Author Archives: sjb5895

Which pollutant is the most dangerous

 

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Ever since I could remember, society has always been saying that every and any type of pollution is bad for the environment, and that we need to make a change. But it still seems like we are trying to fix this issue. I found numerous articles about whether pollution is an issue we should worry about or not. Whether or not pollution will be thing that kills us, I think we can say for sure that it’s not good for our health. I believe the first thing we have to do to stop pollution is to understand it. Understand what different types of pollution there are and what different types affect certain parts of our health.
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An article on Time states that coal pollution is a very big type of pollution that harms humans. A study says that coal pollution is the most dangerous for heart disease. The study was conducted by NYU school of medicine; George D. Thurston, Richard T. Burnett, and other scientists. It was published in the environmental health perspectives. The study had around 450,000 participants, from all around the country. They looked for different types of pollution particles that would cause heart disease. The results of the study were that coal pollution compared to a normal pollution was about five times stronger on the effects of the heart. The conclusion was that long-term exposure to fossil fuel combustion (coal burning) wa associated with increases in heart disease mortality.

Because of this new study, delegates from all over the world are meeting in Paris for a meeting aimed to fix climate change, especially concerning coal pollution. There are plans to fix this coal pollution problem. USA and China have both announced to reduce coal production.

LIANYUNGANG, CHINA - DECEMBER 08:  (CHINA OUT) Buildings are shrouded in smog on December 8, 2013 in Lianyungang, China. Heavy smog has been lingering in northern and eastern parts of China since last week, disturbing the traffic, worsening air pollution and forcing the closure of schools.  (Photo by ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

There was another study done in China that observed 200 publications that reported health effects from coal pollution. They observed studies regarding what causes heart disease and the particles from coal pollution from America and China. Their conclusion was that arsenic poisoning and fluorosis from coal pollution was observed in certain regions of China. Also they could connect a few studies that identified coal smoke with heart disease. The study is a study of studies, so I believe that it couldn’t be affected from the texas sharpshooter problem. I would have liked to see the study look at other places other than China and America.

Conclusion
After analyzing both studies, I believe it is evident to say that coal pollution can directly lead to heart disease. Also from the first study, I can also conclude that coal pollution is more dangerous to heart disease than other regular pollutions. I am pleased with the results of both studies because the first one was very extensive with its research and the second one was a study of multiple studies. I know humans don’t have much control with what type of air we breathe, but maybe knowing that there are more dangerous types of pollution that others will help you think more about your health and what effects it directly. If you have any thoughts on this topic or opinions on the studies I analyzed, please comment below.

Why are diamonds so special

When you think of diamonds, you think of love, of engagement rings, shininess and forever. Everyone cherishes diamonds so much because they all assume they are so rare. So when you are given one, it is some sign of love. Who decided that? After I heard someone tell me that diamonds aren’t rare as everything thinks they are. I found that really interesting considering people thought they were so rare and special.

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Diamonds only become really popular about a century ago. Before that rubies and sapphires were the gems that everyone wanted. People just loved the fact that they had rare gems. Diamonds come straight from Earth, and are found 100 miles below Earth’s surface. A one-carat diamond requires billions of carbon atoms to bond, and if it works out right, a colorless diamond will be created. Almost all of the diamonds come from either Africa, Russia, or Canada. Even though it sounds pretty cool, none of the science behind diamonds actually makes them as rare as they seem to be. what makes them so rare is actually the diamond companies themselves.

 

The big diamond companies, especially Da Beers, aggressively control the supply of diamonds. They simply locked up a huge amount of diamonds in a vault to inflate the prices of diamonds. After realizing that diamonds aren’t as rare as everything thinks they are, I wanted to know if maybe there is a difference with the way the diamond looks that makes it special. People always talk about how diamonds have that special sparkle.

 

I came across this news video with John stossel. The news report was also about diamonds and how they are no more special than cubic zirconia. Zirconium is a rock that looks very similar to diamonds. The one difference about them is that they only cost about $1.99. Stossel went to Grand Central train station and asked multiple pedestrians if they could pick the real diamond between a real diamond and a zirconia rock. Almost half of the pedestrians picked the fake one while others just couldn’t tell the difference. This could possibly prove the fact that diamonds have no specialty compared to any other rock that resembled it. There could be an issue with the file drawer problem where there were other experiments like the one in the video where they asked random people to identify a diamond, and in these experiments, the majority of the participants could have picked the right problem.

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I can not conclude the fact that diamonds look no different from zirconium because of the possible file drawer problem. But what I can conclude is that diamonds have been falsely determined rare by diamond companies. They manipulated the scarcity of diamonds by keeping some hidden. What I have learned from this blog is that you can never trust companies. I have also learned that you should look at multiple studies to make a conclusion. If you have any ideas on this topic, feel free to comment  below.

Elevation Training Masks

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Have you ever seen a person at the gym with a mask around their nose and mouth that makes them look like Bane? That thing is called an elevation mask, and it is a device that is supposed to help you with your training. It is said to increase your lung capacity and make your workout harder so it in the end give you a better workout. I wondered,  does this mask thing actually help with working out? Or is it just another cool looking invention that all the gym rats want. I wanted to look at both sides of this argument and then hopefully get an answer.

