and other living organisms

Scientists in the US and Bulgaria independently have discovered that music of Mozart is enhancing mental activity and developing intellectual level. In 1995 neurobiologist- Gordon Shaw and his colleague- psychologist Frances Rauscher from the California University, experimented with 79 college students in Irvin.

Students were divided into three groups. First group students were kept in silence for 10 minutes, second group students were listening to some audio book and students in the third group were listening to piano sonata of Mozart. Students were tested before and after the audio sessions. And results were as following:

The first group students improved their results by 14%, the second group by 11% and the third group results were improved by 62%. Within 10 minutes students by listening the Mozart music increased their IQ by 8-10 points.

All independent researches show that rock music has strong negative influence on human mentality. Bob Larsen studied such influence and according to his study the low frequency oscillation generated by loud rock musician affects the spinal fluid. Listening to heavy metal disturbs balance of several glands which leads to unstable hormonal area.

Another interesting experiment conducted by scientist David Elkin, through which proved that the poignant music provokes folding of the eggwhite. On a rock concert in front of the loudspeaker Elkin put a raw egg. By the end of the concert, three hours later the egg was “cooked” .

It turns out that animals and plants can also “hear” music, actively responding to it.

Even in the nineteenth century in the famous monastery –Brittany, nuns performed classical music especially for domesticated animals; and noticed that after “listening” to Mozart’s serenades cows give milk 2 times more.

The first experiments on the effect of music on plants in 1973 was held by a student-  of the Colorado university-Dorothy Retallack. She gave plants to listen to the music of two different radio stations. In the first room, three hours a day sounded Rock. In the second – the radio for three hours a day to play an easy music.

Under the influence of light music plants grew healthy, their stems were drawn to radio. Heavy music, on the other hand, suppressed them, the leaves grew small, turning away from the speakers and 16 days later plants died!

Summarizing all examples from the above, I can say that I did lots of research on this topic and looked up on many various experiments. I consider the data for each conclusion was somewhat valid as mostly the studies were designed in experimental way. I also believe that Shaw’s and Rauscher’s study could’ve been more precise.  To begin with their study was randomized, so they didn’t know whether most of smart people were placed in the “Mozart” room and vice-versa. Also small sample size means that there could be a third variables affecting the conclusion of the study.

Sources:

http://dokumentika.org/meditsina/vozdeystvie-muziki-na-cheloveka

http://doroga-istin.ru/index.php?topic=433.0

http://www.epochtimes.com.ua/ru/health/health/effekt-motsarta-103330.html

One of the most appealing sciences for me is genetic engineering. The power of this science is growing from day to day and in this blog post I’m going to be talking about an intriguing, but at the same time very interesting topic- cloning.

But, first of all, what is cloning? Cloning – a method for isolating and identifying DNA fragments, as well as receive them in unlimited quantities. First cloning experiment dates back to more than hundred years, Hans Spemann split the two-cell embryo salamander equally and was able to grow a full body, from each divided part. Spemann’s discovery was then followed many other attempts to recreate a clone, but the most famous and long-living clone was a sheep named Dolly. It was a first clone created on the basis of the genetic material of an adult, not a fetus or embryo as its predecessors. However, the source of DNA, according to the assumption of some scientists, caused several problems in cloned sheep. The ends of the chromosomes in the body of Dolly – the telomeres – were as short as that of its nuclear donor – adult sheep. Enzyme called telomerase is responsible for the lengths of the fragment in a body. In the case of an adult mammal organism- only the fabric of stem cells and reproductive cells are constantly extending, whereas all other cells in a body shorten after each division. When the chromosomes reach a critical length, the cell stops dividing. That’s why telomerase is considered one of the main intracellular mechanisms that regulate life span of cells.Today, it is hard to say exactly whether Dolly’s old chromosomes were the primary cause of her early death. She lived 6.5 years, which is slightly more than half the normal sheep lifespan. Experts were forced to kill Dolly, as she developed a virus called adenomatosis (benign tumors) of the lungs and severe arthritis. Common sheep also often suffer from these diseases, but more often at the end of life, so excluding the hypothesis of telomere length is obviously impossible. Scientists who wanted to test this hypothesis, could not confirm it: artificial “aging of” cell nuclei through their long-term cultivation in vitro gave a completely opposite result: the length of the telomeres in the chromosomes of newborns greatly increased and even surpassed normal levels. Telomeres of cloned animals may be shorter than their ordinary counterparts, but this is not the only problem. Most mammalian embryos obtained by cloning dies. The moment of birth is also critical. Newborn clones often suffer from gigantism, die from respiratory distress, developmental defects of the kidneys, liver, heart, brain, and the lack of white blood cells in the blood. And after that, scientists and people still ask themselves… is cloning really dangerous?Many people argue against cloning, claiming that this is unethical and has limitation in religious and social aspects. However I personally disagree with that opinion. Science of genetics is a great opportunity to explore life, find cures for the diseases and make huge breakthroughs in medicine. In my support, I can bring an example of a study, where 2 research groups have independently produced human embryonic stem-cell lines from embryos cloned from adult cells. First team researchers led by Young Gie Chung and Dong Ryul Lee at the CHA University in Seoul reported in Cell Stem Cell that they had cloned embryonic stem-cell (ES cell) lines made using nuclei from two healthy men, aged 35 and 75. And in a paper published on Nature‘s website today, a team led by regenerative medicine specialist Dieter Egli at the New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute describes ES cells derived from a cloned embryo containing the DNA from a 32-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes. The researchers also succeeded in differentiating these ES cells into insulin-producing cells.

