Have you ever asked yourself why you yawn? I have always thought that yawning was a sign of fatigue, yet I would find myself yawning when I wasn’t even tired. The exact reason as to why we yawn is actually still unclear. Even though science can rarely prove things to be true without a shadow of doubt, it seems funny that the reason for such a common action, like yawning, still remains a mystery.

In June 2010, scientists who specialize in yawning met in Paris for the first International Conference on Yawning (yes, this actually happened!). The experts wanted to know what the point of yawning was. Why exactly does yawning accomplish? While nothing definitive was concluded, many hypotheses were talked about throughout the conference. According to the The Week, here are the five hypotheses that had the best evidence:

1. “A mechanism for cooling the brain”
   • Andrew and Gordon Gallup of the University of Albany came to this conclusion by studying yawning in college students. The participants consisted of 33 students, twenty females and thirteen males, all between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. The participants were split randomly into three groups of eleven. One group held a cold pack to their foreheads, while the two other groups held a hot pack and a room temperature pack to their foreheads, respectively. Each participant was instructed to hold the pack to his or her forehead for head for 4 minutes and 50 seconds. Out of all the participants who held the cold pack, only one participant yawned, and that was only one yawn. On the other hand, the total yawns for the warm pack and the room temperature pack were the exact same. Even though more people yawned with the room temperature pack. In conclusion, those that held warmer packs yawned more. The brain is more efficient when it is cooler, so when the brain is overheated, yawning helps send cold blood into the brain to “maintain optimal levels of mental efficiency.” However, some scientists doubt this theory because the body already has cooling mechanisms. What is the purpose of another one? I have confidence in this study because the reported p-value is .0199. That is a very significant number that proves that the data collected from the study is reliable. Also, the Gallup brothers designed the study quite well. They had a control group and manipulated the temperatures of the packs to create an experiment. However, the sample size is quite small. Studying 33 people is not as effective as studying 100 or 1000 people. However, the significant p-value leaves me convinced that I should trust the results of this study.
2. “An invitation to sex”
   • Yes, I am just as shocked and confused as you are, and probably for good reason. Dutch researcher Wolter Seuntjens contends that yawning is “sometimes a subconscious invitation to sex,” I have been unable to find any research study to support this claim. He developed this theory after hearing several anecdotes about people who yawn during intercourse. While this theory sounded quite interesting, I was unable to find any observational or experimental studies on the idea. AlsoAnd we know from SC200 that anecdotal evidence is not sufficient or reliable at all., Seuntjens’s logic does not make sense. Just because one is yawning during intercourse does not make it an invitation. Of course, there is the possibility that yawning could be a sign of sexual pleasure. However, I am hesitant to believe this theory because of this during-before issue. 
3. “A means of building empathy”
   • This hypothesis actually deals with “yawning’s infectious nature.”  Researchers at Birkbeck College of London University conducted a study of autistic children. These children were used in the study because they are often unable to to “develop normal emotional ties or feel empathy.” The study showed that autistic children do not become victims of contagious yawns. Unfortunately, I was not able to find out how the study was actually conducted so there is really no evidence that this is reliable. However, a study was conducted to analyze the connection between yawning and psychopathy. In other words, are psychopaths immune to contagious yawning? In the experiments, 135 college males and females were used. They were not randomly selected because their selection to participate in the study was based on a PPI-R exam. Participants were told to sit in a padded chair in a “dimly lit, radio frequency anechoic chamber.” They sat in front of computer monitors while wearing noise canceling headphones. The watched a movie of different people’s expressions. The test conductors got results through electrodes that were hooked up to the participants. The results found that more women yawned than men, however the difference was not significant (p-value= .249). In the end, those that showed more traits of psychopathy based off of the PPI-R test yawned less frequently than those who scored lower. I am hesitant to believe these results because it is difficult to measure psychopathy. Also, the p-value is a fairly large number, so there is a high probability that this study was due to chance or third variables.
4. “A way to boost oxygen in the body”
   • This was actually the leading yawning theory for many years. Scientists claimed that yawns were caused by low oxygen levels in the lungs. The air retrieved during a yawn would be able to boost the oxygen levels in the bloodstream. In fact, this theory dates back to the time of Hippocrates. In the fourth century B.C., Hippocrates described yawning as getting rid of “bad air” to increase “good air” in the brain. Despite this theory’s success, scientists have now discovered that human lungs are unable to detect low oxygen levels. More recent studies have now shown that people with oxygen-depriving medical conditions or exercisers do not yawn more than the average person. I think that this theory is very complex. Both sides of the theory seem plausible. But, because of this valid contradiction, I am still left in the dark on which side I believe.
5. “A leftover, useless behavior”
   • There are also may scientists who believe that we yawn for absolutely no reason. Richard Roberts from Tennessee’s Genetics and Prenatal Diagnostic Center believes that yawning is just a leftover action from everyones time as a fetus. After studying many ultrasound scans of fetuses with potential medical problems, he discovered that the fetuses began to yawn and hiccup as early as 11 weeks. Roberts noticed that the yawns on average lasted six seconds. Roberts believes that fetal yawning promote lung development. Therefore, yawning ex utero just became a habit born form everyones time as a fetus. There is no denying that fetal yawning is evident. However, the fact that yawning might be a useless habit does not settle well with me. How could something so contagious and so common be merely a leftover action? No matter what though, Roberts still has a very interesting theory on his hands.

http://mentalfloss.com/sites/default/legacy/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/baby-yawn.jpg

Even after analyzing the top five theories of “why we yawn,” the answer to this common question is still unclear. I am starting to believe that these theories are not mutually exclusive. Therefore, it seems highly possible that many of these theories can coexist. If scientists conduct a multi-experiment research study, that would be highly effective. Scientists should use a random and large sample size (1,000+ people). They could use all of the experimental studies used to test the other theories. But, conducting them on the same people would prove or disprove that these theories can all coexist. It is quite ironic how the purpose of an everyday action is still a mystery.

I studied abroad in Prague, Czech Republic last spring, and one of my professors posed a very interesting question.  The class focused on the subcultures of Eastern Europe, so we studied hippies, the punk movement, graffiti, drugs, and a few other funky stuff.  On the day we learned about drugs we examined their relationship with music.  Our professor asked “do people do drugs to enhance the music or go to concerts to enhance the drugs?”

If you listen to EDM music, you know when the bass drops.  It is that moment in time when the whole song changes.  At shows, it makes people go crazy and everyone moves at the same time.  This article explains a study done by researchers at the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind that monitored the brain activity of 35 people.  The scientists “played them a series of low and high-pitched piano notes at the same time.”  Participants positively recognized when the notes went off beat into a lower tone.  Next, they asked participants to tap their finger to the beat, and when they changed the beat the participants “were more likely to modify their tapping to fall in line with the low-pitched tones.”  Finally, the scientists used the same tests on a digital model of the human ear.  The computer analysis found that it is the ear that has a natural liking for lower notes not the brain.

What can we deduce from this study?  The study found that human ears naturally prefer low-frequency, “bassier” pitches.  So, scientifically it makes sense that we like it when the bass drops.

But that could be said for almost every other type of music.  The study tested piano notes; I’m sure people went wild when Beethoven dropped the beat in his 9th symphony.  So, what is it that draws our generation to this EDM culture?

MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy or Molly, is a huge part of the EDM culture.  According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, MDMA is a stimulant amphetamine and a hallucinogenic and the effects last from three to six hours but users usually take a second dose.

“It produces feelings of increased energy, euphoria, emotional warmth and empathy toward others, and distortions in sensory and time perception.”

MDMA enhances one’s experience and the sound of the music and lights at an EDM show.  I wonder if there is a science to it?  Do DJs simply make their song to sound good or do they make their songs to sound good on drugs?  Would every song sound better if you listened to it on MDMA?

People have been going to pubs for hundreds of years to drink alcohol and listen to music.  In the 1960s people took LSD with rock and roll.  Hip hop and rap music are associated with crack/cocaine.   And today, it’s MDMA and EDM concerts.

Drugs and music are most definitely correlated, but I wonder what causes what.  Do drugs cause someone to like the music more or does music cause someone to like the drugs more?

I recognize that this is a difficult question to answer, and it is possible the answer depends on each individual person.  I also recognize it wouldn’t be ethical to do a double-blind experiment in this situation.

I found this interesting article titled “Music Therapy: The Science Behind the Life Changing Effects of EDM.”  It explains the allure of the EDM community and what it can do for people.  Music and shows are a way for people to escape their anxiety, depression, suffering, and pain in everyday life.  It discusses four different aspects of the EDM community that are directly connected to human happiness.  The shows promote peace and less stress.  They promote induce love and acceptance, and EDM unites people from all walks of life.  The environment creates a general understanding of respect.

This article introduces a few third confounding variables to my original question.  Environment, community and life style have a strong impact on one’s relationship with music, so it seems there is more to all of this than just a correlation between drugs and music.

No one can deny the relationship between drugs and music, but my research tells me it is more complicated than I originally thought.  If I could talk with Bassnectar or Pretty Lights I would ask them if they use science to create their music specifically to enhance the effects of drugs.  Besides that, I can’t think of a way I could continue to research this relationship without considering the lifestyle and culture surrounding it.  Music and drugs are not new.  EDM and MDMA are simply our generation’s version of it.

“It’s a revolution”~ Diplo

Pets are a part of many people’s families. In fact, the ASPCA reported that about 37-47% of families in the U.S. own dogs, and 30-37% of families in the U.S. own cats. Although domesticated dogs started out as being wolf-like beings that helped humans hunt and gather, they have since adapted to be smaller, have shorter muzzles, smaller teeth, and generally less of an instinct to hunt in order to survive.

My cat, Smokey, may not be that domesticated, but it sure doesn’t look that way!

Cats, on the other hand, are animals that we have not been able to change.

About a year ago, the LA Times reported a study that showed that after about 10,000 years of cats living with us humans, we have only managed to semi-domesticate them.

Unlike dogs, who have changed so much under the influence of humans, cats retain many of the traits they started out with: the instinct to hunt, similar sensory systems, and digestive systems have remained relatively the same throughout the domestication years.