 

I looked up the website that sells these masks, and they had a page that describes the science behind the mask. Because this website also sells the elevation mask, I’m taking their information with a grain of rice. The mask is said to mimic the effects of high training altitude. This makes the workout harder, so when they take off the mask, they will perform stronger after being used to the thin air. The mask creates pulmonary resistance and strengthens the diaphragm. It will help you “regulate your breathing, increase lung stamina, lung capacity, oxygen efficiency and increase overall mental focus. When your diaphragm is being worked, the surface area and elasticity in the part of your lungs that processes oxygen is increased. The mask forces you to inhale a bigger breathe. The website states that they had extensive research with the mask with a clinical testing from the university of NAIT. They conducted a training where 8 males and 6 females wore the elevation training masks (ETM). While training the participants were tested before and after their physical activity. The participants used a stationary bike two times per week for five weeks. The males showed clear improvements in maximal oxygen consumption of 8.3% and power output of 9.8%. The females were 4.6% and 8.3%. Also cardiac function increased for both males and females. The conclusion of the trial was that training with the mask significantly improved cardiac function and oxygen consumption for both genders. Males seemed to have a better result with it than women.

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I tried to find articles that stated that elevation masks did not do anything, and I found this website page. The article did a study on elevation masks. The study included 16 trained team sport players, all around the age 20. The subjects were organized into a normal exercise control group and then a hypoxic training level; the people who use the training masks. They put the two groups in an interval training program, like aerobics, for 3 times a week for 4 weeks. The results of the study showed that training at a higher altitude compared to training at a normal altitude showed no differences. They showed no changed in aerobic fitness, anaerobic power and oxygen usage. The conclusion says that there is no difference between altitude and normal training. The article does realize that the mask does make your lungs work harder because they give you less air to breathe. they did another study that compared restricting your lung usage during workouts and not restricting your lungs. The results showed no significant difference in oxygen maximization. The conclusion of the article is that the elevation training mask does not seem to improve your performance, that all the claims the elevation training mask says, are false. Also they say that training with these devices may improve your lung strength, but these improvements do not affect your aerobic fitness

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After looking at both studies and sides of the argument, I had to step back and think about this for a while. I do understand that the elevation mask wants to replicate a high altitude atmosphere. I also believe that the mask makes breathing harder, and it does make your lungs work harder, but i had trouble finding the connection with that and with your improvement in strength and fitness in the first study. The elevation mask claims to take your workout to the next level and get a new sense of pain during working out. What they forget to mention is that there is no proven connection with the elevation mask and making your work out work better. I do agree with the second study when it states that working your lungs more does not mean you are working your overall aerobic stamina more. I would like to see a study that connects those two things, because for now, I do believe that these elevation masks to not do the things they claim to do. They just make your lungs work harder. Personally, i know a lot cheaper ways to strengthen your lungs, like perhaps swimming. So if you are planning on buying this, maybe think again if you want to drop $100 on a device that really has no affect on your training. If you have any other thoughts or ideas on this topic, please comment below and let me know.

Full body swimsuits

I have decided to switch it up a little with this blog post and talk about something other than a person’s health. As a swimmer, I have always known about the new cool equipment for swimmers. One new thing that really made a splash (pun intended) in the swimming world was the full body suits. These full body suits were first used at the world swimming championships in Rome during July of 2009. At this meet, 21 new world records were set.Everyone in the swimming world went in an uproar about these new suits that are too fast to be used in meets, because they were considered cheating. So what is it about these new full-body suits that are so special?

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Looking into the Suit

The most important part about these suits was the material that they were made with. Polyurethane is an extremely thin layer of foam like material that enclosed tiny pockets of gas, which would make the swimmer much more buoyant compared to just wearing a speedo. Because of this new buoyancy, swimmers floated higher in the water, producing less drag as they moved through the water. These suits also were really good at fitting onto the body. The suits had tiny fibers that changed the shape of the suit as the swimmer moved, which decreased a lot of drag in a regular suit, which would make a swimmer move through the water a lot faster. The only downside about that is that it took about 20 minutes for someone to get them on because they were pretty tight. Also they only last for about a few races and then they start to stretch out.

Banning Them

After the public realized how much of an advantage it was to have one of these suits, FINA, the world governing body of swimming banned these type of suits in January 2010. The unfortunate part about these suits is that there were world records that were broken when swimmers wore these suits, because it made them so much faster. These records set by these suits might not ever be broken again because no swimmer will have that type of advantage like with the full body suits.

Are these suits that bad?

