You just had the best Thanksgiving meal ever. Endless amounts of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing etc. Afterwards all you wanted to do was lay on the couch because you felt so full from all the food.  Why is it that we get too full. Is it the texture of the food or something else?

” Our appetite reflects a conscious sensation of hunger, a learned or habitual pattern of eating at times throughout the day, our preferences for different kinds of foods and the sheer pleasure of eating or indulging in particular foods we like.” When our stomach expands while eating the nerve receptors feel that and send signals to the brain. The brain then tells us we are starting to feel full.

Satiating has apart to play in this. Theres seven different signals that comply to feeling full and are broken up into two categroies: short vs long. During short term saityity you try to remember the memory of what was consumed like the taste and smell. Also the stretching of the stomach happens. During long term saitity the brain recieves a message that tells us how long it’ll take to eat before we’re full.

One study was done with men and women eating 38 foods that had the same calories. Every 15 minutes during a two hour limit, they would say how full thye’ve become.

I wish they told us how many people did the study and what age, if they were overweight or not, ect was told as well. Hat might have skeeted the results. But its cool to know what is actually telling us that we’re full from food. I never heard of saitiating before this.

It seems like half the population of the U.S is either a coffee or tea drinker. Coffee as the number one drink consumed followed by tea. About $10 billion dollars is spent on coffee alone while $2 billion is on tea. According to the Tea Association “160 million Americans drink tea, hot or iced.”

I’m wondering though, does one help our body more than the other or is it a tie? There’s evidence that says both are actually helping the body. Chemicals called antioxidants “protect our healthy tissues from “oxidants” also called free radicals. Over time, free radicals can damage cells and cause disease.”

Coffee and Tea help to lower the risk of diseases from rising. A laboratory study using tea and tea extracts on animals and humans saw that it helps our health Tea actually helps lower the risk of cancer as well as blood clots, diseases such as Parkinson’s, and much more. Coffee also helps to lower the risk of cancer and Parkinson as well as diabetes and etc.

• black and green lower risk of both ovarian and breast cancer
•  green tea has the most antioxidants than herbal or black.

After researching more about coffee and tea I found out that it helps protect our brain from depression, Alzheimer and Parkinson’s. There was a study that looked at the connection between depression and drinks such as coffee and tea.  “Researchers at the National of Health recorded consumption of each type of beverage in 1995 and 1996 and then compared those figures with participants’ self-reported diagnoses of depression after 2000.” Coffee has a lower risk than tea does, but tea is still protective of depression.

I should try drinking coffee and tea more after reading about this. I can decrease the risk for cancer and other diseases if I drink more now. That’ll be a good thing in the long run.

I’m in need of a new pair of running shoes for the gym because my old ones are ripping apart.  I don’t want the cheap ones from Walmart that’ll break within less in a month. So where do I  go and look? What questions should I ask before finding the perfect pair?

Apparently  we “may be wearing the wrong shoes for their particular stride or the right shoes that were chosen for the wrong reasons.” Some people think we should buy shoes based on which way our foot turns or the impact from every step.  Others think its based on characterisitics(arch) or feel(comfortable) The determing factor that determines this is the injury risk.

One study done at a U.S Army center for for health promotion and preventing looked specifically at the arch support for shoes. They used 2700 Air Force recruitments and seperated them into two groups; control vs non control. The non control group wore shoes based on their arched foot. “Individuals with high arches were given cushioned shoes, individulas with medium arches were given stability shoes, and individuals with low arches were given motion control shoes. “All members of the control group were given stability shoes regardless of individula arche height.”

The main thing looked at during the experiment was whether one group ended having more foot injury risks than the other. The end results was  that not one risk happened between the groups. So the arches aren’t causing the risk.

Another study by Dr. Benno Nigg looked at the comfortable aspects. He told soilders to try on a pair of shoes using six different inserts. () After trying all of them on, they picked which ones were the most comfortable and then had to wear it with the shoe used for military. There was another group that just wore the standard footwear.  After a few months Dr. Niggs found out the shoes with the insert are more comfortable.

After looking at more research its determined that when picking shoes comfort wins. Theres a very low chance on injury risk associated with comfort. “Your brain generates this feeling based on afferent feedback that it receives from your body.”