Sources:

Baker, Monya. “Stem Cells Made by Cloning Adult Humans.” Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, 28 Apr. 2014. Web. 04 Dec. 2015. <http://www.nature.com/news/stem-cells-made-by-cloning-adult-humans-1.15107>

Tachibana, M. et al. Cell 153, 1228–1238 (2013).

Chung, Y. G. et al. Cell Stem Cell http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2014.03.015 (2014).

Yamada, M. et al. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13287 (2014).

Sparman, M. L., Tachibana, M. & Mitalipov, S. Int. J. Dev. Biol. 54, 1671–1678 (2010).

Researches show that for the mental development you have to choose the latter.

Scientists say, that learning of foreign languages literary causes the brain grows or rather growth related only to some of the brain parts such as hippocampus and cortex of hemisphere.

This statement is proved by the experiment held in Academy of Translators in Sweden. Recently freshmen were offered to study difficult foreign languages such as Russian, Arabic and Dari language. They had to study for many hours every day. At the same time the scientists were investigating students of the medical university which were also working hard. Participants’ brains from both of groups were MRI scanned in the beginning of the experiment and three month later. MRI images showed that brain structure of the medical students had not changed. But students from the language studying group had enlarged their brain areas responsible for digestion of the new knowledge (hippocampus), long memory and spatialization.

It is also known as a fact that bilinguals have better capabilities for concentration.

Professor Viorica Marian from the Northwest University had been studying for a long time what impact foreign languages have on brain. Already fifteen years ago she noticed that people speaking more than one language can easier choose words. Due to their large vocabulary they can instantly truncate the “incorrect” options.

In her last study, Professor Marian decided to find out which processes take place in the human brain when they hear different words. She divided 20 volunteers into two groups: bilinguals and the ones that knew only one language. The professor used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to observe which brain areas became more active during solving the cognitive tasks.

Participants were told different words, for example “candy” and were asked to choose one picture out of four which had the image of candy and one more picture which had an image of the object sounded similar to candy, for example “candle”

MRI showed that some brain areas became more active during the process for people who knew only one language. This means they had to put more effort for choosing the right picture. “It works like a traffic light, – explains Viorica Marian. – For one language bilinguals always turn on the green light and for the other language – the red light. When you do this all the time, you learn to block the words that are not required.”

According to Professor Marian, this ability is useful not only for choosing words but also for making decisions in general. “Whether we drive a car or conduct a surgery, it is necessary to concentrate on the main event and ignore the bye.”

Scientists also assert that studying a foreign language improves the memory and musical skills, prevents from Alzheimer’s disease.

But I think besides the mental improvements, learning foreign languages has also a cultural aspect. As for the experiment, in my view it was well-conducted. Due to the fact that the trial was non-randomized, Professor Marian obtained the most accurate results; however, as always, the result could’ve been gained by chance, as there is always a possibility for a confounding variables and in addition, if increased the sample size, I believe Pr. Marian’s data would be even more stronger.

Ludwig Wittgenstain said: “The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” In other words, when we learn foreign languages we enlarge our world. The more languages we speak the greater is the knowledge of the world. This gives us an opportunity to communicate and understand people from around the world, from different countries and different cultures.

