Typically students from wealthier areas or school districts do better in school and move on to graduate and even attend college. Wouldn’t you think the students from lower socioeconomic school districts and families would have more of an incentive to do good in school. Studies show this is not the case, but why is it this? I believe it is because these students are given up on and looked at as a waste of time.

A study conducted by East Tennessee State University looked at socioeconomic status on student achievement in rural areas of east Tennessee. The sample of the study was 8th grade students from 2006-2007 in four different elementary schools. Using a 2-way analysis of variance model was used to compare the means of the study. The independent variable was the school itself and the socioeconomic status of the students. The dependent variable was the questions answered correctly in each subject. The findings from this study show that students from low socioeconomic backgrounds need the extra help from schools because at home they don’t have the supplies or support in order to do well.

From information published in The Wall Street Journal, 77% of adults who come from the top income quartile earn a bachelors degree by the time they are 24 years old. Only 9% of adults did this from the lower quartile. So there is a clear indication of how socioeconomic can effect academic performance. Approximately half of the minority population in high schools will graduate, this tends to be the lower socioeconomic population majority of the time. The students who come from low socioeconomic families don’t have the same resources as other students. Like educated parents or school materials at home necessary to complete homework. There is third confounding variables to be considered when discussing this matter, but something has to be done to fix this problem in schools.

A possible solution to this problem with academic performance would to conduct an observational study in which there would be three groups. One group would be the low socioeconomic school district, another would be the higher socioeconomic school district, and the third would be the two mixed together. My theory is that if we blend school districts together and give children with low socioeconomic backgrounds a better education then academic performance would increase, as well as graduation rates. This is one possible experiment that could be conducted.

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Growing up I would constantly be told by my mother that I eat too much sugar and that I would get diabetes. Even years later I still wondered if eating too much or a lot of sugar would cause someone to get diabetes. Diabetes is when the body can’t produce insulin or can’t use the insulin it produces correctly. The null hypothesis here is that eating sugar doesn’t increase the risk of diabetes, and the alternative hypothesis is that eating sugar does increase the risk of diabetes.

At The University of California San Francisco researchers observed 175 countries over the last decade. Food supply data was contracted from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization and estimates from the International Diabetes Foundation on people 20-79 in these countries. Researchers in the study accounted for third confounding variables like obesity, total calorie intake and a lot of other factors. The study found that a population with increased sugar in food supply had higher type two diabetes rates. Not only was the availability of sugar correlated to the risk of diabetes, but when sugar was limited in a population the diabetes rates dropped over time. The study does not directly prove causation, as epidemiology cannot show causation.

The study done by researchers shows that an increase in sugar increases the risk of diabetes over a population. Later in the future some kind of randomized test needs to be conducted to see if increase in sugar increases the risk in diabetes. Although feeding test subjects large amounts of sugar would be unethical, the test could lower a persons sugar intake to see if it reduces the risk of diabetes. This future study was proposed by a researcher at The University of California San Francisco. The randomized trials would give researchers a possible cause and effect statement.

Based on this study increases in sugar consumption correlate to increase in risk for diabetes, but causation cannot be determined because it is an observational study. Further experimentation is required to get clear results, but as of now the studies done support that too much sugar may increase your risk for type 2 diabetes.

Whenever we hear about a child who has been diagnosed with cancer it is a tragedy, but there is no better feeling then hearing that a child beats cancer. Surviving cancer at such a young age takes strength and courage to complete all the tests and treatments. After all the suffering and joy have going through and beating cancer are children completely safe? According to research they are more likely to have recurring strokes if a first stroke already occurred.

Null Hypothesis: Cancer has no relationship to the recurring strokes

Alternative Hypothesis: Cancer has a relationship to the recurring strokes

A study from The University of California San Francisco’s brain center shows that childhood cancer survivors that suffer a stroke have double the risk of a second stroke. Findings shown in Neurology a medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology support Sabine Mueller, MD, PhD in saying, “we are saving more children with life-saving interventions.” The only down side is these interventions are said to be having life long effects. Of 271 respondents who reported a first stroke, 70 reported a second stroke. This is double the rate of the normal population. Patients who had cranial radiation therapy were 33% more likely to have a reoccurring stroke. All this information appear in the following study.

Cancer doesn’t seem to cause the stroke. The third variable of radiation therapy that targets the brain causes the first stroke. The children get cancer and then the treatment they have to face to save their life is causing the first stroke, but why is it more likely to face another stroke?