The only thing that humans have been able to change about their kitties is their fur (there is a difference in color and pattern) and a set of genes that scientists think relate back to tameness. Other than that, cats are only approximately 13 genes away from their ancestors, making them not very domesticated at all.

This study might not surprise the average cat owner at all. As someone who has had to clean dead mice off of the porch many times after my cat spent a few hours outside, it’s easy to tell that they have kept a lot of their traits from their ancestors. However, this study was useful for more than just showing us how close our cats are to their wild cousins- this study will actually help humans in the future.

New genes were also discovered during this study (which was conducted by the National Academy of Science and compared cats to other animals and analyzed the genome of domestic cats themselves). By knowing the similarities between domestic cats and wild cats’ genes, scientists will be able to better understand and better treat over 250 diseases that cats and humans have in common.

Cats have their own version of everything from HIV/AIDS to diabetes, and studying the newfound genomes of the domesticated cat could help scientists link these diseases back to humans. Using comparative genetics  humans can link cat and human genes to one another.

However cool this may sound, these studies can take a long time and sometimes not even be successful. However, there is a chance that these studies may lead to a greater understanding of diseases, and maybe one day a a treatment or even a cure.

So, maybe cats haven’t really changed their ways of living since their domestication, but they could still change our lives.

In my last blog, I found strong evidence to support a theory that violent video games cause people to be more aggressive. After writing that blog, I was still interested in finding out what other effects video games might have on the brain. What I found is many different effects that video games have, but this time the effects are beneficial.

A study by the Max Planch Institute for Human Development asked 23 young adults to play the video game “Super Mario 64” for a half hour per day for 2 months. There was also a control group who did not play video games for this period. In MRI scans after the 2 months, the researchers found that there was an increase in gray matter in the right hippocampus, right prefrontal cortex, and the cerebellum in the brains of the video gamers. These areas of the brain are involved with spacial navigation, memory formation, strategic planning, and fine motor skills of the hands. The fact that video games actually increase the size of the brain in some regions led these scientists to suggest that video games could be used for patients with mental disorders who suffer from a lack of the aforementioned skills. This study was a randomized unblinded control trial. This experiment is more compelling than an observational study, because it rules out reverse causation. But one concern I have is about the sample size. 23 is not a large group, so it may be possible that the correlation that they found could be due to chance.

Another study done at Tel Aviv University by Doctor Debbie Rand found that video game is a more effective form of therapy for stroke victims than traditional therapy. This was also another randomized unblinded control trial. People who had suffered from a stroke one to seven years prior to the study were randomly assigned into video game therapy or traditional therapy. Both groups would receive two sessions per week over a period of three months. Both groups ended up improving their grip strength over the next three months, but only the video game group saw improvement in grip strength for the three months following therapy. The researcher also noted that video game therapy made the experience more enjoyable for the patients. She also noted that the group environment involved in the video game therapy was beneficial as well. This study concludes that the physical act of playing the video games caused grip strength to increase over a longer period of time. But I can imagine third variables being involved. I believe it is possible that the enjoyment and social interaction involved in the video game treatment caused the patients to be happier and have a more positive mindset. As some of my fellow classmates have pointed out in their blogs, a positive mindset is important in many aspects, including medical recovery.

Yet another study found that video games help dyslexic children to improve their reading skills and spacial and temporal attention. 20 dyslexic children were part of this study. 2 groups of 10 children were assigned to play either action or non-action games. These two groups were equally balanced on the basis of age, IQ, reading severity, and phonological skills. During the pre-test, the groups scored very close to equal with each other. Each child played the game for a total of 12 hours through 9 sessions of 80 minutes per day. The researchers found that only those who were assigned to action video games improved reading skill and attentional skills. In this study, I feel as if the study size and length should be extended to minimize chance and see more long term and deep results. A group of 20 kids playing a video game for only 12 hours total does not seem like a large enough study to draw big conclusions out of. However, the other procedures of the study would be good to replicate in a larger scale study.

Recently, I stumbled upon the scariest story I have ever read. It was about an experiment done by the Russians during the WWII. The Russian scientists decided they wanted to see what would happen to a person if they did not go to sleep for an extended period of time. The amazing thing about the experiment was that it wasn’t conventional at all; they scientists were only doing the experiments with a null hypothesis: that staying awake for a long time does nothing to the brain, there was no alternative hypothesis, the scientists just wanted to see what would happen. Also, this experiment was terribly unethical; the subjects were prisoners of war, falsely promised freedom after the experiment. There was also a large element of physical harm involved in this experiment, which I will get to later. The experiment was to put these five subjects in a secured room with a stimulant-gas to keep them awake. In the room were beds, but no bedding, bathrooms, running water, and enough food to last the subjects a month. There was only a small window to look into the room, and an intercom to hear what the subjects were saying. As the experiment grew on, the subjects became more and more senile and seemingly dead. When the guards entered the room, they found the subjects as the picture below shows, the most vile beings, if you could even call them that, anyone had ever seen. Eventually the subjects died or were killed after several tests were run on them. This was seriously the scariest thing I’ve read in my entire life, if you want to read about it, here is the link.

Now, after further researching this experiment I found that it was a work of fiction, of course. No such specific test was ever done, however, tests were done on military subjects concerning sleep at their own will and discretion, but none of them turned the subjects into demon-zombies, usually the tests were either severely painful or lethal.

This reading this story, however, did make me curious about sleep. What happens when we sleep? Why do we need it? What happens if we don’t get enough of it, or any at all?

It turns out; why we sleep is a great unknown among scientists.

What sleep is and how we sleep, in contrast, has actually been discovered. Until the 1950s, sleep was thought to be completely passive: the body would shut down and rest. We now know that sleep is largely an active process for the brain, the exact process I have shown below in this picture.

But why we sleep is another question.

Sleep studies are actually a very common thing. The study is called polysomnography, and it can diagnose someone with a whole range of sleep disorders. According to Medline Plus, “Your health care provider will place electrodes on your chin, scalp, and the outer edge of your eyelids. You will have monitors to record your heart rate and breathing attached to your chest. These will remain in place while you sleep. The electrodes record signals while you are awake (with your eyes closed) and during sleep. The test measures the amount of time it takes you to fall asleep and how long it takes you to enter REM sleep.” The electrodes detect a range of things, from brain waves, to heart rate and breathing, to eye and leg movements. When the test is finished, a specially trained doctor will examine your results, and be able to tell you if you have a disorder. Disorders can range from insomnia, to narcolepsy, to sleep apnea.

While scientists can’t figure out exactly why we have to sleep, they have been able to determine some results and consequences of a lack of sleep. According to HealthySleep, a Harvard-run website, besides the usual short-term affects like drowsiness, bad mood, and lack of focus, a lack of sleep can affect a person heavily in the long-term: leading to diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. HealthySleep also adds that there are three methods of studying these results: sleep-deprivation studies, cross-sectional epidemiological studies, and longitudinal epidemiological studies.

Sleep-deprivation studies are exactly what they sound like. According to HealthySleep, “(this) involves depriving healthy research volunteers of sleep and examining any short-term physiological changes that could trigger disease. Such studies have revealed a variety of potentially harmful effects of sleep deprivation usually associated with increased stress, such as increased blood pressure, impaired control of blood glucose, and increased inflammation.” These studies are ethical, of course, because the subjects volunteer to do the test, they agree that the people running the test are not liable for any consequences coming of it.

Cross-sectional epidemiological studies don’t exactly examine the sleeping person themselves; they examine questionnaires filled out by people who have been classified with the same disorder or group of disorders at one time. For example, “both reduced and increased sleep duration, as reported on questionnaires, are linked with hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.” These studies, however, cannot examine the effects of the sleep itself, because it is only a questionnaire, the people aren’t being studied directly.

The third and most convincing type of research, longitudinal epidemiological studies, follows a person with a sleep disorder for an extended period of time. Over this time, they examine the effects of the lack of sleep, and compare them to other patients to try and find links.

Almost all of these methods of study find that lack of sleep can lead to diseases such as diabetes and high-cholesterol.   So, in conclusion, while no one may know why we sleep or why we need sleep, all of the above material concludes that sleep is indeed necessary for our well-being. You hear that, over-worked and under-slept college students? Go to bed early tonight: it’s good for you.

Sources:

http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Russian_Sleep_Experiment

http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/consequences/sleep-and-disease-risk

http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/polysomnography/basics/definition/prc-20013229

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003932.htm

https://www.sleepassociation.org/patients-general-public/what-is-sleep/

It’s something you see everyday, Penn State students downing cups of coffee or chugging Red Bull before a class or test to stay focused. I’ll admit I’ve been there more often than I’m proud of. Many people wonder, however, if caffeine helps us with more than just staying awake.

Let’s first take a look at a study on caffeine and memory from Johns Hopkins University. Researchers preformed a randomized double-blind placebo trial on fifty-four subjects. These subjects were said to be people who do not eat or drink caffeine regularly. Five minutes after studying a series of images, half of the participants were given a 200mg caffeine pill while the others were given a placebo. The participants were brought back in the next day and were tested on the images. The group that received the caffeine did significantly better at not only remembering the images, but also distinguishing them from new images added to the test.

This study shows a positive correlation between enhanced memory and taking caffeine after learning. There are, however, some questions that need answering. The sample size was fairly large so it gives us a good depiction of the effects of caffeine, but they failed to report the age and gender of the subjects. Since it was randomized, the gender isn’t as much of a concern. Since it was a university research study, it is probable that the subjects were between ages 18 and 25. If this is the case, even despite the small age range, the results were significant enough that we can assume that it applies for other age ranges. The subjects were described as people who do not take caffeine regularly, so what about those who take a lot of caffeine? Many people are heavy coffee drinkers, so would this help their memory since they ingest significantly more caffeine than the subjects in the study, or do they build up a tolerance to the caffeine? Also, since chance is always a factor in science, there is a chance that the placebo subjects have ADHD or some type of learning disability that was not accounted for. Lastly, even though the subjects were said to not be regular caffeine takers, they still could have stopped at Starbucks for a cup of coffee before the study. This leads us into my next question: does the timing of the caffeine consumption matter?

