University campuses are supposed to be a place where students absorb knowledge, take part in a variety of activities, and enjoy the days before they become a part of competitive society. However, the problems are caused by carrying guns has become the barrier for foreign students to go to America to further their study and also makes parents who want their children to go aboard to America more worried about their safety. Actually, America  has a long history on the both side of supporting carrying guns and against carrying guns. The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution (1791) also emphasizes on the right of people to bear arms, “ A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”(Ready, fire, aim). Is it really infringed”(Birnbaum, 2013)

Is it really helped for people’s safety if we carry arms? Clearly, this picture reflects that more guns helped to control crime efficiency. However, should we allow people concealed carry gun on campus? This controversial topic has been argued for a long time. Apparently, allowing carry guns will benefit students who face life threaten. However it will also expose the students who do not have guns life under threaten. We can tell how the debate is from this video.

I come up with some solutions on this problem and I want to illustrate them with real examples. The real example happened in Virginia Tech warned all the educational  departments and governments that cannot just focus on student’s academic level,  the aspect of student’s mental health is needed to be concerned as important and  necessary.  According to CNN library, “Cho is ordered by a judge to seek outpatient care after making suicidal remarks to his roommates. He is evaluated at Carilion-St. Alban’s mental health facility” (CNN Library). Besides, according to book wrote by Thomas “ possttraumetic stress”, “ depression”, “anxiety symptoms” are all easy to drive people commit shooting. Actually schools and communities’ psychological mentors should concentrate on the mental health of students due to most of the students who commit shootings suffer from a mental disorder. people commit  (Fergus, 2011, p596-600). the students commit shootings suffer from mental mental disorder. If the school can sense the mental problem Seung-Hui Cho had earlier, this tragic event could have been avoided.

The second solution which is local governments or educational departments should organize activities for schools annually, to publicize the knowledge of how students should protect themselves when gun shootings happen. The benefit of this is that students will take the campus shooting problem seriously in their daily life and they can learn how to protect themselves with practice not just in theory. According to Emerson, “The founder and president of Stop Handgun Violence organization John Rosenthal was invited by the Emerson Peace and Social Justice to talk about his participation in civil disobedience movements, the lack of legislative regulation for the gun industry, and the need to make stricter gun regulation advocacy a priority on campus” (Gun control, Laura).

Third, educational departments together with governments could make specific policies and procedures on the regulation of guns such as installing metal detectors or surveillance and punish the internal or external people who carry or use guns improperly on campuses. This solution is better than the above two because this time the solution real focus on how to deal with “weapon” instead of “human”. The first solution tries to solve the problem by cure violence’s mental disorder. It is good, but it is limited by it’s indirectly. The second try to solve the problem through spread knowledge on how to protect themselves to students and faculties and organize acting if the real shootings come. The disadvantage is that people who carry dark motive may use these free chances to learn how to break students’ prevention and hurt people with guns. By contrast, the third solution answers the question of guns control on campuses best. Although it does have disadvantage which is it may cost schools a lot finance budget to install facilities and it also takes schools much time on policies making and ratify by the superior departments. However, there is a real example exit on put this solution into practice. According to the journal When Guns Come to Campus, Security and Culture Can Get Complicated, the author gives some examples, “Arkansas allows faculty and staff members to carry concealed weapons and Idaho prohibits guns  idormitories or venues that hold more than 1000 people.”(Bowerman, 2014, p13). Strict policies are needed as in dormitories or venues that hold more than one thousand people.” Texas is a state which is famous for supporting guns carry. It is one of the seven states which allow concealed-carry guns on campuses. In order to make sure the safety of students and facility, it also put so much money on the prevention.