After seeing how much of an uproar these suits caused, I wondered if these suits really made swimmers that much faster? Was it really because of the suits, or were the world records actually broken because of the swimmer? Maybe this issue was blown out of proportion and peoples emotional attachments to the sport made them exaggerate how much of an advantage it really was to have these full body suits. I believe the best way to answer these questions is from experimental tests. I have done a lot of research but could not find an experiment that involved fully body swimsuits with Polyurethane. I would like to propose an experiment that would possibly answer how much faster these suits really are. This experiment ideally would have a big group of participants, like over 30 swimmers. Also it would be better if these swimmers were very fast swimmers, like olympians. This would help because if the participants are experts at racing, then their times should be more consistent compared to a swimmer who is not that experienced with racing. I would make these swimmers swim a handful of different races with the full body polyurethane suits on. I would then let the swimmers wait about a week so they can rest before they do the same exact handful of races, expect not using full body suits. The swimmers would do the exact same practices that week as they did before and they would do the same type of warmup before both racing days. These similarities will help the scientists focus on the differences of the swimmers racing times solely on the suits. I would like to compare the two racing times and see which suits were faster, the full body suits, or the regular suits.

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Conclusion

Hopefully this hypothetical experiment would help us answer how much faster the full body suits are compared to the regular suits, or if there is even a difference with the suits. For now, we don’t know for sure that these suits are responsible for the record breaking races at the world swimming championships of 2009 unless there is an experiment made. But for now we can assume that these full body suits are the reason why so many world records were broken, because of the physics with the polyurethane I explained earlier in the blog. I have learned a couple of things from this blog, and if you take anything away from this blog, it should be that nothing is definitive unless it is experimented with science. Also you should take away the idea that experiments are emotion-proof. Some people could think that the full body suits ruined swimming because they were SO MUCH faster than regular suits, but maybe their emotions were involved with their opinion. Experiments would leave the emotions behind as they find a true answer for this question. If you have any questions, please comment below!

Gluten Allergies: Real or Fake?

There is always a new health craze that is trending in the United States, and a very big one hit in May of 2014, and it is still popular today. Some people believe that gluten causes intestinal and digestive pain, so they have decided to rid their diet of it and ask for everything they eat to be gluten free. I didn’t pay too much attention to it, but there was this one day where I was at an ice cream shop and I saw a little kid getting an ice cream, she asked the man to put sprinkles on her ice cream, but then her dad stopped her and told the employee that she had a “gluten allergy”. Obviously she didn’t have this her whole life because she seemed so happy to see the sprinkles that she must have had them before. So now that these non-gluten people are starting to affect their kids, I thought I should do some research and find out once and for all the truth about gluten allergies.

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Celiac Disease

Celiac disease is actually a real issue, it is an autoimmune disorder that can occur in genetically predisposed people where gluten damages the small intestine. This is a real example of how gluten can be bad for your health, if you have celiac disease. The interesting thing is is that it only affects about %1 of people world wide, while a quarter of all americans believe gluten is unhealthy. I would not like to focus on this disease, and focus more on Non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS).

Studies

I did a lot of research and looked at numerous amounts of websites that discuss gluten sensitivity. All of the websites seemed to talk about the same studies, so even though there is a lot of information and opinions about this subject, I found only two studies that could possibly give us an answer.

The first study I read about investigated the specific effects of gluten after a dietary reduction of poorly absorbed carbohydrates. The study was done on people who didn’t have celiac disease, but believed they had gluten sensitivity. The study performed a double-blind cross-over trial with 37 adults with self prescribed NCGS. The participants were randomly given a 2 week diet of either reduced poorly absorbed carbohydrates, a high-gluten diet, a low gluten diet, and the control diet. This study was supposed to analyze the intestinal pains of participants and see if there is a difference with gluten versus gluten-free diets. The results showed that only %8 of people experienced symptoms of inflammation in the bowel and intestines when they were on the gluten diet. The conclusion was that gluten did not affect your intestines and immune system. This study could have been flawed in a few ways. First off, maybe they should have had half the participants be people who didn’t have NCGS, because this makes it for a more centralized control group. Also 37 people is a very small control group, where if even a couple of people didn’t do the study the right way, they could have drastically changed the results.

The other study that was done on this issue had a different result. The study had 59 participants who also believed they had NCGS. The participants were split into 2 groups. The first group ate 4.375g/day of gluten foods, and the other group was the placebo. The groups switched after one week. The results showed that the intake of gluten significantly increased overall symptoms compared to the placebo. The participants experienced abdominal bloating and pain in the intestines when they were given gluten foods. The study concluded that the symptoms of gluten allergies increased noticeably during the week of gluten intake for the control groups. This study seemed to be pretty legitimate, but I do see some flaws that could have changed the results. First off, I would have liked to see the time period of how long they were on the diets to be longer. I don’t believe one week is way too short, but if the study is studying intestines and the digestive system, then it would be safer to make it 2 weeks because this would give the scientists more results to work with. Also, like the study before, I do wish they had both NCGS and non NCGS participants in the trial to make it more centralized.

Other possible explanations

There could also be other factors regarding someones diet that could cause intestinal pain. The Monash paper suggests that it might not be gluten that is the problem. Fructans in wheat might be responsible for symptoms in NCGS sufferers. Fructans are a part of short-chain carbohydrates known as FODMAP’s that are known for putting bacteria in the intestines. That could cause the same symptoms as gluten sensitivity. If this is true, it is good news because then people wouldn’t have as much of a restrictive diet if they had to avoid fructans compared to gluten, which is found in a lot of foods.