Offduty: Caffine Drinks

There was another group of randomized double-blind placebo trials done at Johns Hopkins University in response to the first study that we looked at, answering many of the questions above. Using 160 subjects, they gave one group a 200 mg dose of caffeine before learning a subject (the other group was given a placebo). The rest of the test was exactly the same as the first study. They found no statistical difference relative to the placebo when receiving the caffeine before learning the information. Comparing this to the first study, we can see that giving the subjects caffeine after learning had better results in than giving them caffeine before.

The Johns Hopkins researchers also tested the difference between different doses of caffeine (after learning a subject). There was a difference in the results in those who received 100mg and 200mg doses of caffeine, but there was no difference between 200mg and anything above 200mg, showing that we don’t need to overload ourselves with the drug.

The last factor that we should account for is the effects that caffeine has on sleep. As we know, sleep has a huge impact on our cognitive functions, including memory. Since caffeine intake can inhibit sleep, it is a viable argument that taking in too much caffeine can have a negative effect on our memory. Since Johns Hopkins showed that 200mg caffeine had the same effect as taking more, it seems not only unnecessary, but also potentially harmful to our memory to consume more than 200mg.

Now we can see that the many people misunderstand the best uses for caffeine. There is strong evidence showing that drinking your cup of coffee after studying will be more beneficial than drinking it before, even if you think it will help you stay focused. Obviously, there are several other variables that need to be accounted for in these studies, but the evidence found at Johns Hopkins definitely provides a strong argument that ingesting caffeine after learning something is the most beneficial.

Picture citation: http://reachingutopia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/caffeine-drinks.jpg

Humans were originally carnivores. In our modern world, increasing numbers of people are deciding to get rid of meat completely from their diet. Is straying away from natural human nature a healthier option in the end?

In America, 3.2 percent of adults follow a vegetarian diet. Many say they choose to become a vegetarian for moral reasons, environmental reasons, for food-safety concerns, to lose weight or simply to be healthier. But, a recent article titled “Vegetarians are ‘less healthy and have a lower quality of life’ scientists say” states the opposite. The article discusses a study conducted by the Medical University of Graz in Austria, where it was found that despite carrying healthier diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol, they carried increased risks of cancer, allergies and mental health problems.

With 330 vegetarians, 330 meat eaters that also ate fruits and vegetables, 300 normal eaters, and 330 heavy meat eaters, it was discovered that vegetarians consumed less alcohol and had lower body mass indexes but had a “poorer state of physical and mental health overall.” This study could also be due to chance as it only evaluated 1,320 subjects. This study could also possibly be suffering from the file drawer problem with publication bias towards meat companies, but according to the authors of the study, their research is not an advertisement for the meat industry.

Although stated that vegetarians suffer more from asthma, cancer and mental illness this could be all due to chance and more research must be conducted on the study.

Another article titled “Vegetarian Foods: Powerful for Health” states that having a vegetarian diet actually prevents cancer. Studies in England and Germany have shown that “vegetarians are 40% less likely to develop cancer compared to meat eaters.” Studies conducted by Harvard including thousands of men and women found that “regular meat consumption increases colon cancer risk by roughly 300 percent.” This article also states that practicing a vegetarian diet beats heart disease, lowers blood pressure, prevents and reverses diabetes, reduces the need for asthma medication, and reduces the chances of having kidney and gallstones.

The original study opposing vegetarianism does not have enough evidence in comparison to numerous other studies showing how vegetarianism can be healthier. This study, although states that it does not, may in fact suffer from the file drawer problem.

Many say that vegetarianism may result in a lack of a well-balanced diet. The lack of protein from meat consumption is in fact healthier as excess meat in-take is said to lead to an increase in the possibility of cancer, heart disease, and kidney stones. Becoming a vegetarian not only means avoiding a meat-filled diet, but it also means being more aware of what you intake into your body and making healthier decisions in general.

So, should you become a vegetarian? The answer would be that if you are able to then yes, as long as doing so would not result in an increase in anxiety and stress in order to achieve a meatless diet. Vegetarianism has proven many benefits again and again as long as one continues to make sure they are receiving all necessary nutrients. In the end, it is important to fulfill a healthy and nutrient-rich diet regardless if you eat meat or not.

Climate change has become one of the largest problems that our modern world faces. People are changing the way they lives their lives in attempt to preserve the environment. However, I hear some people claim that climate change is a myth and should be of no concern to modern day society. I am baffled by the fact that there is uncertainty in this issue yet so many people are making such strong efforts to combat these issues. Because of my confusion, I wanted to look deeper into whether or not climate change is a legitimate problem for humanity.

NASA claims that climate change is happening and humans are most likely causing the changes. One piece of evidence that the Earth is warming up is that the sea levels have risen 17 centimeters, or 6.7 inches, in the last century, and the rate of the last decade has nearly doubled compared to the last century. The global surface has risen in temperature since 1880. In fact, twenty of the warmest years have occurred since 1981 and ten of the warmest years have occurred in the past twelve years. Another common piece of evidence is the ice sheets and glaciers melting at an alarming rate. NASA obtained data which found that Greenland has lost between 150-250 cubic kilometers of ice between 2002 and 2006. From 2002 to 2005, Antarctica lost approximately 152 cubic kilometers of ice. All of these trends are alarming, but the most worrisome aspect of these statistics is that negative change is happening at an increasing rate. The rate of change being so high seems to support the hypothesis that humans are contributing to these changes in climate through an increase in carbon dioxide emissions.

Image courtesy of https://seacat.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/global_climate_change_policy_and_budget_review-1.gif 

Image courtesy of http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/files/2010/10/nasa.jpg

On the other hand, the co-founder of The Weather Channel, John Coleman, claims that ‘global warming is the greatest scam in history.’ He also describes the science as ‘invalid,’ but does not go into any further detail. He bases most of his views based on the research of the NIPCC, a non-governmental international body of scientists. According to the research, there is no significant evidence that global warming is happening or that carbon dioxide is a serious greenhouse gas causing global warming. Coleman is supported by Princeton University’s William Happer. Happer puts emphasis on the fact that carbon dioxide has been disguised as a harmful chemical compound when in reality it is a natural and essential atmospheric gas.

Image courtesy of http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/assets_c/2010/11/globalwarmingdenier-flickr-credit%20bvcphoto-thumb-480xauto-1902.jpg

The problem I have with Coleman’s argument is that he makes these bold claims and provides no specific evidence or explanation to back it up. NASA, a reliable source, offers specific data that supports the hypothesis that climate change is happening due to carbon dioxide emissions from people. After consulting multiple other courses, it seems that the opinion of climate change occurring makes up the overwhelming majority. Because we cannot manipulate the independent variable, which in this case is carbon dioxide emissions, we cannot conclude that carbon dioxide emissions coming from people cause climate change. The best we can do is accept the correlational pattern between carbon dioxide emissions coming from people and the warming temperatures of our planet. If we begin to cut back on our carbon dioxide emissions and see a drop or a lower increasing rate in temperature, then we will be closer to concluding that global warming is human induced. After my research, I believe that people should be concerned about the changing climate and should make efforts to limit carbon dioxide emissions.

Image courtesy of https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/de/66/54/de6654852b39ac02a0df274d86da7aaf.jpg

Sources:

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

http://www.express.co.uk/news/clarifications-corrections/526191/Climate-change-is-a-lie-global-warming-not-real-claims-weather-channel-founder

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html?_r=0

http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525

http://www.ibtimes.com/climate-change-real-heres-why-some-americans-still-have-doubts-1877323

Leonard Guarante is director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Science of Aging research at MIT. This lab is highly specialized in the research of aging. Their daily mission is to answer the questions that all of us have as we get older. Why do we age? Is there any way for us to increase human longevity? Guarante claims to know the answers to these questions. And because he knows the answers, he is the best person to help develop the newest supplemental vitamin on the market that claims to help reduce the effects of aging. Guarante is chief scientist on a team called Elysium made up of businessmen, researchers, and even past Nobel Prize winners. This elite team of brainpower came together when presented with the idea of a vitamin supplement that works on a cellular level to increase your health span. Instead of Guarante and his team claiming that their newly developed supplement helps individuals live longer, it advertises it’s ability to maintain ideal health in individuals well into old age. They are selling the idea of increased health throughout your entire lifetime instead of increased longevity. How is this possible? Guarante’s research led him to the conclusion that aging, as well as the health complications that come along with aging, can be slowed by altering an individual’s metabolism. He took this idea and ran with it when it came to the supplement he and his team created called Basis. Although Elysium has supported their product with a lot of research and data, I can’t help but ask the question all of society has asked for as long as we can remember. Is it actually possible to slow down the process/effects of aging?

Leonard Guarante and the formula for his newest NR dietary supplements called Basis.

Elysium claims on its product’s supplement facts that there are two main ingredients found to be effective when it comes to slowing down the process/effects of aging. These two ingredients are Nicotinamide Riboside and Pterostilbene.

Elysium Health’s NR supplement Basis.

Active ingredients in Basis.

Visual representation of the communication between the nucleus and mitochondria.

Nicotinamide Riboside is a producer of NAD+. NAD+ is found naturally in our cells and activates an enzyme also found in our cells called Sirutin1 (SIRT1). SIRT1 is the enzyme responsible for uninterrupted communication between the nucleus and the mitochondria. Why is this communication so important?  Because the minute the communication between the nucleus and mitochondria within our cells stop, our cells start to die and we begin to see evidence of aging in our bones, muscles, and skin. There have also been studies that show that the presence of Nicotinamide Riboside in yeast helps to increase yeast’s lifespan. This is why Nicotinamide Riboside is one of the primary ingredients in Basis. Pterostilbene is another main ingredient found in Basis. It is a natural antioxidant compound found primarily in blueberries. “Substantial evidence suggests that pterostilbene may have numerous preventive and therapeutic properties in a vast range of human diseases that include neurological, cardiovascular, metabolic, and hematologic disorders,” (US National Library of Medicine). Based off of this evidence provided by the US National Library of Medicine, it is clear to see that Pterostilbene is used in Basis because it helps to prevent many of the human diseases associated with old age. Based off of the research on the two main ingredients in Basis, it seems possible that the effects of aging can, in fact, be slowed. But it almost seems too good to be true.

One thing that needs to be considered by the large market of adults trying to slow down the aging process is if this vitamin supplement is safe or not. Elysium is not the first team to realize the positive effects Nicotinamide Riboside has on our cells. ChromaDex is a company that not only came out with NIAGEN NR (another supplement that contains Nicotinamide Riboside) but they also conducted the first human clinical study on the product to test how safe it was.