With the current research nobody can understand why the reoccurring stroke occurs, but researchers have figured out how to know who high risk patients are. Knowing this treatments will need to be designed to prevent reoccurring strokes in children after facing the horrors of cancer. The study done was the only one I could find, but from the results this is a field of study that needs more research done to fix the problem presented.

We all know football involves a lot of physical contact and huge hits. Often injuries are fairly common like concussions or other injuries due to being hit. If a young child begins to play football at an early age will they have an increased risk for brain damage later in their life. I wanted to investigate if all that contact at an early age could have very negative side effects.

A study done by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine of NFL retirees was conducted to see if repeated impact had an effect on the brain prior to age 12. This period is when a child’s brain begins to develop aspects like memory and verbal IQ. 42 former NFL players were used ages 40-65, half played football before the age of 12 and the other half played after the age of 12. Subjects were tested in 3 different ways. They completed a Wisconsin Card Sort Test, Neuropsychological Assessment Battery List Learning test, and Wide Range Achievement Test. These tests test for disfunction within the brain. They concluded that those who played football before the age of 12 performed significantly worse than those who played after the age of 12. The study concludes that playing football during a key period of brain development increases the risk of cognitive impairment later in life.

Another study done at The University of Tulsa’s Laureate Institute for Brain Research  was done to see the volume of the hippocampus in football players. The hippocampus is the region of the brain associated with memory, but more long term memory. 50 college players were tested along with 25 non football players. 25 of the college football players who had not suffered any trauma to the head like a concussion had a hippocampus that was similar to the 25 non football players. The second group of 25 college football players had a hippocampus that was on average 25% smaller than the control of non players. Conclusions made were that the longer the player played football, the smaller the size of the hippocampus.

Based on results from these studies football players eventually struggle in everyday life because they face such hard hits. That is part of the sport, but if these hard hits are faced at a point in a child’s life when the brain is developing, it may cause effects earlier in life. Some proposals to not allow head contact before the age of 14 have been made. This would involve children playing flag football later than normal.

The contact of playing football has a clear correlation with brain damage that affects one later in life. There is no third confounding variable that causes this brain damage, and the studies suggest clear results. Although only small sample sizes are present in this various studies it may be hard to find football players that are willing to participate in such an experiment. Would making children play flag football up until the age of 14 be that big of a deal if it was going to prevent brain damage? I don’t think so.

Have you ever found yourself constantly checking your phone, knowing there was no reason for it. Always updating social media to see if someone posted something new. Or even that vibrate we feel in our pocket, when in fact the phone hasn’t vibrated at all. I know I am guilty of all this and I am wondering is it possible to be addicted to your cell phone.

As technology becomes more and more advanced, people continue to immerse themselves in it. When was the last time you had a friend who didn’t have a cell phone? According to a study done at Baylor University, female college students spend an average of 10 hours a day on their phone and men spend around 8 hours a day on theirs. Now if you factor in an average of 8 hours of sleep each night, that leaves about 6-8 hours in the day where a student does not use their phone. This study was based off of 164 college students, and they were asked how much time they spend sending emails, on Facebook, etc. Although this sample is small, it could be a could representation of the population at hand.

The study not only asked how long students spent on their phone, but to agree or disagree with certain statements. These included statements like “I spend more time than I should on my cellphone,” or, “I get agitated when my cell phone is not in sight.” The studied showed a difference in addiction for men and women. Men’s use of social media correlates to the risk of addiction. Women use their phone in order to maintain social relationships, but use of phone doesn’t equal addiction. The driving force that shows a possibility for addiction is the lift in mood from checking one’s phone.

Another study done at Elon University in North Carolina surveys students in heavy populated parts of campus about cell phone addiction. The findings further prove that cell phone addiction is becoming more frequent. More than half the students surveyed said they were addicted to their cell phone and felt disconnected without it. We thrive of instant communication with one another. Students surveyed believed that we forgot how to interact face to face and this addiction will only get worse as time goes on. More proof to my question about if cell phone addiction could be real.

These studies are both observational, as they are both surveys, so they can’t prove that there is an actual addiction to cell phones. Also correlation cannot mean causation in this case. When college students are the sample for both of these studies, it creates a bias because typically college students will own a cell phone. Also it is a very small sample compared to a population, so a larger sample size may give clearer results.

From these studies you may think, so what. People use their cell phone all the time, but that doesn’t prove addiction. Although it does not prove addiction it shows a strong correlation that people are using their phone to get a lift in mood from checking social media or either talking with friends. If you take away alcohol or tobacco from somebody that is addicted they tend to panic and get anxiety and eventually experience withdrawal. Well when somebody’s phone dies or is misplaced immediately they will look for a charger or scramble to look for it. These actions show signs of withdrawal that support possible phone addiction.