Some tips before you go out buying that shoe are:

1. shoe store with experienced staff
2. try lots of different ones on

• secure and no slippage
• pressure or pinch
• molds to the foot

3. break them in

Now I know what to do when I go and buy my first pair of good running shoes.  The rish of hurting my foot is much more likely to happen than meeting Kim Kardashian anytime soon and I need to be cautious. That’s why its good to look at options before just spending on the first shoes you see.

As I was writing my other blog post about coffee and tea, I found something really interesting. Apparently caffeine can increase a chance of a miscarriage happening during pregnancy. Thus I found a new topic to write about.  It got me wondering what is the appropriate amount of caffeine to have during pregnancy.

Ever since the 1980s, researchers having being seeing caffeine as a potential as to why miscarriages happen. This is especially in cases where women drink more than one drink a day with caffeine.

One study done by De-Kun Li looked into this at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research back between October 1996-1998 and used about 1063 pregnant women.  They “examined the caffeine effect among women who never changed their pattern of consumption during their pregnancy.” If the consumption was more than 200 mg then there was a higher risk of miscarriage. When its less than 200mg the risk is much lower.  Before the study was conducted some questions were asked of the women like the type of drink, frequency, etc.  The results were very surprising to me when i saw them.  About 172 women had miscarriages while the other 891 did not. Most women had consumed either no caffeine or up to 200,g, while the ones that had, consumed more over 200 mg.

Some people had doubts that caffeine alone could just cause a risk in marriage. There were sure to be other factors involved and NHS was sure to find out. During the questioning, “some women had already miscarried by the time of their enrollment interview, and they were only asked about caffeine consumption up to the end of their pregnancy.” The result from this is that the caffeine consumption from these women is that the estimation could have been off. Another thing is that the women were asked to remeber the last time they drank before their last period. Some women might forget and lie. Doing this can mess up the measurements recorded and the study would be shot.

There was another study done similar to this one but instead of 1000, it was 5000 women. They participated in a Danish sudy that lasted from 2007-10.  “Women recorded the amount of caffeinated beverages they drank daily on questionaires before conception and during early pregnancy. ” This included logging in coffe, tea, and soda. The results of this study were less surprising than the other and it was that 732 women had miscarriages. Caffeine before becoming pregnant has no effect for the risk, but when the milligrams start rising thats when it becomes a problem.

According to both studies, once the caffeine crosses the placenta and hits the fetuses problems start to arise. It eliminates very slowly from the fetus, and since their metabolism is not very developed it goes crazy. Thats why both say if we need caffeine to just have one or less drink.

After seeing this new information about what impact caffeine can have on pregnancy, I will be staying far away from it when I’m pregnant. This is a risk thats more likely to happen than meeting kim kardashian as talked about in class.

We know there are people out there that do drugs, everyday or once in a while. They can also make you really chill at least from seeing others doing it. What I want to focus on more is how does a drug affect a person’s personality, specifically marijuana.

Of course most people know that since the 1960s people have smoked marijuana, and today its the most popular illegal drug used almost everywhere. “In fact, according to a recent survey, more than 106 million Americans have tried pot, and about 16.7 million are regular users.” It’s composed of these crumpled up leaves called cannabis and has chemicals like THC.

THC otherwise known as tetrahydrocannabinol and its the main ingredient in marijuana.  This “triggers most of the mood and mind changes associated with pot” When you take those few hits, the way you think , move, and eat becomes loopy. This is due to the receptors in our brain. “Marijuana overactivates parts of the brain that contain the highest number of these receptors”

• visual aspect: colors
• Coordination: everything around is spinning slowly
• Mental: decision making plunder; start forget stuff

These effects can last from about an hour to three or four. Some might even be permanent. There was one study done with people who have smoked marijuana looked at their IQs to see how much ir decrased by. The ones that started smoking during their teenage years “lost an average of eight IQ points between ages 13 and 38. The lost mental abilities did not fully return in those who quit marijuana as adults.”

This relates to what we were talking about yesterday with risks specifically the exposure and hazard. When we first start to smoke drugs like marijuana we have think that nothing bad is going to happen to me, and if so I can just stop. Once we start though, its going to be hard to stop. So before smoking marijuana think about the effect it could imapct to the decisions you have to make later on in life.