Sources:

http://bibo.kz/hochu-znat/963942-inostrannyy-yazyk-i-razvitie-mozga-6-udivitelnyh-faktov.html

http://es-eschool.ru/blog_es/izvestnye-poligloty-znanie-yazykov-i-pamyat.html

http://medportal.ru/mednovosti/news/2014/11/13/001language/

One of the most pressing questions of current days, is the discovery of new planets in the entire space. It is a confirmed fact that our planet is running out of resources, experiences global warming, and overall from day to day might become unsuitable for living on it. And even though there is no threat to our planet right now, scientists are still looking for alternative ways of solution. One possible solution is massive migration to Mars. This topic has created resonance and was described as “Colonization of Mars”.

After watching the Martian movie, I became more interested in this topic and stared doing research. My main question was, will humans eventually end up living on Mars? But before making a valid conclusions I would like to go over details I researched.

First of all, scientists from NASA have proven that there is huge amount of water on Mars (5 million cubic kilometers). Water is essential, for any sort of life to start. However the main drawback is that the water is frozen and scientist don’t have enough technologies to melt it down. Secondly the atmosphere on Mars is very thin and made almost entirely of CO2. Due to presence of water scientists theoretically can solve the problem by applying electrolysis of water, which would break it into hydrogen and oxygen. Another problem is solar radiation, unlike Earth, Mars doesn’t have magnetic fields which serve as barrier against radiation. On the other hand it is still possible to grow vegetables. Many people claimed that is impossible, as insufficient amount of sun heat reaches Mars. But scientists discovered that Devon Island, Canada has almost identical climate conditions as Mars, and still it is possible to grow food. In addition, among other 7 planets of our solar system Mars has the best conditions for living.

Recently I have read an interesting article about one way trip to Mars. The mission is called “Mars One” and is becoming more and more popular from day to day. The goal of the mission is to send volunteered people to Mars and start a new generation there. This project was introduced in 2010 and will be in progress for 25 years. Scientists hope that by the year of 2035 first colony of people would be sent to Mars. Though the mission is currently at its second stage, everything is already theoretically planned. First, “Mars one” would send a drone for careful examination of Mars’ surface, then in 2026 first manned module will depart. Scientists from Mars One believe that covering the living places with thick layer of soil would protect people from radiation and artificial hotbed would allow them to grow plants. Overall Mars One crew believes and hopes that their mission to Mars would succeed and colonization would be called new era in humanity.

As for me, I don’t think that with our current level of technologies it is feasible to move to Mars. Let me argue my point. I agree that landing on Mars with manned spacecraft is possible, however I don’t think that living there forever, as Mars One plans is possible. For example it is very likely that something might go wrong with equipment. Sending objects from Earth is a huge dilemma, as shortest distance from earth to Mars is 55 million kilometers. But when the two planets are at the opposite sides of the sun, this couldn’t be done easily. Secondly, in my view, avoiding cosmic radiation is not possible at this stage. I believe, so far we are not possessing technologies, which can create a magnetic field in order to evade radiation. Also I would suggest to colonize earth completely. By that I mean that more than half of our planet has not yet been explored, both poles, Siberia and Tundra are not inhabited by people. Finally it would make more sense to look for the planets outside of our solar system, because scientists claimed that in several million years our sun would enlarge drastically till the point where it will explode, destroying the whole solar system. Concluding everything, I noticed that along with “Mars one” mission, there are many other similar missions such as Mars-500, inspiration Mars foundation, hundred year starship and etc. Once again, these missions are only based on theories and no one knows when they are going to become real.

Sources:

Walker, Robert. “Ten Reasons Not to Live on Mars.” Science 2.0. N.p., 14 Aug. 2013. Web. 03 Dec. 2015. <http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/blog/ten_reasons_not_to_live_on_mars_great_place_to_explore-118531>.

Nnamdi, Kojo. “One-way Mission to Mars”. http://thekojonnamdishow.org/. NPR: Science. Retrieved 25 February 2015.

“Mars One.” Wikipedia. N.p., 28 Feb. 2014. Web. 3 Dec. 2015. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_One>.

The debate about who is smarter – men or women – has been going on for decades. Over the past hundred years, scientists believed that there is no difference in intelligence between the sexes, however, Canadian psychologists have decided to put that view into question.

Scientists led by Philippe Rushton, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, conducted a series of academic tests for admission to the university with the young people of 17-18 years of both sexes. After processing the tests, researchers found that the average IQ in men is 3.6 points higher than that of women

It showed the so-called “common factor”, which is present in all IQ tests. According to the theory of intelligence quotient, this factor shows the overall level of intellectual development of human. “You are given last 4 digits of the phone number, and then you are asked to repeat or even summarize them in reverse order. So in the second case with reverse order recalling, the brain requires more intellectual efforts, to correctly perform the task”   –  Rushton  commented on tests conducted.

