You just finished a bowl of ice cream and the first thing you grab is a bag or pretzels. You order a milkshake and fry and McDonald’s.  You cover your bacon in chocolate.   Sweet and and salty are complete opposites yet they go together so well.  Did you ever wonder what makes us desire something salty after eating something sweet? These odd cravings come and go, but why?

We have five primary tastes, sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savory (umami).  In a way sweet and salty can balance each other out.  Having too much sweetness can cause an overload and having too much salt can just taste bad.  Each one of our taste buds are able to sense each of the five tastes.  The taste of sweetness is important for supplying us with carbs and the taste of salt provides needed nutrients.  Salt is also a flavor enhancer which is why is goes well when mixed with sugar.  When a salty flavor and sweet flavor are mixed right (known as flavor layering)  our brain is able to process a positive biological response.  Since our bodies do not have a sodium storage system, unlike other minerals we are able to store in our bodies, we create a built-in craving for the taste of salt.

Some of the cravings that we get correlate to deficiencies in our diet.  For example, craving to chew on ice can mean you have a decrease in iron in your diet.  At the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, director Susan Roberts has done some research on 32 overweight women and their cravings.  The food that was craved the most contained either high percentages of salt, such as french fries and chips, or high in sugar and fat, like ice cream.  All together the woman craved foods that were very high in calories.

Another study, published in NeroImage, was done that showed which parts of the brain are activated when we have a food craving.  After each participant drank a nutritional drink, they had to think of a food that they craved.  The parts of the brain highlighted on the MRI were the hippocampus, caudate, and insula.  What’s interesting about this, is that these parts of the brain are also involved with drug addiction.  Our food cravings are causing us to stimulate the same parts of the brain as when someone is addicted to drugs because we are craving something and putting it in our memory to form a habit and an emotional connection between either a food or drugs.

We are always going to have those weird cravings late at night that ends with us eating way too much and asking ourselves, “why did I just eat that?” There is no stopping those late night cravings.

Color brings our world to life.  If we lived in a world that was only black and white, our lives would seem a little dull, don’t you think? But shouldn’t you be questioning why we associate black and white with  gloomy, dreary, and dull?.  Our minds associate colors with emotions and feelings.  Colors have their own meanings.

Ever since we were young, we’ve learned to associate colors with our emotions and mood.   We can separate colors into warm and cool colors. Red, orange, and yellow are examples of warm colors but the motions they can make you feel range from a comforting feeling to a feeling of rage and anger.  A bright red might trigger anger and heartbreak where as a light yellow might trigger warmness and happiness.  Cool colors are represented by blue, purple, and green.  Your emotions may range from calmness to sadness.  The colors blue and green are associated with peacefulness and restfulness because we associate these colors with our environment and nature.  Physically our eye uses the retina to directly focus on the color green which results in less strain for our eye muscles.  The color blue brings a sense of calmness and can actually lower our blood pressure.  Black and white we either associate the same emotions with or they can be complete opposites.  They both can trigger a mourning feeling, but black we associate with power and evil where as white is more of innocence and purity.

Did you ever think about how company’s use this color psychology to market their product in a certain way.  Did you ever notice just how many logos are the color red?  A study done by the University of Missouri-Columbia was able to find how people felt based on company’s logo colors.  The color that surprised them the most was red.  Red usually represents an aggressive emotion but what the study found was red represented a feeling of expertise and confidence.   Although there is not an exact cause as to why this happens, one reasoning behind it is many well-known brands are the color red (McDonald’s and ESPN) so in our mind we associate the red logo with a positive and good quality company.  Since red also represents a loving and desirable feeling it can trigger hunger which is why many food chains and restaurants choose to use the color red.

We obviously can’t just consider color being the only reason we have certain emotions because correlation does not equal causation.  There are many other factors that affect our emotions and mood but the color around us plays a major part in it.  How boring do you think our lives would be if there was no color? The next time you experience certain feelings and emotions, look around and observe the colors around you.  You might be surprised what you find.

There are two types of people in this world– those who laugh when they are tickled and those who do not.  I never understood how some people can be so ticklish and then for others, it doesn’t even faze them when someone tries to tickle them.  Don’t you find it strange that we are especially ticklish under are armpits or even the bottoms of our feet?  One of the reasons behind this is located close to the surface on the bottom of our feet are Meissner’s corpuscles.  These nerve receptors are extremely sensitive which allow our feet to be more sensitive when touched.

Being less ticklish than someone else may just mean your sensitivity isn’t as high as others.  Age also has an affect on this. Younger people tend to be more ticklish than those of an older age.  There is no one individual reason to explain why one person is more ticklish than another. Some of us just got lucky that we were given the sensitivity to enjoy laughing when we are being tickled.

Tickling can be broken down into two different types. One is gargalesis (heavy tickling), which is tickling that involves touching sensitive areas like the armpits, stomach, and neck.  Knismesis is where light movement results in an itching sensation instead of laughter.  Trying to tickle yourself represents knismesis.   Located in the brain is a part called the cerebellum.  The cerebellum monitors movements and it knows when we we try to tickle ourselves, so it cancels the response that is sent to the brain that would have caused us to react in a laughing sensation.