Bascially I think it is never too much to secure the safety. It may cost a lot to install equipments or take a series of complicated steps to make these policies. However, every time after tragic happen people always wish they should have done this before or they should have done that before. Time cannot flush back, and fate does not give everyone a second chance. May be tragedy can be sever as a reminder for all families to side aside a few minutes to talk together about the importance of compassionate acts-that those acts become the glue that binds us together in our humanity” (Khadaroo, 2013). If schools and educational departments do not spend money and time on the aspect of guns regulation, the retribution will come that there will be more campuses shooting shows up in the future. Risks increase in silence and feed on people’s ignore and arrogant. In the future when people read the news about campuses shooting again, schools and educational departments may regret on why not they haven’t perfect the regulations before. However, regret cannot bring lives back to life, mourning and remembering is far from enough. If schools and departments do not make any improvement and do not learn a lesson from tragedy that means they scarify their lives for nothing. It is not fair. Schools cannot predict precisely on who and when and will commit shootings on campuses, but they can prevent it by stem secure loopholes constantly. Money cannot bring dead to life, but it can help to prevent the tragedy coming. It is worth to spend money on the aspect of protect human safety.

In conclusion, education departments should form proper regulations and procedures on carrying guns on campuses. Combine with concentrating on students’ mental health and organize the activities to enlarge the knowledge of how to keep safe when shootings happen together. The problem of guns control on America campuses will be solved sooner or later.

Last if you are interest in the gun policy on campus in each states of USA. Please click here. This website has rich content on this aspect.

References

Bowerman, M. (2014). When Guns Come to Campus, Security and Culture Can Get Complicated.

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED537905.p), 13. Rehttp://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED537905.pdBirnbaum, R. (2013). Ready, Fire, Aim: The College Campus Gun Fight. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED537905.pdhttp://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED537905.pd(5), 6-14. RetrievedGaughy Mc Lauren. (2015). Campus Carry Would Cost Millions in Security Upgrades. Retrieved from Alaska Dispatch News web http://www.adn.com/article/20150224/campus-carry-would-cost-millions-security-upgrades

Gomez, Laura. (2013). Gun control activist Rosenthal speaks to Emerson students, urges social action. Retrieved from Emerson http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/emerson/2013/04/gun_control_activist_rosenthal_speaks_to_emerson_students_urges_social_action.html

Virginia Tech Shootings Fast Facts. (2015). Retrieved from CNN library http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/31/us/virginia-tech-shootings-fast-facts/index.html

 

Right now in 2015, it is easy to notice that cell phone use has skyrocketed over the past decade. According to Craig Lefebvre, Ph.D, there were 255.4 cell phone owners in the United States alone in 2007, which accounted for 84% of the total U.S. population. Global estimations of cell phone use have been as high as 2 billion people and that was in 2005, a decade ago (wikinvest). With the increase in popularity of cell phones, there has been a growing degree of speculation as to whether cell phone use has detrimental effects on human health. With the speculation have come many studies to determine whether cell phones are in fact unsafe.

The most popular debates center on the cell phone’s effect on sperm quality while in the regular pant pocket area and on its effect on the human brain while held next to the ear. A common agreement among researches is that cell phones are the most potentially dangerous while in talk mode. The main instance where this may affect spermatozoa is when the phone is left in the pocket while the user has Bluetooth enabled. This may be a factor behind the recent increase in the infertility rate among the male population, which is now 1 in 20 (De Iuliis et al.). It took about a century for humans to fully realize the dangerous effects of smoking cigarettes and it seems that the dangers of cell phone use may also take a while to be universally accepted and understood.

In a randomized crossover study conducted in 2009, Nora D. Volkow, M.D., the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Maryland, and 8 other professionals evaluated the influence of the cell phone’s radiofrequency signals on the health of the human brain. In particular, they tested the relationship between cell phone use and brain glucose metabolism, which is the indicator of brain activity. The experiment enlisted 47 healthy participants who had their brain glucose measured after two 50-minute periods. For both of the 50-minute periods, a Samsung model SCH-U310 cell phone was attached to both the left and right ear. In one period, the right cell phone was turned on for all 50 minutes while the other was turned off. In the other period, both phones were turned off. After the periods had ended, a (18F)fluorodeoxyglucose injection was used to measure brain glucose metabolism. The results showed that the metabolism in the whole brain was unchanged regardless of the cell phone, but the metabolism in the region of the brain closest to the activated cell phone’s antenna was higher than the metabolism near the cell phones turned off. With the cell phone in talk mode, the metabolism near the antenna was measured at 35.7 μmol/100 g per minute whereas with the phone off it was measured at 33.3 μmol/100 g per minute, which is a statistically significant finding (P = .004). This main finding is not enough to unequivocally prove that the waves emitted by cell phones are unhealthy for the human brain, though.