Autism has become a major concern in science, what causes autism and how are risks of autism   increased. Does an increase in maternal age during pregnancy have an increased risk for pregnancy? Why does age have anything to do with the outcome of the child. I want to find out if this is true and is it because of a confounding variable, like age of the mom’s partner or something else.

Risk of autism seems to increase slowly when the fathers age increases, but has a sharp increase when the mother’s age increases. A study done on Swedish children between the years of 1984-2003 was conducted to examine the effect of maternal and paternal age on autism. The sample was 417,303 Swedish children. The conclusion of the study was that increasing maternal age increased the risk of autism regardless of the risk of paternal age.

This study has a good sample size and eliminates the possibility of the only confounding third variable I could imagine for this case. So a correlation can be made that increasing maternal age will cause an increased risk for autism. The results based off of this one study seem to be pretty clear.

Another study done by the organization Autism Speaks looked at the health records for 5 different countries for more than 5.7 million children. Over 30,000 of these children were recorded as having autism. This study also found that children were 66% more likely to have autism if they were born to dads over the age of 50. The cause is that older parents have genetic mutations in their sperm and egg cells. The study founded that age of the parent is not a cause for autism, but a risk factor. Most children born to older parents will in fact develop normally.

Using epidemiological scientific studies reported before January 2012, researchers conducted a meta-anaylsis to see if in fact increasing maternal age cause an increased risk for autism. The meta-anaylsis did in fact support this hypothesis, and even after consider other third confounding variables like paternal age, the association was still upheld between increasing maternal age and increased risk for autism.

It is unclear as to what kind of conclusion can be made based off of these three examples. Most commonly it appears that increasing maternal age has the greatest affect on the risk of autism, but with further research and more studies to be conducted on an important matter, a conclusion will soon be made. The two studies conducted are well done, as well as the meta analysis.

Organ transplant is a very common medical practice when a person has an organ that isn’t functioning correctly. Everyday 79 people receive a transplant that extends their lifespain, but 22 die on the waiting list because of the shortage of organs. The amount of time it took me to visit this website another person was added to a waitlist for an organ. This problem is mostly occurring with kidneys, not to take away from other organs because all types of donors are needed.

A kidney transplant replaces a perfectly healthy kidney and gives it to someone with a failing kidney. People with end stage renal disease and congenital defects of the kidney usually require a kidney transplant. The kidney carries out processes that are essential to life, like filtration of the blood to remove waste, releasing hormones to regulate blood pressure, and stimulation of the production of red blood cells. Without at least one kidney to perform these processes a person will die. Unfortunately not everyone is lucky enough to get a kidney. The process to being put on the waiting list requires an extensive amount of testing to make sure you are fit. Usually social and psychological tests are run. During waiting time, an estimated one third of patients will die on dialysis. Dialysis puts limitations on the persons life, life traveling to go see family. So even though it is keeping them alive it takes away from what we would call normal activities.

The process for kidney transplant is generally routine. This is not the complicated part, getting the donor kidney is what is causing such a problem. The amount of people that are kindly willing to remove their kidney is very slim. So usually patients in need of a kidney are in and out of hospitals, constantly being monitored and that is how their life is spent. There is really no solution to fix this problem

Last year 4000 people died waiting for a kidney and 3600 people were taken off the waiting list because they became too sick for a transplant. Clearly we do not have enough people willing to donate their kidneys for someone else to have good health, but that would change if they were paid. People in need of transplants live a controlled life while on dialysis, and have no idea if they’ll ever get a kidney. They sit around and basically wait for an organ donor to die in hope they’ll receive that kidney. If donors were paid by insurance companies for their kidney and the insurance companies would gladly do this because of the expenses of dialysis. Extensive measures would be needed to test the donor to see if they were right for donation. This idea could potentially end the shortage of kidneys.

Now people who suffer from paralysis or have had an amputated limb can gain parts of there life back. New robotic technology involving direct connection to nerves, bone, and muscle has allowed for patients who want it, to gain control of aspects of their life back. The new prosthetics allow for an increase in the users range of motion, a better handle on small delicate items, and many more benefits.

A 28 year old man, paralyzed for more than a decade due to a spinal cord injury, was able to feel physical sensations for the first time in awhile. Scientists at DARPA created a prosthetic hand that connects directly to the brain. This man could not only feel sensations, but he could tell what fingers were being touched. This prosthetic limb can receive signals from the brain and understand what they are touching. The man was tested by having two fingers touched instead of one to test his feeling, he could tell right away and proved the prosthetic hand was natural. The hand is wired to the mans motor cortex so all the motions can be controlled by him. This man was able to perform with 100% accuracy on all the scientists tests. Not only could this technology help people who are paralyzed, but also amputees.