Halloween is slowly approaching and there are different ways everyone gets into the festives. Some of these activities include trick or treating, costume parties, watching 13 nights of halloween on abc family and many more. One of the questions I’m wondering is “What happens to your brain during horror movies?

After watching scary movies whether with friends or by myself I always fear going to sleep right away because I’m afraid something bad will happen to me.  According to Abigal Marsh, professor of psychology at Georgetown University, she says “We feel fear because we see or hear something that makes us anticipate harm.” You know in the episode of goosebumps with slappy and he’s in the little girls room . During one of the scenes, he’s not in the chair and hope he doesn’t come out of no where and frighten us out of our chair. Well those are the scenes that makes amygdala which is near the front of the brain,  become activated.  It sends this chemical called glutamate to two other regions of the brain,  one that is unknown and the other called hypothalamus. The first regions has the role that tells us to not move one muscle for a few minutes.  The hypothalamus “triggers our autonomic nervous system- the system responsible for the fight or flight instinct-when our bodies go into superman mode. This is where our heart goes “lub dub, lub dub” very fast.  After a few minutes it goes back to normal with the help of our parasympthetic nervous system.

There was this one study done at Georgia Tech University and the researchers wanted to see what our brain looked like while people watched 10 short clips of horror movies. To record the brain activity of the participants the researchers used this checkerboard. “They found that as suspense increased, the brain “narrowed” participants vision. As suspense ebbed, the visual attention became broader, allowing them to process the scene, as well as the checkerboard.” One of things I wish they expanded on more was the age range of the participants and also how many were apart of this as well. I’m assuming its more than 10 because I don’t think you’d be able to proudce those results with just ten participants. I’d say at you would at least need twenty or more to get good results.

Is the fear we experience from horror movies safe for us though? According to Fischel, a psychology professor from Cali and Los Angeles,  he says it’s completely safe. By the end of the movie nothing has happened to us, and we’re still breathing.  We need to have that rush every once in a while. Without it, our life would be dull.  “That may explain why horror movies are most popular with younger audiences.”

The next time I watch a horror movie like paranormal activity, I know that I will still be alive by the time its over. It’s all fake and I should just enjoy the movie.

Admit it, at least once in your life time you’ve pulled an allnighter to study for an exam you had the next day, or those blogs you waited last minute to do…again 🙁  I see snaps from penn states campus story on snapchat of people doing all nighters at the library.  Is it truly worth it though? How much does it affect a college students life if they lose a nights sleep? Lets find out 🙂

According to the national institute of health they say the people that are the most sleep deprived are us of course, the college students. “Research at Brown University has found that approximately 11% of students report good sleep, while 73% report sleep problems. ” On average adults should get around eight to ten hours, but do most college students succeed with that…not really.  Instead we tend to get 6, maybe even less due to things like sports, work, and studying. These statistics don’t really surprise me as much, because we’re trying to balance out sleep between school and social time. Its very hard to get all three things perfect.  I wonder what nights college students had the most sleep issues, in the beginning, middle, or towards the end. Would that change the statistics about the number of hours and the sleep problems.

There are whole bunch of negative effects that sleep deprivation can have on us.  For instance our immune system can mess up make us feel shitty. For example when we get a cold, and then out of no where it turns into the flu 🙁 I hate when that happens to me, because it makes me more miserable than I already was.  Our mood is another negative that can be caused by a sleepless night . When we don’t get enough sleep , we are cranky and don’t really care for anything. Our mood from a sleepless night can make us miss out on what the teacher said. Memory is shot just like that and won’t be back to normal until we sleep again

Our appearance looks different as well when us college kids don’t get enough beauty sleep. There was this one study done by researcher Tina Sundelin, M.SC who did a correlation study that dealt with participants looking at pictures. There were 40 participants altogether and they had to look at 20 photos. Ten of the photos were of people that had slept for more than required 8 hours of sleep. The other set was of people that didn’t sleep at all during the 24 hour cycle. After looking at the photos they had to describe the folks in the picture.  The participants said the ones who got no sleep had bags under their eyes, skin almost like a ghost, ect. One of things I wish they mentioned was the categories for the twenty photos. Was it a mix of kids from freshman to Senior year the participants looked at in the photos or were they all from one class.

From now on I will try to make an effort to making a habit of going to bed at an earlier time. Also I need to stop doing homework till the very last minute.  That’s one of the reasons I stay up too late.