Psychologists suggest that unlike women, men have higher coefficient of intelligence; this is due to a large number of brain tissues which influences the speed of information processing. It is also known that on average, men are larger than women, respectively, the size of their brains is different. Brain of an average male is heavier than the female’s for somewhat about 100 grams.

At the same time Rushton himself does not believe that the results of his experiment must somehow influence the education policy. Moreover, he claims that the academic performance of women is on average higher than those of men. However, even a low IQ does not prevent many achieve great social success and a prominent position in society. A striking example of this – US President George W. Bush, who’s IQ does not even reach the average.

My personal view to the study is that it is valid, however finding could’ve been more accurate. The reason lies in the variables that the researchers did not consider. For example, the unequal number of women and men, are being tested. It is possible that the young men who were not confident in their abilities, refused to participate in the test, whereas, women not even possessing high intellectual abilities decided to try their luck. Overall, I believe the study would gain more credibility if it involved the same number of men and women with the same intellectual level.

Sources:

Bryner, Jeanna. “Men Smarter than Women, Scientist Claims.” LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 08 Sept. 2006. Web. 23 Nov. 2015. <http://www.livescience.com/7154-men-smarter-women-scientist-claims.html>.

Clerkin, Ben. “Men Are More Intelligent than Women.” Daily Mail. N.p., 14 Sept. 2006. Web. 3 Dec. 2015. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-405056/Men-intelligent-women-claims-new-study.html>.

It is widely accepted that apes are the smartest creatures after humans. In addition it’s also strongly believed that humans are descendants of apes, altered by long evolution processes. Nowadays scientists are trying to understand whether monkeys would eventually gain human-like intellect, and be able to understand and even speak our language.

Almost every decade scientists discover new findings about monkeys. Probably the most interesting question that they strive to answer is the fact of teaching them communication skills. The most obvious answer to the question of what distinguishes man from the apes: is the ability to speak. It is believed that people have learned to produce and understand speech at a late stage of evolution when the ways of their ancestors and the ancestors of apes diverged. However, discussions on this subject do not stop, and some experts advocate the view that not only humans can communicate. After years of research Lisa Heimbauer from Georgia State University concluded that the ability to develop speech was observed both: in ancient humans and apes. “It’s the amount of practice, and not some special properties of the person. We, simply from our birth, learn to understand what we say, and reproduce these words, we simply have more experience.  Monkeys also possess the language abilities, and can develop the appropriate skills, “- said Heimbauer.

According to the most common theory, communication occurred simultaneously with the joint work. Primitive people had to somehow communicate with each other and transmit important messages to hunt effectively or simply to warn relatives of potential dangers. It is believed that at this time, our ancestors began to develop a more sophisticated speech, rather than aboriginal sounds. It is worth noting that the primitive alarm system exists in monkeys as well.  Certain sound or gesture could mean particular concept. People, on the other hand, can build a sequence of sounds or gestures, where meaning is made up of their set, and every single element can mean nothing.  For example if in a word, phrase or a whole sentence a certain sound is distorted, meaning is still clear. This ability exists among chimpanzees as well, proved Heimbauer.

Chimpanzee named Kanzi from birth lives among people. At the moment, she is already 25 years old. To communicate with researchers, Kanzi uses a special board on which the characters are drawn, each of which links to a specific concept. When Kanzi hears any known word or concept, she accurately indicates the correct character. Overall she is capable of recognizing somewhat 128 different concepts.

During the experiment, carried out on Kanzi, scientists played distorted audio words and she had to choose one the corresponding figure out of four.  Sound was distorted either by addition of noise or by lowering the pitch. Surprisingly, the monkey correctly identified 55% of the words, distorted by noise and 40% by pitch lowering. When the same experiment was conducted on 3.5 years old children, the results were almost the same: 65% of correct answers for noise distortion, and 40% for the tone.

Although the research conducted by Heimbauer is supported by strong data and arguments, I don’t consider recognition of verbal concepts as a developed language. Yes, obviously chimpanzee Kanzi, turned out to be a very smart animal, recognizing more than 100 concepts, but these experiments do not necessarily prove that communication might occur between animals and humans. In her experiment, Lisa Heimbauer proved that chimpanzees are capable of efficiently perform the given commands and recognize concepts, but this applies to other “smart” animals as well: For example, recently I read an article that octopus Candid could identify patterns simply from observation. Overall answering the main question of my blog- “can monkeys eventually communicate with humans” it is not impossible. The recent study conducted neurobiologist Genevieve Konopka and her lab group at the University of California–Los Angeles examined a gene called FOXP2, which is linked to human language. The same gene is found in monkeys, however due to mutations of the gene, their brain cannot operate the same way as ours.