ChromaDex’s NR supplement product called NIAGEN.

NIAGEN’s active ingredients.

The results were exactly what the company was hoping for. In an observational study containing 12 healthy adults, ChromaDex was able to confirm that Nicotinamide Riboside is effective in increasing NAD+ in the body but it is also completely safe. There are a few things wrong with this study though that I should bring to my audience’s attention. The specifics of this observational study has yet to be released. In all of the reports on the study, it is only said that these specifics are supposed to be released in scientific literature for peer review sometime soon. That means that, for the time being, no one is able to thoroughly evaluate this allegedly successful study. I think that these details need to be released so we can evaluate the demographics in the sample of adults that was used. What if Nicotinamide Riboside reacts differently in hispanic women than it does in caucasian males? We need to be sure that Nicotinamide Riboside is safe for all kinds of people. I’m also thrown off by the size of the sample used. I feel as if 12 people is only enough if the sample was completely randomized and if a lot of different demographics were represented within the sample.

So because we do not know the specifics of this observational study, I feel like there are still some questions to be answered regarding the safety of NR supplements in humans. Just like Andrew said in class, we are able to see that NR supplements are effective but we can not say with 100% certainty that they are safe no matter how many studies/ experiments try to prove it. But if you’re asking whether or not you should start incorporating NR supplements into your diet, that is for you to decide. It all depends on if you consider the risk to be very big or very small. It’s all about what you can personally live with. A simple Cost-Benefit analysis could also help in your decision to take NR supplements or not. The Elysium Health website charges $60 for a one month supply of Basis. And although the one observational study concerning NR supplements proved it to be safe and effective, that was a study done with a different brand of product. Any NR supplements are too new on the market for there to be any solid evidence (especially anecdotal evidence) that they work the way they are advertised to work. Personally, I would take the risk of buying and using the NR supplements. The studies (although limited) are positive and the price isn’t that hefty if you just want to try it once. Although these supplements are said to work best if used continuously over a long period of time, I don’t think it hurts to try. But whether you want to take that risk or not is totally up to the individual.

So does that mean it is scientifically possible to slow down the process/effects of aging? Because of the newness of the product and the limited amount of studies done on the product, I would say it’s too soon to tell. Maybe later on down the line, Basis or Niagen consumers will speak out about their personal experiences using the product. And from there, legitimate studies concerning the safety and effectiveness of the vitamins will be able surface. But, until then, all we know for sure is that there’s a chance that the process/effects of aging can be slowed. And if it can, then science has truly made a revolutionary revelation.

The effect of violent video games has been a hot topic in the last few years as a result of increasing incidents of violence in schools. Many studies have been done attempting to find a link that would explain these violent acts. Many people blame violent video games because there is a positive correlation between the number of violent acts in schools and the realism and popularity of violent video games. On the other side, many proponents of video games claim that video games have many positive benefits such as improved cognitive and coordination function. But does the research back up these claims? Could this virtual pastime affect the minds and bodies of young people in a significant way?

A meta-analysis done at the University of Innsbruck, Austria in 2013 analyzed data from 98 different studies, with the total number of participants accumulating at 36,965. This meta-analysis concludes that video games have negative social consequences. The studies found that violent video games increase aggressiveness and decrease prosocial outcomes. However, video games that are considered prosocial do have the intended prosocial consequences through a decrease in aggression. Meta-analysis of such a large scale like this one are very useful in drawing conclusions and eliminating the possibility of chance significantly . Of course, the file drawer problem could be present here. Studies that conclude that video games have no effect on aggression may have been thought too boring to publish, and were thus not included in this analysis.

An individual study in search of a similar answer was conducted at the University of Valle d’Aosta in Italy in 2013. This study measured 217 high school students and their behaviors after playing either a violent or non-violent video game. The students were randomly assigned to either a violent or non-violent video game for 35 minutes. The students were then tested on the grounds of self control, cheating, and aggression. The self control test set a bowl of M&M’s next to the participants and said they could eat them, but advised the students that eating too many in a short period of time is unhealthy. The amount of M&M’s the participants ate was a measurement of self control.For cheating, participants took a quiz and were asked to grade their own answers afterwards and for each correct answer, the participant earned a  raffle ticket that could win them a prize. The conductors of the experiment knew how many responses each participant got right and how many tickets each of them took, so they could figure out by what degree the participants may have cheated.

For aggression, participants took a survey asking them how much they agreed with certain statements such as “It is okay to insult a classmate because beating him/her is worse”. In another measure of aggression, pairs of participants faced off in a reaction time test. After each round, the participant who had the better reaction time could inflict his/her opponent with a loud noise in their headphones of varying volumes and durations.

Through these tests, the study found that a person who recently played a violent video game did show a correlation with less self control, more cheating, and more aggression compared to those who played a nonviolent video game. By measuring so many different variables, this test may have been victim of the Texas-sharpshooter. However, each of their findings supported their hypothesis that violent video games were having negative effects on behavior.

In today’s changing world, we must be aware of the unintended consequences that technology may take on society and individuals’ behavior. The possible link between violent video games and violent real-life acts is still a hot topic. Studies like these may be helpful in guiding the conversation and sparking more interest in this interesting topic.

Everytime I see or hear someone yawn, I feel the urge to yawn and sometimes I do end up yawning.  Even just reading the word yawn multiple times makes me want to yawn.  Just typing this makes me want to yawn.

Contagious yawning happens even when we are not tired according to an experiment done on 120 healthy kids from ages 1 to 12.  The children were not aware that their yawns were being watched and as a person read a book to them, the person would yawn and then each kid who yawned would be counted as a contagious yawn.  The study found that contagious yawning is not apparent amongst kids ages 1 through 3, but there was a hike in contagious yawning in kids starting at age 4 and up.  This is a peculiar finding.  The study mentioned before also did another part where they tested contagious yawning on 26 kids from ages 6 to 15 who had autism which ranged on different parts of the spectrum.  Since there were less kids in this study, they were not able to make a conclusion based on age, but the study did find that kids with mild autism yawned 1/2 the amount the healthy kids did, and the kids with more severe autism did not yawn at all.  The study found a correlation between contagious yawning and empathy.  This makes sense because the Theory of Mind does not develop in healthy kids until about age 4.  Which means kids younger than 4 do not understand that others have different thoughts than their own and therefore can not empathize another’s yawn with their own.  This also makes sense because children with autism also struggle with the development of the Theory of Mind.  However the study did not take into account a confounding variable that maybe the kids were yawning because they were tired or anxious.  So this study could possibly suffer from the Texas Sharpshooter Problem and be a false positive.

Another study was conducted using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).  An fMRI shows brain activity vs a regular MRI which only just gives images of the structure of the brain.  This experiment was also done a small group of people (18, 9 m, 9 f), but it used healthy adults ages 18-48 years old.  The subjects did not specifically know that their yawns were being monitored, but they did know they were participating in an experiment on facial expressions.  The subjects were shown pictures of people with different facial expressions.  When they were shown a picture of a person that was yawning and then felt the urge to yawn or actually yawned, it was counted as a contagious yawn.  The study found that the part of the brain used for empathy is the same part activated when the subjects saw another person yawning and felt the urge to, or actually yawn.  They connected the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the urge to yawn.  The ventromedial prefrontal cortex had been previously connected to “empathetic processing.”  This study coincides with the findings of the other study.  Also, the same as the other study did not take into account confounding variables like that maybe the subjects were just getting tired of looking at pictures and just yawned out of boredom.  Also the brain has different parts that do many different functions, so maybe yawning is a function that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex does completely separate of empathy.  I think this study is conducted about as well as possible considering we can not control people’s other reasons for yawning.

Collectively we are not able to exactly pinpoint what causes contagious yawning.  Maybe if the first study was repeated with the exact same layout except another set of kids.  If they used 240 kids, but still separated each kid by age having 20 kids per age group.  Then each age group would be broken up into 2 sets of 10.  This way if maybe the kids in one room are just actually bored by the reader maybe the other set of kids will give us truer results.  It would be best to have as many sets of kids as possible obviously.  There does seem to be a correlation between empathetic thinking and contagious yawning, but the studies are not strong enough yet to know for sure.

While away at college I have received periodic calls from a wide array of my family. They check in, ask the basic “How is class?” or “How was the football game?” Grandma’s call was different last Sunday, it was a reminder that her beloved Maltese, Maggie, had ascended to doggie heaven 15 years ago that day. Grandma’s lovely call reminded me of a snapchat I received from my cousin of an old photo where Maggie and Grandma are dressed for my parents wedding, and they look like identical twins. This photo lead me to question if dogs do really look like their owner.

Grandma and Maggie pre-wedding in 1988

A 2013 study published in the British Journal, Anthrozoos “Dogs and owners resemble each other in the eye region” was done by Sadahiko Nakajima, a psychologist at the Kwansei Gakuin University of Japan. Nakajima believed it was more than chance that humans and their dog’s resemblance to each other. To test his hypothesis Nakajima took 502 undergraduate students and presented them with two sheets. The sheets contained photos of Japanese men and women ages 20-60 and a dog. The participants had to determine of the two sheets, which had photos of true dog human pairs and which sheet had random people and dogs. 80% of participants were able to determine the sheet that had the dog and their owner.

Nakajima then enhanced his study by modifying the sheets in four ways. One sheet had a black bar to cover the owner’s mouth in the photos, another had the humans eyes covered, the next had the dogs eyes blacked out, and the last sheet contained only the eyes of both the humans and their dog pair. Since people guessed real pairs with the most accuracy when they could see the eyes of the dog and human, Nakajima concluded that the eyes of dogs and humans are what connects .