Also here’s a picture I found that relates to my topic of college and sleep

Everyone who works probably gets that anxiety before they walk through the front doors about the busyness. I  definitely do especially if its for a home football or volleyball game.  We pray that there’s not that long of a line, and if there is one then its time to put the game face on and keep the customers moving through.

I couldn’t find anything on how we would know if it would be busy or not at work, so I thought of way we could test it.

My hypothesis (theory) would be “Will it be slow or busy at work today?” The independent variable (X) in this case are the days I work during the week and the dependent variable is the calendar of events.

To test this I would first look at the calender and look at the dates on the days I work. Then I would look to see all the events that are scheduled for that specific day.  After that’s done, the next step would be to write down all the possible third variables that are associated with the days I work during the week and calendar of events. They include the time in which the event starts, what the weather’s going to look like that day, if classes are going on,  the totals from each of the registers  throughout the day and finally whether its morning, afternoon or evening.

Afterwards I would make a graph in excel and keep on recording what I see for a few weeks. That’s all I can think of doing as of right now. I’d say this would be considered a correlation because the days of work depend on the calendar of event, but it doesn’t work the opposite way.

It’s the time of year again, when the temperature is slowly starting to drop, and everyone is starting to bundle up in long sleeved shirts and sweats. The one thing I have noticed while walking to my classes is that some tend to bundle up more than others on chillier days.This  got me thinking of a new blog post to write about: Why do some people feel more colder than others?

There are so many speculations as to why some feel colder than others.  The debate of temperature between women vs men, diseases, ect.

One factor is the difference between women and mens  bodies. There was a study done by researchers back in Utah back in 1998 that looked into the temperature of male and females. “While studies have found that women’s actual core body heat is slightly higher than men’s, womens’ extremities are a lot colder. ” The temperature between females and males was about 97.8*f -97.4*f and the extremities was about 87.2*f-90* Some think its because the fat on us women warms up everything else inside of us, except our hands.

The fat part I understand completely, its just I wish the study the researchers at Utah in 1998 said what the sample size was and the age range that was recorded. Did they record just one certain age group like older adults, or was a mix between young and old. This stuy reminds me about when we talked about prayer. For the prayer study, no one knew who they were praying for , just that they had to say a prayer. Except it was a randomized control, which the study done in Utah is not. Its more of a correlational study becuase it doesn’t show statistics.

Other facors for certain people being colder than others could be because of the ranaud’s syndrome or phenomenon. “Raynaud’s phenomenon is a condition in which cold temperatures or strong emotions cause blood vessel spasms. This blocks blood flow to fingers, toes, ears and nose.”  Here’s the run down on what goes on:

• hands turn from white, to blue, and then finally red
• white: blood vessels are starting to narrow in size
• blue: decrease in oxygen from the vessels
• red: blood vessels are returning  to normal

No one really know why this phenomenon happens, or why certain people get it.  Its just usually during the cold moths raynauds starts to happen. “About 1 in 20 people develop Ranaud’s phenomenon.” The main people that get this disease are current high schoolers and college students.  Some ways you can help yourself is by wearing all the necesities like gloves, socks, scarves, hats, ect to so the cold wind can’t get to you.

I now understand why my mom always tells me I should wear gloves. She doesn’t want me stuff like this. I know for this upcoming winter I’m defintiely going to be wearing gloves everyday.  I  wonder, if they did a study where they asked the females and males from the study done in Utah if any of them ever heard of the Ranaud’ phenomenon, and ever experienced it, what the statistics would be.

So thats why some people tend to be colder than others. Because of extremities in our bodies temperature. Also you can get bad health problems like the raynaud’s disease.

P.S. heres a cute picture of a duck..thats freezing 🙁

Earlier during the summer there was this game called charlie charlie. Its an old Mexican tradition  that has been around forever. Its basically a game where you basically try and summon this Mexican spirit named Charlie.

The way you play, is you take a piece of paper, fold it half and then make two lines with one going the vertical way and horizontal for the other.  Then you’ll write yes yes in the top left and bottom right, and no no in the opposite corners. Once that is done you grab two pencils and make a cross with them in the middle of the paper, but make sure they’re balanced. After all that is done you ask the question “charlie Charlie can we play?” If the answer is yes the top pencil moves to yes. Then you will ask it questions. If the answer is no, then you just repeat the question. To end the game you have to ask “Charlie Charlie can we stop?” If the answer is yes, break the pencils and burn the paper immediately, and all will be good.