Sources:

Kramer, By Miriam. “‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’: Why Apes Can’t Speak Like Humans.” LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 17 July 2014. Web. 11 Oct. 2015. <http://www.livescience.com/46853-can-apes-speak-like-humans.html>.

Viegas, Jennifer. “Smart Chimp Gets Speech like Humans.” Discovery News. N.p., 31 Oct. 2011. Web. 10 Oct. 2015. <http://news.discovery.com/animals/zoo-animals/chimpanzee-human-speech-111031.htm>.

When I was a child my mother often told me that cracking my knuckles is bad and would eventually lead to arthritis. In this blog entry I will try to dispel this myth. Why my mother was wrong?

There are two hypotheses to explain the crunch in joints. The first suggests that when joint capsule is stretched, its volume increases, and the pressure, on the contrary, decreases. Because of this, the joint fluid flows, and gas bubbles are formed. These bubbles burst with a characteristic sound. According to the second hypothesis, the crunch occurs while movement of the fast-tensioned tendons and ligaments. When the capsule, tendons and ligaments are stretched, the joint becomes more mobile, and person feels comfortable. Well, or someone just likes the sound of cracking.

There was no evidence found by the scientists that cracking fingers is harmful.  Several research groups have tried to find out whether the habit of crunching the joints leads to arthritis. No scientist has found conclusive evidence that stretching finger lovers expose their bones to diseases. However, in 1990, Jorge Castellanos and David Axelrod admitted that regular habit of crunching leads to slight dysfunction of hand.  For example knuckle cracking lovers had swellings and weaker hand squeezing.  Nevertheless, it is possible that Castellanos and Axelrod simply confused the findings of the causes and consequences: perhaps crunch and problems with hands are caused by the joint pathology.

Overall, if your joints are healthy, you can crack your knuckles without any risks.

Citations:

Kuzayev, Marat. “Cracking Fingers Myth.” Look At Me. N.p., 28 Dec. 2014. Web. 18 Sept. 2015. <http://www.lookatme.ru/mag/live/wrong-beliefs/210629-misconception-knuckles>.

Water – is a key element in the world, without it life itself is impossible. All organisms are composed mostly of water (from 80% to 99%). Japanese scientist and healer Masaru Emoto discovered how sounds affect water’s structure. First of all water can absorb and store sound effects. Using powerful electron microscope, Emoto showed how much frozen water’s structure depends on the sounds absorbed

Here is how unstructured water looks like:

Next image shows the structure of water after 1 hour praying. Instead of shapeless spot, smooth and beautiful  six-rayed “snowflake” appeared. This transformation takes place because of the correct pronunciation of prayer’s voice; and the sound pressure is equal to the frequency of the magnetic field of the Earth (it is 8 dB).

Overall, the words that people associate with evil, aggression, fear, etc. destruct water. Structures turn it into a chaotic, incomplete and fragmentary crystals. Water charged with “positive” words, in contrast, has a clear, snowflake structure, covered by beautiful patterns.

Here are couple of examples:

Angel(left) and demon(right)

Music, as well words, can also affect water structures. Heavy metal, deathcore, black metal and etc. create water spoils, such as trembling and vibration; whereas Mozart’s music creates smooth crystal clear structures.

Vivaldi four seasons:

John Lennon imagine:

Rammstein:

Summing everything up, water is able to heal, and at the same time destroy entire cities and civilizations. Events that occur in the world – are the reflection of  charge that we are laying in the information field, formed by water.

Bibliography:

“Emoto Research – How Music Affects Water and What This Means to Us.”Latest Products RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2015. <http://www.mindpowermp3.com/Emoto-How-Music-Affects-Water-and-What-This-Means-to-Us.html>.

Road transport is one of the most hazardous areas of our everyday life. Scientists all over the world work very hard to help to reduce fatality on the road. Vehicle manufacturers spend a lot of money to make cars safer. Most cars didn’t even had a seatbelts just a few decades ago. But now cars have all kinds of sophisticated safety measures such as air bags, ABS breaking systems, Electronic Stability Programs and etc. All these smart computerized systems were possible to invent due to different areas of physics.  “But still, according to statistics 30 000 people die in the car accidents every day in the world”. Some entire industries such as vehicle manufacturers, road construction companies, road safety signs designers and high visibility cloth producers continue scientific researches every day to help in reducing the number of the road accidents with injuries and fatalities.