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Conclusion

As of now, the existence of non-celiac gluten sensitivity has not been proven to be false or real. Dr. Alessio Fasano, the director of the center for celiac research at the Massachusetts general hospital believes that it will be a long time before we find the answer to this question. He states that we need a few accurate DBPCFC trials to answer this question. What we can conclude from the trails is that even if gluten allergies are real, they are not nearly as common as people think. The 8% of people from the first trial who experienced gluten sensitivity could be a more accurate number than the quarter of americans who believe gluten is bad for them. If you have any thoughts or other comments on the trials I studied, please let me know below!

Oversleeping

One thing a lot of people know now is how not getting enough sleep is bad for you. It can cause fatigue, trouble concentrating, and a bunch of other health problems. But has anyone thought that getting too much sleep is also bad for your health? I have done some research and I believe I have analyzed enough studies to make a conclusion if oversleeping is a real issue, and what the affects of it are.

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First thing, we should define how much sleep is too much sleep. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults should get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep a day. For teenagers, there was a pulmonary medicine study that concludes that they need 9-9.5 hours of sleep a day. When I did my research, almost all of the studies compared to people who slept between 7-9 hours of sleep to people who slept 9-11 hours a day. With all of the studies using the 9 hour as the cut off time between enough sleep and too much sleep, I can conclude that over 9 hours of sleep a day is considered oversleeping. But how do people get to the point where they oversleep on a regular basis? I did some research and discovered a few reasons why people oversleep.

The National institute of Alcohol Abuse and alcoholism states that the abuse of alcohol and prescription drugs can cause people to sleep for an excessive amount of time. Another reason people could oversleep is depression. Most people who suffer from depression have insomnia, but %15 of people with depression oversleep because instead of getting out of bed, depressed people are not motivated enough, so they stay in bed and keep sleeping. Fatigue and sleep Apnea can also affect your sleeping cycle, which could make you oversleep in the end. Now that we know why people oversleep, lets see the side effects of oversleeping.

Obesity

WebMd had one study that showed how people who slept for 9-10 hours every night were %21 more likely to become obese over a six year period than to the people who slept from 7-8 hours every night. American Scientists conducted a study that found a correlation between diabetes and oversleeping. People who slept for more than 9 hours a night were more likely to become obese. Scientists believe this is true because when you sleep more you are doing less physical activity, so you are burning less energy, and that left over energy that isn’t used is stored as fat, which can lead to obesity and diabetes. Also, researchers from the University of Laval in Canada studied 276 people’s sleeping habits. They concluded that %20 of the people who slept over 8 hours developed diabetes, which was compared to only a %7 of diabetes patients from people who slept 7-8 hours of sleep a night.

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Heart Disease

There was a Nurses Health study that had 72,000 women participate in it. The study observed these women and categorized them by the women who sleep 9-11 hours and the women who sleep under 9 hours. They concluded that the women who slept 9-11 hours were %38 more likely to have coronary heart disease. The same study was also observed on the Health Guidance website. There was also research that was presented on the Huffington Post from the Chicago Medical school at an American college of cardiology meeting in 2012. They stated that sleeping for 8 or more hours a night was linked to increased heart issues like stroke, heart failure, and heart attacks.

Other possible medical affects

A lot of the research I found also mentioned back pains with oversleeping, but there was a problem with connecting oversleeping to back pains, because there could have been a number of other reason why people would have back pains.

Another possible consequence of oversleeping would be to feel more tired than usual. This may not make a lot of sense, because you would think that if you got so much sleep you would never feel tired when you were awake. But scientists do state that sleeping too much can throw off your biological clock, which can trick your body and then your body would give you mixed signals, like making you think you’re tired when you really aren’t. Oversleeping can also make you more prone to getting sick because by not being active and awake, your immune system rests too much, then is too weak to take care of your body when you have a full day of activities. This theory can also suffer from causation not equaling correlation, but there are many studies that are being done in it.

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Conclusion

After my research, I think I can conclude a few things. First, the healthy amount of hours to sleep per day is 7-9 hours. 9-11 will not immediately kill you, but from the studies there are definitely some differences with over-sleepers. Another thing I can conclude is that oversleeping can cause obesity. From the few different studies that I analyzed and discusses in the blog, I think that oversleeping is very likely to be connected to diabetes and obesity. Heart disease also seems to be another side effect of oversleeping. Some of the studies were only done on women, so I would like to see studies done on both genders to completely conclude that oversleeping will lead to heart problems, but I think it is on the right track. I can not conclude that back pain can come from oversleeping, because there were little to no studies done on it. I also can not conclude that oversleeping causes your immune system to become weaker, because there are no final studies done on this, but I personally believe that there is something there that should be tested. If you believe you are just generally feeling less healthy, maybe try and balance your sleep schedule. Try and sleep for about 8-9 hours max every night, and see if you feel any better. If you have any thoughts or ideas about this, please comment below!

Does Being Bilingual Make You Smarter?