Example of the sheets Nakajima’s participants viewed

Nakajima’s conclusion stems from the finding that when it was only the eyes of the pair about 80% of the participants continued to correctly identify the dog owner pair. Yet when the eyes were hidden from participants they could only correctly identify pairs with 50% accuracy. The 50% accuracy showed Nakajima that without participants seeing the eyes of the dogs or owners a correct identification was up to chance.  Nakajima’s believes it is the characteristics of the eyes, such as their structure, color, size and amount of movement that cause dog-to-owner

I feel that Nakajima’s study design was well thought out, especially with the addition of 4 modifications to the study. Although even with the modifications it is hard for me to believe that it is the eye region that connects dogs and their humans. I feel this way because features such as a person’s hair, head size, and nose are more distinguishable on a face, to me, than a person’s eyes. A topic often brought up in class is how a variable effects men and women differently. Nakajima’s study states 502 participants, never deciphering if there was a difference in results from men and women. What a gender looks more carefully in a face for could be different, and Nakajima never acknowledged that.

Other studies done by Christina Payne and Klaus Jaffe of Simon Bolivar University and Michael M. Roy and Nicholas J.S Christenfeld of University of California, San Diego in the early 2000s had similar hypotheses to Nakajima and conducted much smaller, corresponding studies that resulted in complementary results. Payne and Jaffe asked their participants to pair six sets of pictures of a dog with its owner. Participants were “more accurate than could be ascribed to chance.”  Roy and Christenfeld had participants determine a dog owner pair by showing them pictures of 45 dog owners, for every dog owner the participant had to determine which of two dogs shown to him belonged to the owner.

Nakajima believes that “if future studies reveal more about what features of the eyes play major roles in perceived similarity, such knowledge could shed light on why dogs and owners look alike.” I believe future studies should focus on the concept of learned behaviors of dogs from their owners and vice versa. Do these behaviors effect the relationship of the pair?  A possible study design to eliminate uncertainty like Nakajima’s study left me with would be a correlational study done over the dog’s life span with the owner.  The study would be observing the amount of time the dog owner pair spent together, and similar emotions felt by the pair. The more similar their emotions are over time would show how their behaviors have changed, or not, through being together. A study should also consider how the owner perceives themselves, and their looks and if that correlates to the bread, size, color and shape of the dog they .

It is probable that other factors result in the similarities I saw in my Grandma and Maggie then just the characteristics of their eyes. Although multiple studies attest to the importance of the eye region.

You probably learned in elementary school about how many mammals take a long “sleep” during the winter. But hibernation isn’t just a long sleep, but the changing of many different internal factors to conserve energy, and the animals isn’t usually unconscious the whole winter. Additionally, hibernation isn’t quite the same in all hibernating animals.

All animals require energy to perform every body function. This includes breathing, pumping blood, digesting food, and maintaining body temperature. When food is plentiful, most animals have no problem acquiring enough energy through food to drive all of these functions. In the winter, however, food is not plentiful enough for these animals to get enough food to drive their normal functions. By hibernating, animals go into a coma-like state in which their body functions perform less and require less energy. This means that their breathing slows, their heart rates slow down, they digest little to no food, and they allow their body temperatures to drop dramatically.

Up until 2011, scientists didn’t know very much about the hibernation of bears because of the dangers that would be involved in trying to monitor a bear’s bodily conditions. Scientists found that studying zoo bears wasn’t suitable because their internal cycles are disrupted when they are held in captivity. So scientists studied mostly small mammals because they would not be dangerous to hook up to measurement apparatuses.

However, in 2011,Oivind Toien of the University of Alaska Fairbanks acquired 5 black bears from the wild and surgically put sensors in them. They were then re-released into a protected area of woods where artificial dens were placed for them. They found that the black bears’ body temperature fell only to 85 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to smaller animals, whose temperature falls to borderline freezing during hibernation. Their metabolism also only fell to 25% of the normal function compared to smaller animals, which usually let their metabolisms fall to 2%. However, I have to wonder if any confounding third variables took part in this observational experiment, because the conditions were not exactly natural. Firstly, is there a possibility that the surgery and implementation of the monitoring devices could have interfered with the bears’ normal function? Could medication used on the bear for surgery have affected the bears’ internal functioning? Also, could the artificial den have made a difference in the bears’ conditions?

In addition, you may not have known that all hibernation does not happen during the winter. Some animals do a form of hibernating during the summer, called estivation. Many animals who estivate do so because they cannot survive in the intense heat, and burrow underground and enter a dormant state to stay cool. Some animals can also enter this coma-like state for less than a 24 hour period. This is called a daily torpor. The edible dormouse is actually capable of entering all three of these dormant states.

The edible dormouse can enter hibernation, estivation, or daily torpor.

Hopefully you’ve learned that hibernation is a bit more complicated and varied among animals than just a long sleep. Some animals hibernate more or less intensely, shorter or longer, or even at different times of the year and for different purposes.

Sources:

ScienceMadeSimple, How Stuff Works, Discover Magazine, TIME Magazine, NCBI

In our current world, it seems as though everything is modified and nothing is natural. GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, are taking over the world of food. With cancer rates on the rise, everyone is trying to take preventative measures to decrease their risk of falling subject to cancer. GMOs are widespread throughout the food industry, and therefore are challenging to avoid. While the FDA approves genetically modified organisms, many people are still skeptical. Since the study of effects of genetically modified organisms are relatively new science, people want to know: do GMOs cause cancer?

To get a base down, GMOs are organisms whose genetic makeup is altered in a laboratory. This is done through gene splicing, which is where genes of one species are inserted into another species. This is widely used in order for plants to develop resistance to pests, weeds, and other diseases. What effect do these GMOs have on our bodies?

Currently there are no restrictions on genetically modified organisms and therefore, farmers and scientists are free to produce and distribute as many GMOs as they wish. When comparing regular crops to genetically engineered crops, The University of California, Santa Cruz found that GMOs use the land more efficiently. Furthermore, genetically modified food has a longer shelf life, which therefore makes distribution easier. I believe that a longer shelf life could lead to a sustainable way to feed people across the world. While these gains seem great, the fear of cancer tends to overpower the benefits. Additionally, I think that all of these benefits and a lack of regulation on GMOs may cause scientists and farmers to abuse genetically engineered organisms.

Though scientists have been manipulating the genomes of food for several decades, connecting GMOs to cancer is remotely new research. As a professor in New York and a crop and soil scientist at Washington State University, Dr. Philip Landrigan and Charles Benbrook believe that while GMOs may not directly cause cancer in humans, the herbicides used to treat these crops may be a threat to our species. This is an example of correlation not equaling causation, which we discussed in class. I think that many Americans previously believed that since cancer rates rose along with the consumption of GMOs, that genetically modified organisms were causing cancer. However, a 2012 study shows that there is a third variable involved, which is the herbicides. Because these herbicides only kill the weeds and not the crops, the crops endure a fair amount of herbicides and pesticides when farmers attempt to exterminate the surrounding weeds. The well known weed-killer, Roundup, was commonly used in farms throughout the world. This herbicide contains glyphosate, which the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified as a “probable human carcinogen.” While it has not been tested on humans, Gilles-Eric Seralini tested the effects of glyphosate on 200 male and female albino Sprague-Dawley rats in a laboratory for two years. He found that exposure to the glyphosate lead to tumors in the rodents. Therefore, scientists assumed that it could have the same effect on humans.

With genetically modified corn being such a strong base in American’s diets, it seems surprising that we are not dying from cancer at a much higher rate. This thought attracted scientists to reexamine the results of these former studies, which led to the disproval of their results. Upon reading the reports of Gilles-Eric Seralini’s study that was published in September 2012 in Food and Chemical Toxicology, Steven Salzberg found the study to be poorly designed, and that the report ignores details that refute the findings. He also discovered that the control group only accounted for 10% of the total 200 rats. I believe that this could be due to multiple reasons, such as the scientists who conducted the experiment having their own secret agenda. This could cause them to create biased procedures, which would therefore skew the results. Something else that I found interesting about the study was that it did not explain at what rate the rats exposed to glyphosate got cancer compared to the control group. The experiment was eventually taken down after numerous experts followed up on the data and proved it to be false.

Thus far, all evidence leads us to believe that GMOs do not cause cancer, and neither do the herbicides used to treat them. I think that the experiment with rats could have been very beneficial if it were conducted correctly. Having non-biased scientists perform the experiment and evenly dividing the control and experimental groups would greatly reduce the chances for error in the experiment. Currently, we have no reason to suspect that GMOs cause cancer, and therefore consuming them should not be detrimental to our species.

There has been many studies and controversial arguments about whether or not is possible to cure homosexual human beings. While I personally believe that homosexuality is not a disease, I  found it interesting to try and understand why people thought such a thing was possible. What biological similarities are in homosexuals? Based off of my research, some have claimed to find what they call a “gay gene”.

When looking at the biological aspects of homosexuals, some scientists found it necessary to examine more than just humans. One of the species studied were our infamous fruit flies. We know-thanks to Andrew- that male fruit flies are toxic to female fruit flies, but what about their relationship with the same sex? According to Shang-Ding Zhang and Ward F. Oldenwald, fruit flies participate in gay behavior, such as licking of the genitalia and allowing genitalia contact. When these actions occur amongst the flies a gene called “w” is activated. During this activation of the gene a female can rarely tempt a male when passing by and widespread activation can cause groups of 5 or so male fruit flies to participate. Zhang and Oldenwald believe that their findings in fruit flies can be associated with the notion of homosexuality in humans. While most people believe it is a stretch to compare fruit flies and humans, there has been similar evidence.

Neuroscientist Simon LeVay conducted a study of autopsies of men and women with knowledge of their sexual orientation. He found that 19 gay men who died from AIDS had a tiny region in the brain (interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus) that was substantially smaller than that of 16 heterosexual men studied. There has been plenty of theories about this part of the brain effecting one’s sexual preference. LeVay’s argument is that there is a connection between the brain and sexual behavior through hormones. Whether or not LeVay’s study is accurate is hard to say. I definitely believe that the infection of AIDS could have had something to do with the results of the study (possibly be a third variable). Also, the sample size of 19 gay men and 16 straight men doesn’t seem to be enough. More than anything, there needs to be more studies done in order to have sufficient evidence. As rare as these studies are, most of them come from the idea posed by scientist Dean Hamer.