Now to the matter of the possible effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation (RFEMR) on sperm quality. In 2008, Ashok Agarwal, Ph.D., of the Center for Reproductive Medicine in the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, and a group of 6 other scientists tested whether these effects exist with a prospective pilot study. They did so by taking neat seamen samples, which contain mature and immature sperm, from 23 healthy donors and 9 infertile donors. Each sperm sample was divided into two and each division was called an aliquot. One randomly chosen aliquot from each donor was placed into the control group and the other aliquot was placed into the experimental group. The experimental group aliquots were exposed to cell phone radiation from a cell phone in talk mode at a distance of 2.5 cm from the cell phone antenna for 1 hour. The distance was 2.5 cm because that is about the regular distance between the testes and the position of a cell phone in a pocket. The aliquots in the control group were placed under identical conditions for 1 hour except for the exposure to RFEMR. After the testing period, the individual sperm cells in the experimental group showed a significant decrease in motility and viability in comparison to those of the control group. In this case, motility means movement and viability essentially means whether or not the sperm are alive. The study also found a significant increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) level among the exposed aliquots, but did not find any significant difference in DNA damage or antioxidant capacity (TAC) in the semen. These results indicate that the RFEMR released from cell phones may cause oxidative stress on spermatozoa, thus leading to infertility in men.

In 2009, Geoffry N. De Iuliis, Ph.D., of the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Callaghan in New South Wales, Australia, and 3 other researchers ran a very similar study and further validated the conclusion that cell phones in talk mode cause oxidative stress in sperm. Like the study conducted by Agarwal et al., this experiment used semen samples in vitro. There were 22 healthy donors who averaged 24 years of age. Using the same aliquot division system, the semen of the control group was incubated at room temperature for 1 hour while the semen of the experimental group was exposed for the same amount of time to a frequency of 1.8 GHz, which is about the regular frequency that a cell phone emits in talk mode. Like the procedure of the study itself, the results were very similar to those of the previously mentioned study. De Iuliis et al. found a significant comparative decrease in sperm motility and viability among the exposed aliquots as well.

Since all of these experiments were conducted well, it is not likely that confounding variables or chance affected their results. While the results of all these experiments do not certainly prove the negative effects of cell phones, they still support the recently popularized theory that cell phones are detrimental to human health.

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

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

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

Obesity

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

Heart Disease

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

Other possible medical affects

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

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

Conclusion

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

Right now, laptops are as popular as they have ever been. Every year, more and more families are switching from desktops to laptops because of their easy, portable usage. According to a firm called the Information Network, laptop sales reached 145.9 million in 2008. That number increased to 177.7 units sold in 2009. Demand for laptops has skyrocketed, especially in the demographic of men in their reproductive years.

Elisabeth Carlsen, M.D., of the University Department of Growth and Reproduction in Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, and a group of three other researchers created a study to determine whether there have been any changes in the quantity or quality of sperm since the late 1930s, thinking that technology may be responsible. The team did so by comparing 61 papers including 14,947 men between 1938 and 1990. The ages of the men ranged from 17 to 64 years with a mean age between 30 and 38 years and none of the studies found any of the men to have a history of infertility. In order to downplay the effect of confounding variables in their results, Carlsen et al. used a collection of studies that used uniform sperm-counting methods. The studies they chose used different kinds of counting chambers, which is a method suggested by the World Health Organization. What they found was a substantial decrease in both sperm count and seminal volume. Sperm count decreased from 113 x 10⁶/ml in 1940 to 66 x 10⁶/ml in 1990 and seminal volume decreased from 3*40 ml to 2*75 ml over that period. The findings were recorded in the chart below.

The data suggest that the quality of semen has declined over the 50-year study period, but it is not made clear as to what is the cause of this degeneration.