It is said that more than half of the population of the world is bilingual, meaning they know how to speak two languages. I am bilingual, and I wanted to know what the benefits are of being bilingual, other than being able to communicate in two different languages. I want to know if knowing two or more languages helps your brain grow, or if it makes you smarter than the average monolingual person. I feel like being bilingual might give your brain an advantage when it comes to learning new things, so I did some research to see if my hunch was right or not.

There is an article that examines how learning two languages affects processing things better and how it affects various aspects of cognition. Recent studies involving young kids in the article have indicated that early bilingualism can alter the functional involvement of certain brain areas in the performance of executive control tasks, and induces experience-related change in the brain structure. So when people do multiple tasks at once, bilingual people use less part of their brain, while monolinguals (people who only speak one language) have to use both sides of their brain to transition from one task to another. This study concludes that it is easier for bilinguals to do more than one task at once compared to monolinguals because they have to use less of their brain to do the task, which pretty much means it is less tiring for them.

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I also found an article in the New York Times that addresses this topic. The article talks about a study in 2004 from psychologist Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee. This study asked bilingual and monolingual preschoolers to sort blue circles and red squares presented to them on a computer screen into bins. The children had to sort the shapes by color, and both groups did this task successfully. Next, the children were told to sort them by shape, even if the blue shape was supposed to go in the red bin. This made it more challenging because some of the shapes had to go in the bins that weren’t the same color as the shapes. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.

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More studies on bilingual people have suggested that being bilingual improves the brain’s executive function. The executive function is a command system in your brain that directs the attention processes that we use for problem solving and performing mentally demanding tasks.
The psychologists that are doing these studies believe that the difference between bilinguals and monolinguals is the ability to monitor the environment. Being bilingual requires people to keep track of the changes around them, like when they have to quickly decide what language is appropriate to use at specific times.

To summarize, the first study concludes that bilingual people are better at performing multiple tasks at once, and the second study concludes that bilinguals are quicker at performing tasks that are mentally demanding. After reviewing these two articles, I can conclude that being bilingual will make you smarter than being monolingual in the comparison of being able to know your surroundings and with context of how to multitask. If you have any new thoughts or contradicting ideas on this subject, please comment below, I would love to hear a new perspective on this topic!

What is the best time of day to start work?

Whether it is going to class, going to work, or starting your day off with some sort of task, everyone has that time of the day where they put on their working hat. Some people start their work at 11 if thats the earliest class they have for that day, or some people start at 5:30, if there job requires them to start that early like a paper man. What I would like to know is when is the best time of the day to start your work? At what time are humans most efficient?

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Scientist and clinical research associate at the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institue Dr. Paul Kelley at Oxford University believes that starting work before 10 am is torturous . He believes that the circadian rhythms of adults are completely out of sync with the normal working hours, that usually start around 8. Dr. Kelley did a study where he changed the starting time of a school from 8:30 to 10. This experiment concluded that the number of top grades in the school rose by %19.

 

Dr. Kelley states that a sixteen year old should start their school at 10 a.m. because we have a sleep-deprived society. Sleep-deprivation has been shown to have significant effects on human health. A study showed that having less than six hours of sleep a night can affect how genes function. This means that if we are making people wake up and start their work day before their body naturally wakes up, then we are depriving humans of their sleep, which Dr. Kelley stated to be very dangerous.

Dr. Kelley believes that his experiment with school kids will correlate to adults where if they were to change the starting work time from 8 to 10am, there would be an increase in efficiency. He stated that waking up and starting work before 10am is “hugely damaging on the body’s systems because you are affecting physical, emotional, and performance systems in the body.”

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After doing the research I did, Dr, Kelley’s studies seemed to be the only legitimate ones that I could use for this blog. I do hope that there will be other studies that are focused on finding out what time is the best time of the day to start work. Because even though Dr. Kelley’s studies are convincing, more is better.

I can conclude that 10 am sounds like the ideal time to start your work day, whether you are a student or an adult going to work. Circadian rhythms should be considered when bosses decide when to bring their employees in for work, because sleep deprivation can be a dangerous thing to a human’s health. If you have any thoughts or new ideas on this topic, please comment below!

Do some of your senses get better when you lose another one?

The human has many senses, and like Andrew said, there are more than just five (acceleration, temperature..). But I was wondering if some of the senses were to stop working, then would the others pick up the slack by being stronger? Do the neurons of hearing go to waste when you go deaf or do they transfer over to the neurons of your eyes? I think this is a question that a lot of people with these kinds of disabilities would like to know.

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Ever since I was young, my left eye has been severely weak. I pretty much only see out of my right eye. I thought that what if the “power” that I could have had in my eye went somewhere else? Then I realized that I have always had really good hearing. I  could hear my phone buzz even if it was in another room or I could watch the TV very quietly when no other of my family members could. So there must be something going on

I did some research, and this question has been asked many times my scientists. There is A study published by a group of scientists on PubMed.gov that backs up this theory. They carried out functional imagine studies that observed the people’s brain as they were being experimented on. They had two groups of people, one blind, and one not blind. They had the two groups do a hearing test, and the group who could see showed a decreased cerebral flow in their occipital lobe, and the blind group did not have this decrease in their occipital lobe. That shows that the senses are connected and their is a difference between these two groups of people. At the end of the study, the blind people did a better job on the hearing test than the people who had their sight. The study concluded that the neurons in the occipital lobe (visual part of the brain) are directly transferred to the monaural cues (hearing part of the brain) when the occipital lobe neurons are weakened. If this study did not convince you enough, here is another study.