Another man, who lost his hand in an accident was given a similar prosthetic hand and was able to pick up cherries and remove the stems with it. Not only could these new prosthetics benefit paralyzed people, but also those who live as amputees. The new advancements in prosthetics are due to a cuff electrode which can convey feelings from sensors when attached to a peripheral nerve in the arm. These electrodes receive signals from the implant on the motor cortex and these signals then translate into motions.

Although testing is minimal and this technology is very new, thousands of people including soldiers could benefit from this technology. Based on a study done with 35 volunteers from the department of veterans affairs participated in a trial for the new upper limbs. Based on this testing DEKA submitted a premarket notification in the hopes of making this item available to  the public. This new technology could give life back to people who live under certain conditions due to injury. Now a woman, completely paralyzed below the neck is able to interact with people around her, by using a robotic arm. Two electrode arrays were implanted into this woman’s motor cortex, allowing her to control the movements of the robotic arm. This new technology is a more natural way for paralyzed to interact with the environment around them.

More volunteers are being looked for to test this new technology of robotic arms and prosthetics. As we move into the future this technology is going to open new doors for people who thought there life was changed forever by one drastic event. Very few patients have been treated, but doctors around the world plan to treat more and more patients each year.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder, like depression or bipolar, in which a person has different personality traits and behavior than what society views as normal due to damages in the brain. Psychopathy comes from one’s genetic makeup or otherwise known as the nature of the person. Have you ever lied or done something wrong and felt guilty about it? Psychopaths do not get this feeling. These people tend to disregard laws and social mores, don’t think much about others, feel no remorse for their actions, are very good at manipulation and can be violent. Someone may begin to wonder what is it that causes someone to believe that this behavior is correct.

The brains of psychopaths have damage to them that can be seen through brain scans. In an interview James Fallon, described damage to the orbital frontal cortex, a shrunken amygdala, and a damaged insular cortex. All these damages to the brain had remained constant throughout different pet scans he looked at for brains of psychopaths. Also in a study done by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health images of the brains twenty prisoners who committed crimes and were diagnosed with psychopathy were compared to twenty prisoners who committed similar crimes and were not diagnosed with psychopathy. The study shows that psychopaths have reduced connection between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. Both parts of the brain which are associated with feelings like guilt or fear. Prisoners diagnosed with psychopathy showed less coordinated activity and reduced structural integrity in their brain. Damages to the brain is why they feel no remorse. These prisoners diagnosed, don’t realize the crime was wrong and view this as normal behavior.

Although, some people who have the same damages to the brain of a psychopath and the characteristics they may not act out in violent ways and can function in a society. James Fallon, neuroscientist mentioned before, was looking at brain scans of serial killers to find patterns in the brain that correlated to psychopathic behavior. What he found was that his brain scan, which he had for a different study, showed that he fit the brain of a psychopath. Fallon then noticed that he fit some of the traits described for psychopaths. He discovered that not all psychopaths use their traits for harm, some can put it to exceed in the real world. Fallon’s discovery shows that this behavior has to be triggered in their childhood.

If people can have the same brain damage as psychopaths, why is it that only some psychopaths act out in violence, like Charles Manson and Adolf Hitler. This is because they experience a traumatic event early on in their childhood. This could be abuse or neglect from a parent or involvement with drugs. Although nature may cause the characteristics of the brain of a psychopath, the nurture or environment growing up is what can bring them out. A positive or negative childhood is the cause of violent behavior. Psychopaths develop their brain from the nature of their makeup, but won’t act out unless the nurture is negative.

Although antibiotics can be classified as one of the greatest medical achievements of all time, antibiotics have revolutionized modern medicine and have helped to eliminate diseases like tuberculosis around the world. Unfortunately the overuse of antibiotics causes bacteria to learn how to survive and thrive while fighting antibiotics because they get used to them. Now higher dosages are being used and more money is being put towards prescriptions. This problem will continue to grow until we reduce the amount of antibiotics prescribed and taken. As of right now, two million people are infected with bacteria that can resist antibiotics and this can be linked to overuse.

Antibiotics began in 1929 with Alexander Fleming’s discovery that bacteria would not grow near the mold Penicillium. In later years, breakthrough discoveries were made to treat bacterial diseases. As stated before, antibiotics were this amazing discovery because they helped treat diseases that had previously claimed many lives. So why in recent years are bacteria becoming more resistant to these antibiotics?  Every time a person takes an antibiotic it kills bacteria, but leaves resistant ones that can multiply and divide. This isn’t the only reason as to why bacteria are becoming more resistant to antibiotics, there are other contributing factors.