Over 20 years ago, Dean Hamer identified a stretch of the X chromosome was likely associated with homosexuality. In an effort to test the ability to replicate Hamer’s findings, J. Michael Bailey conducted a study on 409 pairs of gay brothers in 2004. Unlike the other studies I used, this one is more recent and has a larger sample size although is the evidence sufficient? Bailey found that there were linkages on the gene Xq28 (supposed “gay gene”) and a region of chromosome 8 (which has been suggested to be related to sexuality). What is unclear is how many linkages were found. In my opinion  there aren’t enough studies and evidence to prove that there is any single “gay gene”. All of these studies relate in the aspect of relation between the brain and sexuality but the mechanism is different for every study. The options of mechanism range from the “w” gene, to the hypothalamus, to Xq28, to chromosome 8, and I am sure there is more possibilities that scientists have found; they simply aren’t consistent enough. Another variable is that perhaps the individuals pairs are sharing the genes because they are brothers and they are related. Perhaps, the gene found in these sets of homosexual twins are genes that are common in most twins. My last critique on these studies is that they all focus on males- even the little fruit flies. Isn’t it possible for women to be homosexual as well? If there is in-fact a “gay gene” then it should be in BOTH men and women. In conclusion, there has been few studies done which have found possible linkage between the brain and sexual preference but not enough to accept the alternative hypothesis. I, personally, am leaning towards chance until proven otherwise.

A man went to see a mental doctor. He said he is depressed and unhappy. He felt lonely and desperate of his life and he wants some medicine. The doctor said, “That’s easy, you do not need any medicine. The greatest clown will come to city tonight. Go to see his show and you will be happy forever.” The man cried and said, “ But, doctor. I am that clown.”

Believe it or not many comedian stars get depressed because work pressure. Can you imagine that? The actor who played Mr. Bean was depressed; also actors like Chaplin, Jim Carrey, Stephen Fry all have depression. The famous actor Robin Williams recently committed suicide, drawing our attention to the comedian’s mental health. Mr. Williams made many famous humorous movies in his life. The most famous among them was the Night at the Museum franchise. Unfortunately it was the last film of his life.

So what cause the comedian’s depression. The first reason I think is that the success humorous actors always play a crazy man in the drama. They need to put themselves down to make people laugh. This kind of method is one of the most important element to create comedian called tragic inside. In another words, they need to make audience feel they are higher level than them. For example, when you watch Mr. Bean’s funny behavior in the movie you will laugh and speak to yourself, “I will never behave like that.” The famous actor Huang bo once said, “I cannot laugh out when I watched my comedy, I just can’t. I saw I am a person who is silly and stupid.”

A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in January examined , British and Australian comedians’ personality self-assessment tests and found that the comics scored significantly higher than the general population — and even slightly higher than a group of actors — for psychotic traits such as magical thinking, difficulty focusing, reduced ability to experience social and physical pleasure, and impulsivity. According to the article comic mania can speak darkness with joy, in movie industry the bipolar disorder which Robin William suffered from is called “the illness is necessary for the art.”

I think another reason is that the desire of control. As a comedian actor their responsibility is to make people happy. So they need to know how to control the atmosphere and the respond of audience. For these actors every drama is designed very carefully, they themselves know the ending but they have to pretend to be a fool. Humors are not a natural release for them, but a kind of job.  If one day they did not do a good job, they cannot control the audience like they want they may be got hurt from it. This kind of sense of control will bring long time sense of unsafe which is a torment for actors. Media comment may influence their fame can make the circumstance even more worse.

Now, let’s have a look at the bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder, with its extreme mood swings from depression to mania, used to be called manic depressive disorder. Bipolar disorder is very serious and can cause risky behavior, even suicidal tendencies, and can be treated with therapy and medication. This disorder It is serious but it can be conquered. I think Jim Carrey and Stephen Fry set up a good example for us. Here are the videos how Jim Carrey and Stephen Fry overcome their depression, respectively.

After you read this blog, I think we need to concern more about the mental problem of the actors when we watch comedian movie. We need to remind ourselves to respect them in our mind because they are the people who bring happy to us.

Reference:

comic mania can speak darkness with joy

https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2014/08/12/mental-illness-more-common-comedians/u6CEiEfUTEpGgx7fHbUiXL/story.html

Bipolar disorder http://www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/

Pictures:http://image.haosou.com/i?q=Jim+Carrey&src=srp

http://image.haosou.com/i?q=Stephen+Fry&src=srp

Do you remember we learned about how science proved worms make kids stupid? It turned out worms can cause you cancer as well. In his article, Man Killed by His Tapeworm’s cancer in usa.com, Quinn reported that the tumors found in a Colombian man was not composed of human cells.

According to November 5th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, in January 2013, 41 years old Colombian man presented with “fatigue, fever, cough, and weight loss of several month’s duration.” He was diagnosed with HIV in 2006 and was not being treated properly. This showed that the man’s immune system was not healthy. However, the study further reports that a CT scan showed tumors in his lungs, adrenal glands and lymph nodes, and stool examination showed H. nana eggs. H. nana, known as dwarf tapeworm, is the most common human tapeworm  that can mature and self-reproduce inside the intestine. After dozens of tests, the researchers found tapeworm DNA in the tumors, which was “10 times smaller than human cancer cells.” The man slipped into coma and died 72 hours after the diagnosis of tapeworm cancer due to kidney failure.This was the very first documented and known case of “a person becoming sick from cancer cells that developed in a parasite.”

So, what are the correlations? Direct causality would be H. nana’s cancer caused his immune system to further weaken to death. Reverse causality would be his weak immune system caused H. nana’s cancer. Confounding of third variable could be his genes, non-adherence to HIV therapy, or unsanitary environment. And of course, it might have been a chance.

However, could you believe if I told you all four worked together? First, it is Colombia unsanitary environment that infected him with H. nana. Second, according to Dr. Atis Muehlenbachs, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, H. nana’s cancer did kill him. However, it was only because his non-adherence to HIV therapy immunosuppressed him that when H. nana multiplied and reproduced in his gut, H. nana’s cells mutated and proliferated as malignant cancer, instead of dividing to create a new tapeworm. Further, his weak immune system couldn’t keep the cancer cells in his guts and caused them to spread to his other organs. Lastly, according to World Health Organization’s 2013 data, there are 35 million people people living with HIV/AIDS; moreover, up to 75 million people are estimated to be infected with parasites, however, very few parasites are able to self-reproduce with their hosts. Of all these people, this Colombian guy not only had HIV, was infected with self-reproducing parasites, and died of both. That’s one bad stroke of luck.

I researched more on how worms could do more than just make kids stupid and found out that there are parasites known to cause cholangiocarcinoma, liver/bile duct cancer. They are called Clonorchis sinensis and Opisthorchis viverrini. According to The Tumorigenic Liver Fluke Opisthorchis viverrini -multiple Pathways to Cancer, published in 2012,  they are common in less developed Asian countries, where an estimate of 40 million people are infected by eating raw or uncooked fish that are already infected with these tiny parasites, liver flukes. These parasites can reside in their hosts’ bile duct for 10 years. Therefore, the activities of these parasites could wear away the lining of the bile duct and cause scarring. This can further cause bacterial infections that block bile duct, enlarged liver, and/or cancer. 

Adapted from http://www.dpd.cdc.gov/DPDx/HTML/Opisthorchiasis.htm

Honestly, I am not too worried about being infected with parasites, although they can cause death. This is because it seems like worms are common in developing countries. What I got out of these studies is not only that worms cause cancer but that we need to figure out ways to provide clean water to those in need.

In Psychology we just learned about the idea of implanting memories. In the context it was used, implanting is the idea that you can spawn a false memory in someones mind. This goes hand in hand with the misinformation effect.

The misinformation effect is the idea that people who are exposed to new or misleading information about a memory incorporate that information into their recollection of the event. One of the most famous cases was one where participants were shown a slideshow of an automobile accident with a stop sign. One group was asked about a yield sign. Those who had been asked about the yield sign remembered it and claimed they had seen a yield sign. This is one of the most common and simplistic ways to implant a memory.

The easiest memories to manipulate are childhood memories, this is mainly in part to the large gap of time between the event and the recall. To study this claim, psychologists have conducted numerous experiments involving the use of several real childhood memories and one that never happened. Individuals the first time they heard the made up memory said they had no recollection of it, but when brought back in at a later date many of them added details and elaborated on the false memory. Much of this is due to our lousy intuition. Studies like these have undergone thorough meta-analysis, so it is proven beyond reasonable doubt that we can implant memories especially those pertaining to ones childhood.

Over the years many psychiatrists have been sued for the implementation of false memories. One of the most famous of these cases was Nadean Cool, who in 1986 sought therapy to help her cope with a traumatic event her daughter had experienced. Through hypnosis and other “suggestive techniques,” Cool uncovered alleged memories of “having been in a satanic cult, of eating babies, of being raped, of having sex with animals and of being forced to watch the murder of her eight-year-old friend.” These false memories were brought on due to malpractice, and patients such as Cool had a lot of trouble differentiating the real ones from the false ones. Studies have begin to show that under the right circumstances false memories can  be planted fairly easily.

Knowing that memories actually can be implanted into ones mind, I started wondering how accurate the science of t
he movie Inception is. In the movie Leonardo DiCaprio invades individuals dreams to plant an idea. The movie talks about how you have to plant the simplest form of the idea in order for it to take, and that they have to feel like it is their own. In general the movies science is very sound in the ideologies it bases itself off of, apart from the concept of actually entering into on
es brain of course. Dreams and reality are tied closely and it is very challenging to differentiate which is which at times, this helps the concept of “Inception.” But is it actually possible to implant an idea through a dream?

Studies of dreams in general focus on aspects of the sleep and REM cycle. It is well known that vivid dreaming occurs within the REM cycle in humans, but this cycle is hard to track and there is no way to tell whether an individual is dreaming or just asleep; that is of course assuming they don’t talk or thrash in their sleep. We also have not discovered exactly why we dream. Studies have on the other hand discovered a way to increase the likelihood of dreaming about a certain topic. By telling individuals NOT to think about an elephant, they then try and suppress the idea of an elephant which in turn leads to them thinking about that elephant.This is referred to as a rebound effect. The same idea goes for dreaming, if you are told not to think about something before bed you are more likely to dream about it.

Another study shows that the brain appears to “‘play back’ patterns of activity that occurred during the day.” Matt Wilson and his colleagues found that the brain lights up in a breadcrumb-like path corresponding to the paths that individual took during the day. It is known that the hippocampus is responsible for all new memories and the idea has stemmed that through dreaming the hippocampus trains other parts of the brain to store information long term.