Two areas of the brain that are involved when being tickled are the somatosensory cortex and the anterior  cingulated cortex.  The somatosensory cortex’s job is to analyze touch which leads to the anterior cingulated cortex creating pleasurable feelings from the touch.  The rolandic operculum has the role of controlling our facial movements and emotional reactions.  This part of the brain is activated along with the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is associated with the saying “fight or flight” response. It controls things such as hunger, body temperature, and sexual behaviors.  The hypothalamus is what causes us to feel pleasure when someone else is tickling us.

Tickling begins at a young age between parents and their babies. It’s a way a parent is able to interact and teach their child.  When a mother or father tickles their baby (which is quite entertaining) the baby reacts by smiling and laughing which creates a positive feedback.  This social interaction between the two is a positive bonding experience.

Growing up I was always the most ticklish in my family which made me an easy target.  I think having moments of laughter and those moments of tickling a friend or family member is a positive social experience.  It allows two people to connect and laugh with each other.  One of the most important things you should remember to do everyday is laugh.

Around the world, Wi-Fi is being used by millions of people; but did you ever wonder how many of those people are becoming sick because of it?  Recently there has been a lawsuit between a boarding school in Massachusetts  and a young boy who allegedly got sick because of the Wi-Fi.  The school is being sued for putting in new routers that operate at a 5GHz which supposedly are causing the child to become sick.  Honestly I think this is one of the craziest things I have ever heard, but there is reasoning behind this idea.  The child was diagnosed with EHS (Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity) which involves symptoms that occur from an exposure to electromagnetic fields.  Some of the symptoms that this child experienced were nausea, rashes, nose bleeds, headaches, and chest pain.

Over the years, there has been an increase in electromagnetic field sources (EMF).  These sources come from video display units such as our phones and computers. A concern has grown over these sources because of reports of individuals experiencing health problems.  But the thing is, not even 1% of our population is dangerously affected by EHS.  Since the 1970s, cases of EHS have been studied but it is still not a well known subject to society.  Not many people have ever heard of the effects others are experiencing, such as burning sensations, tingling, dizziness, nausea, aches, pains and even cardiac palpitations.  Some doctors have no evidence to connect the symptoms to the WIFI and then there are other doctors, like the one who diagnosed the child in Massachusetts, that say there is no other explanation so that’s the only diagnosis they can make.

Since this is the first time I have ever heard of this, I have a hard time believing you can actually get sick over the Wi-Fi.  I do believe individuals are experiencing these symptoms, but studies have shown that they are not directly reacting to the electromagnetic field presence.  As we learned in class correlation does not equal causation.  We can not actually say that the Wi-Fi is directly causing people to become sick.  As I sit here in my room surrounded by Wi-Fi, looking at my computer screen, and scrolling though my phone, I find it hard to picture my life without these things.  We’re surrounded by these items everyday of our lives and for people to start blaming these symptoms because of them has me questioning if we should become more aware of the effects there might be.  Is this something we need to be worried about in the future?

We’re all aware of the three words that every freshman entering college has running through their mind. “The Freshman Fifteen.” I have to admit, it was something I thought about and wondered before coming to college.  College is all about change and one of those changes is dietary habits.  But the thought of gaining fifteen pounds just in one year away at school is kind of a scary thought, so the real question is, how true is the freshman fifteen?

I believe the freshman fifteen (especially for girls) has a negative effect on the way college freshman view their self image and their eating habits.  Being away at college involves changes in dietary habits because you are no longer getting those home cooked meals (at least for me) that had nutritional value compared to having fast food or a buffet of food everyday that is almost limitless.   Snacking becomes a daily routine throughout the day that you may not have been able to do while in high school.  One experiment conducted at a small college in the Midwest found that those students who were concerned about the freshman 15 before entering their freshman year were the ones who believed they gained the most at the end of their freshman year.    Weight can be a sensitive subject to some people which can cause them to constantly be thinking about losing and gaining weight.  These thoughts can have a negative effect on one’s self-esteem and self-image because it could cause unhealthy eating habits or even eating disorders.  That same experiment found that only 59% of the students participating gained weight and the average weight gain was only 4.6 pounds.  Another study done by the Rutgers University found only a mean of 7 pounds gained by freshman students.

So as we look at many different studies performed by different universities, they all come to a similar conclusion.  Yes, college students will gain weight but it is no where near 15 pounds. The freshman 15 is just another factor that adds stress on to a college student.  Weight gain is a common occurrence throughout college due to less time for physical activity, stress eating, alcohol consumption, overeating at dining halls, and overall bad eating habits.  The thing you need to remember is that even if you do gain wait, you’re not alone.

Hey everyone, my name is Raychel and I’m a sophomore. I chose this course for two reasons; first being I need another science Gen Ed that doesn’t include a lab and second being my friend took this class last year and really enjoyed it so she recommended I take it.  I do not plan on being a science major because I did not enjoy any of my science classes in high school and I always hated doing lab experiments. I am more interested in business and math.

Here’s a cute dog video that I found