1. According to WHO Road Traffic Injuries, alcohol is the primary cause of accidents. Understanding of laser physics could help scientists to install in vehicles a laser alcohol detector device. There is no car with such device on the road yet. But it is not difficult to invent such device because the technology already exists. I have read about the laser devise which can detect alcohol vapor from a distance. If this device is installed in every car it could automatically shut down the engine or block the wheels if alcohol is detected.

2. Second important factor of road traffic injuries is speeding. According to statistics speeding causes majority of the car accidents. To prevent that, radio physicists (who deal with wave processes of different nature such as electromagnetic radiofrequency waves) came up with an interesting idea to introduce an Automatic Speed Reducer (ASP) in every vehicle. Speed limits are normally set in every street or highway. It would be possible to transmit the speed limit electronically by radio waves. While driving through that area vehicle’s ASP devices will receive these signals and automatically brake the car to the maximum allowed speed. If the speed limit can be transmitted automatically it would be possible to change the speed limits according to the weather or road or traffic conditions. For example during the night speed limits could be reduced or when the road is empty during the weekends the speed could be set higher and etc.

In conclusion I want to say that despite the huge amount of dead and injured people nowadays, science, especially physics helped a lot to somewhat reduce everyday car accidents. And I assume that in next 5 or 10 years the amount of car accidents will decrease because physics and technologies progress from day to day.

Cited works

author, no. day.az. 20 september 2012 r. 14 november 2012 r. <http://news.day.az/society/356018.html>.

—. vesti. 10 february 2004 r. 14 november 2012 r. <http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=736696>.

—. wikipedia. 7 november 2012 r. 14 november 2012 r. <http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Радиофизика>.

—. yaplakal. 21 october 2010 r. 14 november 2012 r. <http://www.yaplakal.com/forum1/topic292642.html>.

Lots of us used to experience a critical situation, where applying physical strength was crucial. When I was a child, 2 massive house-dogs chased me; I still remember that incredible speed I developed and how I climbed over 2 meter fence. In most probable case the thing that got me out of trouble was adrenaline. But first of all what is adrenaline? Adrenaline – is one of the most powerful hormones. It is produced in the adrenal glands and is part of the body’s response to acute stress, which can be called the “fight or flight”. This system causes blood vessels to narrow, the heart beat faster and expand the airways.

Fight or flight

The expression “fight or flight” is often used to describe the body’s response to a situation of great stress. This evolutionary adaptation allows to react to danger almost immediately. When a person is faced with a potentially dangerous situation, the hypothalamus, located in the brain, gives a signal to the adrenal glands release adrenaline, and several other hormones directly into the bloodstream. The body reacts to these hormones for a few seconds, giving the person almost instant physical impulse – power and speed increase and reduced ability to feel pain.[1] According to @SportScience experiment was conducted to observe the strength of punch with and without adrenaline shot. You can see the whole experiment  here

Because of adrenaline’s unique qualities, some people try to get it unnaturally, thus hoping to always remain in “shock” effect, however studies have proven that If adrenaline is released, but there is no real danger, the person may remain restless and irritable. The reason for this is that the adrenaline causes the body to produce glucose in the blood sugar level rises, and the body gets its energy, which has no outlet.

Summarizing everything above, I think what adrenaline does to our body is incredible. We transform our body into something powerful and do things that we won’t normally do without it. Yet there are tons of research going on, scientist wonder whether or not is it possibly to create drug that increases level of adrenaline without side effects and how, in future, to control the adrenaline hormone itself?

[1] “Build Muscle. Cut Weight. Get in Shape. ORDER RUSHFIT.” GSP Rushfit. N.p., 13 Oct. 2013. Web. 13 Sept. 2015. <http://blog.gsprushfit.com/top-5-benefits-of-adrenalin/>.

Hi there guys! My name is Rasul and i’m from  Azerbaijan (most of you guys do not know about my country, but that’s ok:D). It is my first time to State College and to US in general. So far it is great! Im majoring in Business (undecided) and the reason why i took this course, is because it perfectly fits my schedule. Also this course sounds interesting to me, as it is designed for non-scientists majors. In my high school sciences were not my strongest link, so this is a great opportunity for me to start understanding science from the very beginning. In addition, Business sounds very interesting to me, so that is probably the only reason, why im not majoring in science.

This is my hometown, and hope you like the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFV4pkG_QSg