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More research that was published in 2011 in the journal PLoS ONE shows that people who are deaf have better eyes. Scientists, led by Dr. Charlotte Codina and Dr. David Buckley, did an observational study and found out that “the retinal neurons in deaf people appear to be distributed differently around the retina to enable them to capture more peripheral visual information.” This basically means that the neurons from the hearing part of the brain in deaf people were different than those who were not deaf, which is obvious, but then it shows that the deaf people had better eye sight than those who were not deaf. Also previous research shows that deaf people can see further than hearing people, which is connected to the visual cortex in the brain.

After looking over these two studies, I can conclude that people who have weakened senses have other senses that are stronger than average humans. The neurons from the hearing part of your brain are connected to the neurons in the visual part of the brain. It is nice to see that my thought on this theory was correct. If you have any thoughts or questions on this blog post please comment below!

Is thunder during snowstorms more dangerous than regular thunderstorms?

I grew up in Chicago, and we had a lot of rough thunderstorms during the summer. They would be loud, they would shake my whole house, and sometimes they would make us lose power for a couple of days. We also had some very rough snowstorms in the winter where it would be a blizzard for days. One day I asked myself why isn’t there thunder during snowstorms? Aren’t snowstorms just rainstorms during the winter?

The answer to these questions is that there actually are thunderstorms during snowstorms, they are commonly referred to as thunder-snow. So what does thunder during snowstorms indicate? Is it a less dangerous storm, or is it a more severe storm that is caused by the thunder?

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Thunder snow

thunder snow is pretty much what is sounds like. During a snowstorm, thunder forms. It is a very rare and unusual occurrence, but is known to happen in mid-latitude climates, in the United States. When convection is strong enough, thunderstorms can happen even in the winter. Thunder snow can happen in three different instances. The normal one is when a thunderstorm is on the edge of a cold front or a warm front where the precipitation in the atmosphere takes the form of snow. The second instance is when there is a synoptic snowstorm that allows for conditions that make lightning and thunder to occur, but those are the most rare ones. The third one is called the lake effect where a thunderstorm is produced by cold air passing over warmer water, which produces snow squalls that then connect to the thunderstorm. These are typically found over the great lakesthundersnow4a.

There is a video showing a meteorologist filming thunder during a snow storm, and it is actually quite entertaining watching this guy freak out over the thunder.

Is it more dangerous than a regular snowstorm?

One thing we have to know is that thundersnow is very rare. It is recorded in less than one percent of snowstorms. So when it does occur, it is something special. Professor Patrick Market from the University of Missouri recorded that there is an %86 chance that at least six inches of snow will f all within 70 miles of the lightning flash. What is considered heavy snowfall is about 8 inches per hour, so thunder snow usually occurs during heavy snowfall. Researchers are still trying to determine why thunder snow is connected to heavier snow fall.

The scary part is not how much snow falls, but how quickly it falls. An observer of a thunderstorm in the snow said “It was like watching a time-lapse movie of the snow building up, because it falls so quickly.” When thunder occurs during a snowstorm, meteorologists says that is too late to inform the local residents that there will be a whiteout coming because it happens it minutes.

Conclusion

What we can take away from this that thunder snow is dangerous in a couple of ways. One way obviously is getting struck by the lightning, which is even more rare in the winter than in the summer. But the more realistic fear should be if you are in a safe place that you can stay for a while. It is researched that when thunder occurs during a snow storm, the snow will fall quickly after that for a while. There will be inches added up after the lightning strike and it will happen quickly.

Scientists and researchers are still figuring out why thunder causes the snow to fall more aggressively, but it does. In conclusion, Thunder during snowstorms is more dangerous because of the heavy snowfall that could greatly affect the residents that live close by the strike of lightning. If you have any ideas or interesting thoughts on this topic then please comment below! Thanks for reading.

Megalodon: Myth or Real?

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Since all my blogs have been about realistic situations, I decided to make this last blog a little more interesting and ask one of those fun science questions. If you have participated in shark week, a week long television special on discovery channel about sharks, then you have probably heard about Megalodon. Megalodon is an ancient species of shark that lived around 2.6 million years ago. The interesting thing about this supposedly extinct shark is that they could grow to 60 feet. To put that into retrospect, a average length of a regular shark is 11 to 13 feet. There is concrete proof that this ancient shark existed, but could it be possible that is is still alive to this day?

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Many of you probably think that its impossible for this shark to exist. I mean if it were really that big, then shouldn’t we have seen it by now? But when you think about 95% of the ocean being undiscovered, it is kind of impossible to dismiss this possibility.

The real evidence that megalodon existed was the fossil remains of the shark, specifically the teeth. There has never been a scientific recording of the species, as most scientists believe it has gone extinct 2 million years ago. to read more about the history of megalodon, you can read this article here.