Even with the growing ideas of why we dream and how we dream there are still many gaps that science has yet to figure out. There is still no mechanism as to why parts of our dreams are playback and others are crazy and out there. With this discrepancy science has no way of knowing exactly how dreams work and are unable to rule out the null hypothesis that we can not implant an idea into the mind while dreaming. So it is possible that we will discover that we can in fact implant an idea into someones mind as they sleep, maybe inception is the science of the future!

(This picture is found here)

When I was young, I do admire those who are really tall.Because they can easily get something which is too high for me in a supermarket. And those tall basketball players used to be my idols. But recently, a Swedish study shows that taller people are more likely to get cancer.

It is an observational study.“ The study analysis data on 5.5 million people in Sweden born between 1938 and 1991, with heights ranging from 100cm (3ft 3in) to 225cm (7ft 6in).They found the increased risk was highest in skin cancer, rising 30% for every 10cm in height.” At the same time, they also admit that height is not the greatest risk.

The result shows a correlation between heights and cancer. And it could arise because :

1. taller height causes cancer
2. cancer causes taller height
3. taller height and cancer are not causal related, but something else affects them both.

We can not tell which hypothesis is correct through this study. Since the observational subject are only “Sweden people” which can  not represent all the people, may not typical of population as a whole. The data they use is only properly replicated observations, without the third variables measured. For instance, obesity, smoking and other possible risks. This kind of data does not have very strong inference.What’s more, this study has not been published in any scientific journal yet which can also prove the result from this study are not considered seriously.

But there is another previous research conducted by scientists from the Karolinska Institute and University of Stockholm explores the correlation between heights and cancer. It is an meta-analysis which collect information on a world scale in 14 countries and especially focused on female and ovarian cancer. This meta-analysis also considered both published and unpublished studies which can avoid file drawer problem. And the specific research object :women can also avoid Texas sharp shooter problem. These are two big issues about meta-analysis. After “individual data on 25157 women with ovarian cancer and 81311 women without ovarian cancer from 47 epidemiological studies”, scientists concluded that “ovarian cancer risk increased significantly with height and with body mass index, except in studies using hospital controls”. The possible mechanism is the hormone increased and infect both the height and cancer. This conclusion is very important because “the increasing height can be considered as a risk factor for ovarian cancer”. As it known to us, the disease is found early, the best results will be seen. In other words, this found may save people’s life.

So, do taller people more likely to get cancer? We can not simply say yes or no. First, more studies in this topic are needed especially experimental studies. Secondly, answers may be different depending on the situation, we need to analysis case by case. And at the end, if you really want to reduce risk of cancer, the most important things to do may be start a healthy diet and lifestyle from now on.

What Is Sense Perception?

Sense is any of the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch, by which the body perceives an external stimulus. There are 5 common sense: Smell, Observation, Touch, Taste and Hear. Thus Sense perception is our way of receive knowledge through this 5 senses. However, all of our 5 sense was not use in their fully potential, there is a balance between each sense. If you are really good at one sense, you will have at least one bad sense, vice versa. Such as blind people are really good at hear and touch while they are bad at Observation.

How Much Can We Trust On Our Sense?

People are suck at multi-tasking, so people also suck at using multiple sense. For example, when we are doing our some job really hard, we can barely hear what the people said around us, although we can hear the content, we may not fully comprehend the meaning of the word because we are focusing on something else. So will other sense cheat us? Yes, definitely. One of  examples is called McGurk Effect. It is a perceptual phenomenon that demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception. The illusion occurs when the auditory component of one sound is paired with the visual component of another sound, leading to the perception of a third sound. Here is a demonstration of this effect:

From this video, we can learn that the sound of what we hear from the video changed when the visual imagine has changed. Thus, our sense is messing the information we received in some perspective.

Here is another example, look at the sentence below:

THIS SENTENCE HAS

HAS SOMETHING WRONG

WITH IT.

I think there is no doubt that the sentence I show is: “This sentence has something wrong with it”, but if you read the sentence throughly, you will figure out that I use HAS twice in the sentence. Although the sentence itself imply that there is something wrong among the sentence, people will not revise it because people’s sense has told them that they have already know the sentence. So  our senses tricks us once again.

In addition, one of the most famous example that people sense is cheating us is the moving “still imagine”.

When I first show you the conner of this imagine, it looks like still because there is no interference in this imagine.

But when we remove a square block, we can feel some motion inside the imagine.

The more we reveal from the imagine, the more motion we can feel. However, from the first imagine, we can see that the photo is completely still, and we can say that it is our sense messing the information we received once again.

Conclusion

People are really confident about their senses, but the reality is that what we see may not match up to the reality at all, as the previous examples demonstrated, our sense is sometime transmit the knowledge we received wrongfully, or even create the effect of illusion. People should be humble about their sense perception, otherwise we may eventually make some mistake.

Resources:

http://www.theoryofknowledge.net/ways-of-knowing/sense-perception/quotes-on-sense-perception/

http://ispptok.blogspot.com/2006/10/sense-perception.html

Most people in today’s day in age- that is of course aside from the vegan preachers of the world- believe Greek yogurt to be one of the healthiest and most nutritious forms of protein due to its natural probiotic content as well as the assistance it provides in the digestion track. However, there is much more to greek yogurt than you’d think that makes it not nearly as healthy as it is made out to be…

First off, it totally depends on the brand of yogurt that you are consuming, as well as the flavor and amount. So I am going to focus specifically on Chobani’s No Flavor Greek Yogurt. This article discusses the positives of Chobani’s Greek yogurt, such as the avoidance of using artificial sweeteners, as well as the fact that it has almost double the amount of protein compared to any other brand. Another claim made by Chobani is that, “its ingredients are “all natural,” and while not organic, Chobani also says none of the dairy used comes from cows fed rBST—the controversial growth hormone common in conventional dairy” (Shireen 1). (When a label says rBST Free, it means that antibiotics/genetically modified organisms were not used in the process of it being made). Click here to read about how BPA has been linked to both prostate cancer as well as birth defects in an experiment done with mice. Another benefit of Chobani’s Greek yogurt is that it is only 100 calories per serving- boy they know just how to lure all dieters, calorie counters, and weight conscious customers! It is important to realize that correlation does not equal causation, meaning just because you eat this lower calorie option, does not necessarily mean that you will lose weight. However, it is definitely a lower calorie snack and quite satisfying.  So, if it is so low in calorie content, and it claims to use natural sweeteners, where is the downfall?

G. M. O. ‘s and the yogurt industry have quite a steamy relationship, to say the least . GMO’s are genetically modified organisms that are used for the preservation of foods such as vegetables, dairy products, fruits, meats, etc… Although Chobani’s brand claims that their products are GMO free, they fail to mention the fact that the, “yogurt could be made with milk from cows that were given GMOs in their feed — a disclaimer that isn’t currently listed on its packaging” (The Verge). In fact, grocery stores such as Whole Foods, has stopped selling Chobani’s products due to this hidden information presented to the public. GMO’s long term affects continue to be controversial. Aside from the use of GMO’s in their products, they are also guilty of high, yet hidden sugar content and mislabeling.

“I thought Greek Yogurt helped in digestion…?” You may ask. Well, within that statement lies a bit of exaggeration. A recent experiment done in NPR examined yogurt’s affect on both mice and the human body. Each were examined before being fed the yogurt, specifically their digestive tracks and whether or not the yogurt had an affect on them. After being given yogurt for a period of time, there proved to be no positive affect on their digestive systems, both in mice and the humans. In fact, the amount of microbes and bacteria found in yogurt that are responsible for assisting digestion, are a teeny tiny portion of that of which is found in the stomach. The affect is little to none if anything. That being said, this study did not give a specific time period of how long the mice and humans were fed yogurt for and the type of yogurt is not mentioned; all of which could have affected the outcome of the experiment. Therefore, the evidence could’ve been stronger and more direct.

An experiment that would better prove the affect Chobani has on the body, would be looking closer at digestion in relation to consumption. One group would be fed yogurt 3 times a day, one group only twice a day, and one group only once a day, and lastly a group who does not consume any at all (control). It is important that the two groups maintain the same diet outside of the yogurt to make sure it is not other foods that are responsible for the mutation, like organic fruits and vegetables. Then, over the course of a week, we take a look at the digestive tracks of those who consumed more vs those who did not consume at all. This way, the experiment would be more controlled with a much lesser chance of confounding variables impacting the results.

Another critique of Chobani’s yogurt is that it is not a whole food, it is processed a hundred times over, and although it claims to remove all sugars, it adds plenty of additives in doing so. When you see 0 g of sugar, shouldn’t there actually be 0 g of sugar? Well according to this article published in the HuffingtonPost, Chobani products use “Evaporated cane juice” which is ultimately the same thing as sugar. However, when reading the nutrition labeling information, they fail to list sugar as one of its ingredients, displaying “0%” instead. Chobani knows just how to avoid dieters biggest concerns through the mislabeling and indirect answers presented to consumers (Spiegel 1). The mislabeling on Chobani products skims over the fact that other sugars are involved in the process of the making, and may be named otherwise.
OK… So now that I know Chobani products may contain genetically modified organisms, as well as artificial sugars, where do I go from here? Well, if you are unwilling to give up yogurt as a whole, maybe just limit consumption to once a day, or 4-5 times a week. Although it may contain GMO’s, any other brand type is guaranteed to also, as well as just about any food not labeled organic will, because that is just the society in which we live in. That being said, there are numerous other ways to get protein such as tofu, tempeh, beans, lentils, meats, etc…Thankfully, yogurt is not your only answer!

Growing up, I lived off of steak, chicken, turkey, and practically anything that is meat. It wasn’t until high school that my entire diet changed, going from almost everything to a vegetarian lifestyle. Being vegetarian was not difficult because I was able to get my sources of protein from numerous other foods such as yogurt, milk, cheese…etc. However, it wasn’t until recently that I decided to make the switch to veganism, which cut out a tremendous amount of those options except tofu. I have built such a strong reliance on tofu as my main source of protein, but have began to wonder whether or not tofu is actually my best, healthiest option.