Patients have become more reliant on antibiotics and a major reason bacteria are able to build up a resistance is because if antibiotics are not needed, they should not be used. Also if a doctor gives a prescription and it is not followed as instructed, then the bacteria can also gain a resistance. For example, many people believe antibiotics are the answer to illnesses like colds and flu, but these are caused by viruses. In some countries this is very common for people to treat a cold or flu with antibiotics because they can be purchased without a prescription. If we are going to keep antibiotics around to cure these bacterial infections then abusing antibiotics has to stop or else people getting infected by resistant bacteria will continue to rise.

Experts refer to these resistant bacteria as “superbugs.” Once the bacteria come in contact with the antibiotics, they can mutate their genes to adapt. Now the next time the bacteria comes into contact with the antibiotic it will take a stronger dose to cure. This stronger dose of antibiotic is more expensive and these stronger antibiotics tend to be less friendly to the user. Bacteria will always find ways to mutate their genes to avoid being killed by antibiotics, but human behavior can slow down this process. Bacteria are also able to reproduce at a high rate and have multiple generations created over the course of several hours. In order to stop this spread of resistant bacteria we should utilize antibiotics the right way and only when necessary. Regulations need to be set in regards to the use and distribution of antibiotics in agriculture and limits on the use of antibiotics on viral infections.

The use of antibiotics for viral infections is stressed highly because every time an antibiotic is taking inappropriately, it increases the chance of creating resistant bacteria. If bacteria become resistant to a certain drug, antibiotics will become obsolete. Although bacteria can lose this resistance, it is a very slow process and needs human intervention to help keep these antibiotics around that cure common illnesses.

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Depression reportedly affects 1 and 10 Americans. The feeling that there is no more hope and everything keeps pulling you down is a feeling that is indescribable and only those with depression can relate. If depression affects this many people there is a chance somebody in this class could currently be suffering from depression. People with depression feel like the days go by with no purpose at all. The good news is that treatments for depression are being researched and new discoveries are being made.

At a conference in Amsterdam attendees learned how transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS can help treat depression. This discovery can be used to target certain regions of the brain to treat conditions were the brain isn’t functioning right. This use of strong magnetic fields has been used to treat depression in these particular parts of the brain. Patients who could not endure the side effects of antidepressants are recommended to use TMS or patients who have been treated for depression before, and have had no luck with antidepressants before.

The cause of depression derives from the brain. What TMS does is shock the part of the brain affected and get it to function normal again. Major parts of the brain that usually will endure this shock due to causing depression are the hippocampus, amygdala, and the thalamus. The hippocampus tends to be smaller in people who are depressed, the amygdala has more activity when someone is depressed, and the thalamus is involved with sensory and can produce an unpleasant mindset. TMS works to jumpstart these parts of the brain that are involved in mood regulation.

In a study done by Harvard University, 63 volunteers participated, who had all been diagnosed with a major depressive disorder. The patients were treated with antidepressants previously as well. 34 Actively received the TMS treatment while 29 went through the process, but did not receive any stimulation at all. Almost immediately the 34 patients reported a spike in their moods, while the other 29 didn’t. Although this group was small, based on a larger scale, TMS may be the new choice for treating depression, as it is effective and works fast. To improve this experiment and further understand success rates of TMS, a larger sample size would be needed. This larger sample could aid in finding not only how successful TMS could be, but what patients would be fit for it.

My name is Tyler Perlmutter. I am from Monroe, New York. Monroe is about 40 minutes outside of New York City. I’m currently enrolled in DUS, but plan to double major in Finance and International Business.

During my NSO, my advisor highly recommended this class because it was interesting and she said the professor was great. Not only did she say it was interesting, but that it wasn’t for anyone majoring in science which was clearly known by the course description . So this was ideal for me as in high school I hated science classes. This class seemed like the right choice because it wouldn’t be all about factual information and would require critical thinking. I will always find some aspects of science interesting, but it just really isn’t for me due to some of the classes requiring a lot of memorization.

When I first started visiting colleges I was interested in majoring in physical therapy, until the lady at the physical therapy both told me about the requirements for the major. After hearing about all the classes I decided that any major requiring science was not for me if I wanted to enjoy my time at Penn State.

I come from a High School that is generally considered big compared to other schools, Here is a video of one of the many riots that has taken place over the past couple of years.