There is some potential real evidence of megalodon still existing. In Australia, a research team tagged a nine foot great white shark. Four months after the great white shark was tagged, the researches found the tag washed up on the beach. When they analyzed the data from the tagger, they found a temperature rise and a sudden 1,900 foot drop in depth. The only realistic explanation was that the shark was eat by something and the tracking device was digested and washed up on the shore. You can read more about this possible real evidence here.

On the other side of the argument, many scientists have concluded that the ancient species megalodon does not exist. Discovery channel made a mocumentary about megalodon, and when it was proven that the tv special was fake, many people were in uproar at discovery channel. Scientists have an explanation for almost every megalodon theory, but does this mean that it is really extinct? Comment on this post and tell me what you think!

Is Photographic Memory Real?

Is photographic memory real?

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Ever since I heard about photographic memory as a kid, I was always fascinated and pretty jealous of the people who could just look at a picture or a page on a book and just memorize it.

I mean if I had photographic memory, I know I would have probably done a lot better in high school. I wanted to do some research and really figure out if photographic memory is actually a thing, or if it is just what smart people tell everyone else to make themselves seem cooler.

I did some research on the internet and there is actually a more scientific name for photographic memory, eidetic imagery. Eidetic imagery is defined as a normal subjective visual image experienced with noticeable vividness whether evoked by an actual external object or not. So to explain that, you can put a picture in from of an eidetiker for 30 seconds, then remove it, and the person will confidently claim to still see the picture in their head. They can describe the picture just like it is still in front of them. The funny thing about people with photographic memory describe the objects or images in their head in the present tense as if they are looking at it right then and there.

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Eidetic memory is different then just memorizing or learning something. It is kind of cheating the system and storing the image in your head without fully learning it. You may think that you could have this photographic memory because you can remember a photo that was taken or a page from a book really well, but the difference with eidetic memory is that their memories will fade away involuntarily. They usually tend to last for a half a minute to several minutes only. During that time period is when the person will go over it in their head so they can learn it without using their photographic memory. There is a lot of psychology that goes into this, and you can read more about it here.

So you must think, how can I get this? The thing is that mostly younger people have it, it there is no research that adults possess this ability to form eidetic images. So it seems that really you get it or you don’t and it could fade away the older you get as the worse your memory gets. Which is unfortunate, because I am sure buys adults could really benefit from using this imagery.

So in the end, photographic memory is real, it is just called eidetic imagery, and it might not be as literal as having a storage of photos of things in your head. But there definitely is evidence that this phenomenon is real. If you have any thoughts on this, or you know anyone who has photographic memory, comment on this post and talk about it!

Is your alarm clock bad for your health?

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Now that we are college kids, some of us no longer have the privilege of getting woken up by our soft and comforting voice of our mother. I’m sure most college students use an alarm clock to wake themselves up, whether it be for an early class or if they just don’t want to sleep until noon. There are a couple different ways to use an alarm clock, you could buy a night stand clock and set an alarm on that or use your phone. Which ever one it is, they usually wake you up at a certain time with a little jingle or ringtone, which the user will learn to hate after the first few times it has woken them up. Yes, alarm clocks suck, they take you away from your comfortable bed, or they interrupt you from a really good dream. But has anyone thought that maybe alarm clocks could hurt us, and more than just putting us in a bad mood.

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A study was done by the National Institute of Industrial Health where participants who were suddenly forced awake had higher blood pressure and heart rate than those who woke up on their own time. Dr. Chris Idzikowski explains that the body is very vulnerable during sleep. An alarm that wakes up the whole body can really but a strain on the body. You can read more about the studies here.

The sound of the alarm can raise your blood pressure very easily. When you hear that banging sound, your “fight or flight” response turns on. In this case, its whether to wake up or ignore it and try to go back to bed. But with this response, your blood pressure can suddenly increase and it can pump up your adrenaline levels. Doing this every morning for months can lead to a lot of problems like chronic stress, which contributes to high blood pressure.

So what is the solution to this? How can we stray away from the abrupt sound that wakes you up instantly that the normal alarm clock uses? What if there was an alarm that would wake you up over ten minutes instead of a quick second. There is an app called ZenAwake that wakes you up over ten minutes. At first, the app sounds a gentle chime, which slowly increases in frequency over the ten minutes to wake you up from a more naturally way than waking you up instantly. If you would like to read more about the app, you can click here.

There are other alarm clocks that are made just like that to mimic a natural sleep by gradually waking you up over a period of minutes. These alarm clocks have been scientifically proven to be healthier for humans and they have been known to make the person in a much better mood.

If you feel intrigued to try out this new alarm clock and ditch your loud one, then get the app or buy a new alarm clock and comment on this post how it is! Or you can comment what you think of this and maybe agree that all phones should change their alarm clock to the new and improved one.

Can cell phones cause cancer?

Can your cell phone really cause cancer? This question has been asked by many people ever since holding an electronic device to your head for multiple minutes has become the norm. Lets look at both sides. Do the people who believe that cell phones can cause cancer truly believe that radiation can be dangerous in even small doses, or are those people just hypochondriacs? Or are the people who believe that it doesn’t cause cancer just not thinking that this could be a problem in five years if the radiation takes that slow. Let’s try and dive into this subject a little more and make a decision.