First off, when I say healthy, I mean loaded with nutrients, not processed, and not damaging to ones overall well being. Tofu is loaded with protein, in fact one serving offers 9 grams (Times)!… Without a doubt, protein is definitely a must in a healthy, well-balanced diet to ensure a fulfilling and energetic lifestyle. If you don’t believe me, click here and find out more about how much protein your body needs to be healthy! Though I run into problems when I examine where that protein is actually coming from… The main ingredient in tofu is soy, which comes from soybeans (a legume). In a recent interview on the Dr. Oz show, with Christina Patrick, an interested dietician and member of Dr. Oz’s Medical Advisory Board, the soy controversy is laid out. Soy acts as the main resource in which we retrieve our protein when consuming tofu. However, soy contains phytoestrogen, which has isoflavones, (estrogen of a plant) which brings us to the most controversial issue of all: Breast Cancer. Now, some may question Dr. Oz’s findings as he may not deem to be the most reputable source, but there are many studies and articles that closely align to the isoflavones found in soy and how it correlates to cancer development. Specifically, in this article published in the Scientific American, the findings are identical in that with increased consumption of these products containing isoflavones, (like tofu) it may lead to, “…reduce[d] fertility in women, trigger premature puberty and disrupt development of fetuses and children” (Frinka 1). The study then concludes by noting “large amounts”, and that consumption in moderation is okay. This makes me wonder how much “too much” is…

So what are in isoflavones that cause such a damage? In tofu, specifically in soy, there is a type of estrogen called genistein found in isoflavones. In a recent study published in the Scientific American, animals were given doses of genistein, seeing how it affected their bodies. Genistein- right off the bat- has proven to stop reproduction of organisms. Anyways, back to the experiment, female animals were given 25 grams which is the amount of soy that is in a typical high- soy diet. The effects produced delayed reproductive cycles, and even absence of reproduction. When testing males, there were no significant changes except breast growth. After analyzing these results, I have come to my own consensus on the study and tofu as a whole. 1- Because of the fact that tofu contains genistein, I suggest consuming it in moderation. 2- Just because tofu has genistein does not mean that correlation will prove causation; just because you consume tofu does not mean you will develop cancer or increase in breast growth, however risk of such may increase. 3- There could have been a difference in results if the study took place over a longer period of time. The female study was over the course of 4 days, there may still be long term effects that were not proven in this experiment.

Going back to the interview, Christina describes another experiment, in which every women examined had drank 1 cup of soy milk everyday, or 1 serving of tofu, and their risks of developing breast cancer fell by 30%. However, the experiment lacks a control group! The control group of having one group not drink or eat any soy products is a must in order to be able to compare the results and draw conclusions! This is a soft-endpoint that needs further examination, because risk of development is a very hard thing to measure, due to things like chance.

So, now that you know the uncertainty, but positives working in tofu’s favor, now what? Well, it is really important to point out that correlation does not equal causation, meaning just because you eat tofu you will / will not develop cancer, or just because you do not consume tofu, your guaranteed a breast-cancer free life. There are many third variables that could interfere, such as the amount of tofu consumed, the way in which it is cooked (steamed, fried, boiled, etc…), and more variables that could affect the later possibility of developing cancer. The evidence is not conclusive, there could be long term affects that we are unaware of. Also, the claim made about the Asian population is solely observational, so it is impossible to prove if whether or not there lies full certainty in that statement. That being said, I think tofu is a great source of protein and like any other food, when consumed in moderation, it serves as a healthy option and great source of protein.

Have you ever heard of putting fashion before comfort? Nowadays, many women would rather buy expensive shoes that look cute then wear shoes that are comfortable. This goes for basically everything when it comes to fashion. It is the reason why women take so long to get ready, spend so much money on materialistic goods, and complain that their feet hurt after a look night out. Just as fashion comes before comfort, does beauty come before health?    Although it might sounds ridiculous to pile on make up and spend so much time doing your hair, it tends to make women feel more beautiful. But, are some of these habits to change the ways we look may be damaging our natural selves. A major example of this is applying heat and chemicals to our hair to change its look.

There are definitely people out there that have to habit of straightening their hair every single day. Naturally, this doesn’t sounds healthy. When I looked into the consequences of straightening hair so much I found that there are many side effects. First of all, by applying heat to your hair, you are drying it out. Hair loses its natural moisture to a great extent, causing it to look dull and frizzy. Clearly, this does the exact opposite of what you want it to do by participating in the act of straightening it. Also, by straightening your hair, you are at risk for many different allergies. Some symptoms to these allergies include itchiness on skin and scalp, redness of scalp, rashes, itching of the eye, and red eye. Lastly, one of the most terrifying side effect of hair straightening is the chance of severe hair fall. This nightmare happens when the flat iron breaks the hair from the roots. Also, using a flat iron throughout your life causes the hair follicles and natural keratin chemicals to become weak and hair fallout even more.

Unfortunately, with all of the risks that come from straightening your hair, some flat irons are much worse than others. According to research, some flat irons on the market have high levels of a chemical known as formaldehyde (also referred to as methylene glycol). Well fully heated, the flat iron releases the chemical in the form of gas. This was directly cause severe irritation to the eyes, nose, and throat. In more serious terms, exposure to formaldehyde in the long run has been linked to increased cancer risk.

Since the 1980s, the National Cancer Institute has conducted numerous different kinds of studies to determine if there is a direct association between exposure to formaldehyde and cancer. One kind of study done was known as an epidemiologic study. According to the NCI, these are “studies that attempt to uncover the patterns and causes of disease in groups of people”. In addition they used cohort studies. These include “a group of people who may vary in their exposure to a particular factor, such as formaldehyde, and are followed over time to see whether they develop a disease”.  Lastly, they conducted case-control studies. These studies, “begin with people who are diagnosed as having a disease (cases) and compare them to people without the disease (controls), trying to identify differences in factors, such as exposure to formaldehyde, that might explain why the cases developed the disease but the controls did not.” Although none of these studies are randomized, they are all still reliable with large sample sizes and lead to the conclusion that there is a correlation between exposure to formaldehyde and cancer, specifically lung cancer.

Although this correlation was concluded, don’t let this cause you to fear flat iron’s completely. Many of the people studied in the NCI’s experiments were around excess amounts of formaldehyde in the work place, so there is still a possibility that the limited amount of formaldehyde in flat irons barely has an effect. In addition, many of the flat iron’s containing formaldehyde have been taken off the market internationally. In the US, the FDA has yet to recall some of the products, so make sure to keep your eyes out for them. The Women’s Voices of the Earth gave examples of products containing formaldehyde that are still on the market. The product’s manufacturers included, BioNaza Cosmetics, Brazillian Blowout, Cadiveu, Cocochoco Professional, Coppola/Copomon Enterprises LLC, Global Keratin, La Brasiliana, Marcia Teixeira – M & M International, and many more.

In conclusion, it is extremely important to take care of your hair. Try your best to reduce your use of flat irons in order to efficiently reduce the risks of dryness, allergies, and hair loss. Also, if you are going to use a flat iron, research to make sure that there are no chemicals, such as formaldehyde, that may endanger your health in the long run. Remember, it’s health over beauty, not beauty over health.

The question on every serious college student’s mind is how much sleep can we potentially skip out on to do some extra work, or to study a little bit more. We all care about our grades whether they are good grades or grades that are improving, and with finals coming up I felt the need to bring up the question about the risk or reward of taking that “all nighter” to study for your SCIOW exam. A lack of sleep can actually be detrimental to not only your studying and performance on exams and in the classroom, but it can also contribute to serious health problems and even death. While this sounds rather rash, and in most cases can be affected by some sort of confounding third variable, it is true that sleep deprivation can indeed cause premature aging, increased amounts of stress, heart attacks, strokes and more. All this according to an article on inc.com.

There are many flaws that could have occurred during this study. First off, there is no way of telling how many people this correlational study was carried out on. Not only that, it doesn’t even say if there was an experiment, it just lists a bunch of “facts” about sleep deprivation. However, in a study carried out by two PHD’s at UPENN, this same study gets done the “right” way. According to the professors at UPENN, namely Jeffrey S. Durmer, and David F. Dinges, in a study lasting over 5 years, randomly sampling 1007 adults ages 21 to 30 years of age, “The average sleep during the weekdays was 6.7 hours and on weekends was 7.4 hours.” Not only can sleep deprivation cause a vast number of Medical illnesses, it can also have an increased affect on physically hurting you. According to the same study form the University of Pennsylvania,

Accidents related to sleep deprivation have been estimated to have an annual economic impact of $43 to $56 billion.

– UPENN study

The point of the study that was very accurately carried out unlike the first study mentioned, was to show that sleep deprivation is detrimental for operating in your every day life.

All this being taken into consideration, sleep deprivation is obviously not good for the human body. However, the question I want to elaborate on is how does sleep deprivation directly effect your test taking performance and ability to retain information. We’ve all been in the position before of being so tired in one class or another after a long night and just slowly struggling to keep our eyes open and eventually dozing off, missing any important information. This exact instance happened to me the other day while listening to one of Andrew’s very compelling and interesting lectures.

The area of the brain that needs to be examined to figure out the effect of sleep deprivation on studying would have to be the hippocampus. This is the area of the brain that is responsible for memory. Studies show that sleep deprivation has a direct impact on the hippocampus in an individuals brain. This results in a loss of memory and of course a loss of all the materials that you studied prior. Too little sleep can actually make your grades a lot worse, and can impact your health to a great extent. The hippocampus being affected by sleep deprivation could have an adverse effect on a persons cognitive thinking and processing skills. The ability to solve everyday problems and retain information become increasingly difficult the less sleep you have. Many studies show that the hippocampus is greatly affected by sleep deprivation, this negative effect makes it so a human being cannot function to their average potential. 

How much sleep loss is considered sleep deprivation for the average human being? Could it be that missing only that one study night of sleep isn’t enough to have lasting effects on you? That statement would happen to be false. In reality, one all nighter could take as many as 4 days for your body to catch back up, until then one’s functioning is decreased greatly which could result on a poor grade of the test that you decided to study for all night, and future assessments that one has in that 4 day span. The bottom line is, the more sleep you miss, the worse you will do within reason. Staying up all night is not a good choice for a test, and you could only be hurting yourself in the long run.