Here’s an example of how its played by a famous YouTube star Miranda Sings.

Now there a few theories as to why this happens. One of the reasons that scientists came up with as to why this happens is becuase of  gravity. According to the website The Independent “With the Charlie Charlie game, however, nobody is actually touching the pencils. But they are still likely being pushed-the pencils have to be so finely balanced on top od each other that even the slightest movement from a breath or slightly tilted surface will push it around.”

This correlates to the second reasoning which is mind games. With Charlie Charlie game, when people who played ask “Charlie Charlie are you there?” in anticipation hoping something would happen and the pencils didn’t move they gave up. After a split second though, you look back and think you see that the pencils did move slightly into the yes. This is actually your brain playing tricks on you, just to make you believe the game actually worked.

After reading all this research, my thoughts on this is I don’t believe in the dead and that some spirit named Charlie all the way from Mexico, would play this game because some people wanted to see if  something would happen.

Ever since we were little, most of our parents would tell us to clean our room and that would include making the bed. Almost everyone had this thought while making their bed and that is, “Why do I need to make my bed…it’s just going to get messy again.” Well everyone who ever had that thought, here’s the answer you’ve been looking for.

Apparently when you make your bed it stimulates dust mites. What are dust mites you say?! They are insects that live in places where humans live, like a house. Also the mites are so small that you can’t see them with your eye.

While you sleep at night about 1 million or maybe more dust mites are there with you, especially when when the temperature is moist.  According to a Kingston University study “the bugs which are less than a millimetre long feed on scales of human skin and produce allergens which are easily inhaled during sleep.”

The only way these insects survive is by pumping from the atmosphere into the glands on their body. A way to keep the dust mites away is by keeping our beds unmade. This helps the moisture that you were laying on to leave. The mites will then die each by each everyday

This reminds me of the worms and how kids from the higher economic background don’t usually have worms in their stomach. So if we don’t make our bed every day then there will be less dust mites to worry about.

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It’s 8am on a Monday morning and you’re in class learning about worms. At one point during the lecture you start doodling on the side of your notebook paper. Some people that are sitting next to you, might say to stop doodling because it’s distracting them. This brings me to the question I have and it is, “does doodling help us to concentrate better when in class or anywhere else?”

Margaret Web Pressler on the topic Focus your mind by…doodling? says “Yet today doodling doesn’t get much respect. Most people think that when someone’s doodling, they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing: listening.” This part from the reading reminded me of the day earlier this week when talked about cell phone usage and grading and how its similar to the doodling. The graph from Tuesday  that the final grades dropped lower for people who texted more than once during one class sitting. But there could have been confounding variables due to texting more than once like family issues. Doodling is the same as the texting part, though the confounding variables are different. The confounding variables for doodling can be that it actually helps us to retain information.

There was this one study done at Plymouth University by psychologist Jackie Andre back around 2009. In her study she wanted to find out who really retained more information: the doodlers or non doodlers. To do that she took about 40 people and split them into two groups which were doodlers and non doodlers. Both of the groups had to listen to a recording where someone was talking about a party and who was going to it. They also had to write down the names on the paper, but there was one other thing the doodlers had to do which was doodle. So there was two tasks the doodlers had switch back and forth on. The results from the study concluded that doodlers retain about 29% more information than non doodlers. It’s not 50% but that’s still good.

Jackie has one theory as to why the doodlers retain more information and its because you don’t tend to drift off into outer space when it comes to doodling. When you drift off to la la land thinking stuff like christmas you use a lot of brain power.  Your mind does go places with doodling too, but the brain uses enough power to keep it from wandering off even more.

After researching this I can conclude that doodlers should keep on doodling. They don’t stare off into space for long periods of time like non doodlers do. Also its so much easier to release the emotions you have from a lecture through pictures sometimes than writing. It creates that visual aide.

Over the years there’s one answer that has to do with dogs I never understood until now and that’s “why can’t I feed my dog chocolate?” The only answer I got was that the dogs will die if they eat it. I just never knew the reasoning behind it until this very year.