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A lot of researches have thought that the increase in brain tumors since 1970 has something to do with cell phones. But the problem with that is that cell phones weren’t until the 1990’s. That study of the increase in brain tumors could be explained by the increase in medical detection of brain tumors since 1970.

There was a study that observed 420,000 cell phone users over a 20 year period, and the researchers have found that there is no link between cell phone use and brain tumors. Even though this study does not fully answer the question, it definitely supports the idea that cell phone use does not cause cancer.

The World Health Organization has agreed that their is limited evidence that cell phones have radiation that could cause cancer. To read more about that, you can read it here.

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Like I said, this question is not yet completely answered. There are still tests to be done and the thing we need for that is time. But as of now, we can say that there is no evidence that cell phones cause radiation. Please comment on this post if you have any thoughts or information that I didn’t cover!

Can we turn Carbion Dioxide back into fuel?

A big problem in our environment right now is the excess amount of carbon dioxide. Humans have become too attached to fossil fuels and it will be very difficult to solve the problem if we have to stop using fossil fuels. But maybe there is a solution that will use air pollution (Carbon Dioxide) and turn it into energy.

Stuart Licht has designed a recycling machine that take CO2 from the atmosphere and turns it back into liquid fuel with the use of energy from sunlight and water. There are a lot more components to the procedure, but that is just the broad summary of it. The goal of this device is to pass fossil fuels, making this the best option for energy. To read more about Licht and his research team, you can read about them here.

To be more specific, the device attempts to reverse a running combustion and taking energy from other renewables, such as the sun, into chemical bonds. This is a challenge, because its going against what plants do. Researchers are expected to do far better if they would want to succeed.

The device is not perfect yet, because for it to work, the reactor needs to run at 1000 Celcius, though there are researchers working an alternative approach that would carry out the same chemical reaction in room temperature. If you would like to hear more about the process, you can check this articlemof.

The big problem is that fossil fuels are still pretty cheap. They won’t be in a while, but for now, they are cheap. With that, there is no reason putting a bunch of money into this new device that society has no used before. The real reason why this device should succeed is because of the constant problems that fossil fuels cause for the world. Scientists are looking for way to use solar fuels more dependently.

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In your own thoughts, do  you think this is worth it? It is expensive, and it is sort of reversing the flow of nature, but is it better than using fossil fuels? Even though it can’t replace all fossil fuels, maybe it is good enough to give it a shot. If you have any opinions, please comment on this post!

What does the color of your pen mean?

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As we start the new school year, we start with fresh school supplies. We have new binders, a new planner, and all the colorful pens a student could possibly never need. There is, however, that one pen that is better than all the other pens. This pen is used for everything and anything, and most students wouldn’t think too much about picking out that favorite pen, but maybe there is more meaning behind what kind of pen you use.

There are a lot of components when it comes to describing a pen. The ink color, the thickness of it, and if its ball point or felt tip. All of these components can actually say a lot about someones personality.

Let’s focus on the color of ones pen. There is an article that analyzes the colors of your pen that you could read more thoroughly here. For just a summary, this is what they came up with:

Blue ink: If you are a fan of blue ink, then studies have shown that you are a sensitive, friendly and warm person with an outgoing personality. You are most likely to be seen in a career that helps others like nursing, or charity.

Black ink: You may think that there is not much to tell from a person who uses black ink, because it is just the basic pen color, but actually, the studies show some specific characteristics. If  you are a black pen user, then you are considered to be a more dominant person who likes to be in charge of your own life. You are sometimes uptight, and can be a little conservative when it comes to showing your emotions, but you think with your head and your career is usually some type of authority.

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Red ink: Red ink can imply that you like being the center of attention. You are energetic, emotionally passionate and you enjoy the limelight. You are creative, which can lead you to new things. You are not afraid to show your emotions, and you love the physical aspect of life.

If you are not sure which ink color you like best, or you don’t know which one of these personalities fits you, then you can take this quiz to find out. (It is meant mostly for girls, sorry guys).

In conclusion, the color of your pen can say a lot about your personality. The science behind it makes me believe that our subconsciousness has some choice when it comes to picking our favorite pen. So the next time you pick a pen out of your backpack, think about what kind of personality you want to have that day.

Initial Blog Post

Hello, my name is Scott Bennatan and I am from Chicago, Illinois. The reason I am in this class is because I had to take a natural sciences credit and this seemed like the best option. A lot of the other courses were pretty specific with what kind of science it was, and I didn’t really find any of them interesting, so I chose this class that is more broad.

The reason I am not a science major is because I never really enjoyed it in high school. Chemistry was not very enjoyable because I can’t learn things well when I can’t see it, and because I couldn’t see molecules, I did not understand it. I also did not enjoy physics. I don’t hate science, it’s just something that I will never be happy doing as a career. What I am passionate about is hospitality management, which you can read more about in this link. I am very excited to be in this class, it seems very interesting and I am always engaged when people discuss scientific questions about the world.

The one thing that I did enjoy in my science classes though was my egg project, here is a picture:

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