Chocolate is that gooey sweetness you can’t get enough of. It helps you through life in just about anything, from having a bad day or just eating some for the hell of it. Unfortunately for dogs that isn’t the case. Chocolate for them can equal to illness and in worst case death.

The main substance in chocolate that can cause a dogs death is theobrine. According to Merrian Webster “theobrine a bitter alkaloid C7H8N4O2 closely related to caffeine that occurs especially in cacao beans and has stimulant and diuretic properties.” When we ingest this toxic it metabolizes at a normal rate for us. With dogs though, the toxic takes more time to metablize and start to affect stuff like the cns, heart and kidneys.

There are different kinds of chocolate: white, milk, dark, cocoa powder, ect. The least harmful that won’t affect your dog that much is white, which has about 1 mg per ounce of theobrine. The chocolate that has the most is the kind you bake stuff with, like cookies. It averages out to be about 450 mg per ounce of theobrine. (health and age.)

If you don’t know what signs to look for and also what to do if your dog eats too much chocolate, listen up. According to Roni Roberts on WebMD Pet Health Feature, she says to call the vet right away instead of  waiting for the warning signs, if your dog ate chocolate. The warning signs which are extreme thirst, diaareha, too much energy, pacing, panting, shaking and seizure can show up any time between 6-12 hrs. Something tragic could happen at anytime in between that period, so its best to go to the vet immediately. When at the vet they’ll ask questions about……… One of the medicines they’ll use to help get the chocolate out is a drug called apomorphine. This helps the dog to vomit most of the toxic out.

So I work at a famous ice cream place right here in town and everyday  we pack customers ice-cream into the cooler they brought, or the insulated bags we have. One of the questions the customers always ask us is “how does the ice-cream stay frozen for long periods of travel without it getting all soft and soup looking?”. The answer to that is very simple…Dry Ice. We keep all the half/3 gallons, dixies, pints, quarts and cookie sandwiches cold for long periods of travel with dry ice.

Dry Ice is much more effective to use than regular ice. When using regular ice, it melts much faster because the temperature starts to rise and when this happens, the particles start bouncing around like crazy. After all the craziness is done the ice finally turns into a liquid. Dry ice which is a solid brick of ice made from carbon dioxide that’s -109 degrees Fahrenheit, melts at slower pace.  This happens because of sublimation which is the transition from a solid to a gas with the liquid stage not involved whatsoever. For how long it takes it usually depends on how many hours customers are traveling, the size of the dry ice, and if the container will fit all the items plus the ice. For example we’ll ask a customer how many hours they are traveling, and they’ll say about three. So we get a block of dry ice and put it on the scale, until it gets as close to three as possible. It’ll last about that many hours.

In order to create the huge blocks of dry ice, it has to go through this long process. First the carbon dioxide has to turn into a liquid and to make that happen you need to cool and compress it. According to continental carbonic ” the liquid carbon dioxide is injected into either a block press or pelletizer.” This creates the huge chunks of block and the small pellets that we store in bins at my work.

Before the customers leave, we always have to ask them if they’ve used dry ice before. If the answer is not, then I’ll go over the procedures of what to with the dry ice if there is some left when they get home to their destination. This includes:

• when taking the ice-cream out of the cooler use gloves like wool- they protect your skin from getting a burn.
• Don’t put the dry ice down your sink- it will damage the pipes
• Throw the dry ice in your yard or keep it in the bag to disinigrate                                                        -if kept in bag make sure that its somewhere where no kids or animals can reach.

Hello everyone, my name is Stacy! I was born in Pittsburgh, but lived right here in good ol state college ever since then. Yep I’m a townie and proud of it! My favorite time of the year is summer because there’s so many events that go on. My all time favorite is Arts fest of course, which happens right here in state college. If you haven’t been to it yet, I highly advise you too.

I’m currently a sophomore at Penn State enrolled in Dus, but on my way to getting into the Visual School of Arts. Art is something I’ve been passionate about since my freshman year of high school. Creating something helps to reduce the stress that sometimes gets to me.

The reason I am taking this course is because I need to take it for my soon to be major. I’m excited to learn some new interesting information about science, even if it’s not the major I don’t want to get into. I can gloat to my dad, who happens to love science, all the cool stuff I’m learning about.
P.S. heres a cool video on art…its amazing 🙂