In a 2011 Argentine study ran by Conrado Avendaño, Ph.D., et al., the scientists tested the hypothesis that laptops placed on laps cause a decrease in sperm quality. Two of the three negative effects that people commonly associate with laptops are that they apply heat and microwaves to the testicular region when placed on the lap. This experiment had an in vitro design using Petri dishes and samples from 29 healthy donors were utilized. The samples were divided into two parts called aliquots and for each sample, one aliquot was placed 3 cm under a laptop using wireless Wi-Fi while the other was placed into an identical environment except without the exposure to a laptop. The laptop used was a Toshiba Satellite M305D-S4829. The distance between the laptop and the Petri dish was 3 cm because that is the estimated distance between the laptop and the testes when people place laptops on their laps. After 4 hours, the samples exposed to the laptop showed a significant increase in DNA fragmentation and a significant decrease in progressive sperm motility. 80.9% of the sperm in the experimental group could not move forward after four hours whereas 68.7% of the control group’s sperm could no longer move forward. Interestingly, though, there was no significant difference in the amount of dead sperm between the control and experimental groups after the four-hour period. Also measured were the temperatures under a laptop with Wi-Fi, a laptop without Wi-Fi, and under normal conditions without a laptop. The heat coming from the wirelessly connected laptop was over 3 times higher than without Wi-Fi and 7-15 times higher than under normal conditions. Based off of this collection of results, the researchers concluded that laptop placement on the lap may lead to infertility in men.

However, there were some noticeable shortcomings to the experiment. First, only using one type of laptop can mean that the results relate to only that laptop. Perhaps a MacBook or a Dell laptop would have yielded different results. Also, the semen in the experiment was in Petri dishes as opposed to being in their natural placement in the human body. Without the protection that the tissues and fluids of the body offer, the semen could have been more prone to heat and waves emitted from the laptop.

In 2004, Dr. Yefim R. Sheynkin, M.D., of the Department of Urology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, NY, and four other scientists performed an experiment testing the heat emitted from laptops onto the testicular region. Like the last experiment, 29 healthy volunteers ages 21 to 35 were chosen, but no semen samples were taken. Instead, right and left scrotal temperature was measured. Sheynkin et al. attached two cutaneous thermocouples (5SRTC-TT J type Teflon insulated wire to both testes to find the temperatures. For the experimental group, the participants sat with a laptop on their laps for 60 minutes and temperatures were recorded every 3 minutes. Before putting the laptops on laps, the laptops had already been turned on for 15 minutes. The control group was put under the same conditions except for the laptop. The results state that there was a significant increase in temperature in both testes when under the laptop. Both testes in the experimental group increased significantly in temperature compared to those of the control group, proving that laptops raise scrotal temperature when placed on the lap. The results are shown in the 2 charts below.

In addition to the previously stated associations between laptops and infertility, the third negative effect that is associated with laptops is the position that the laps are put in to hold the laptop. People keep their legs close together when they put a laptop on their laps, which raises the temperature in the testicular region. An increase in testicular temperature has been associated with a decrease in fertility and this sitting position adds to the heat that comes from the laptop. Two possible answers to these problems are using lap pads between our laps and laptops and making sure our legs are not too close together. Aware of these possible solutions, Sheynkin and a separate group of 5 other scientists created another experiment to evaluate the effect of leg positioning and lap pads on scrotal temperature. Using almost the exact same design of their other experiment with the same amount of participants of the same ages, the results concluded that the best combination is to sit with legs apart while using a lap pad. The scrotal temperature raised high in every 60-minute session, but it did not raise as highly with a lap pad and laps 70 degrees apart than it did with legs together with a lap pad or legs apart without a lap pad.

On a hot sunny day in the summer, humans want to lather up with sunscreen and lay in the sun. Once we get hot, we go into the water to cool off. All of our sunscreen usually rubs off in the water, so once we get out we need to reapply. All of this sunscreen that rubs off in the ocean, and the sunscreen that washes off our body in the shower actually end up killing the coral reefs in the ocean and eventually killing off the wildlife.

Most sunscreens contain a chemical UV filter called oxybenzone. It protects the skin from the rays of the un and prevents sunburn. However, this chemical also bleaches coral reefs, making them not functionable for the dependent organisms, but it can also harm the organisms themselves. This theory was supported by a recent study where scientists monitored the effect that oxybenzone had on the life of planula. Planula were collected from the wild and placed in artificial sea water. There were 4 different time periods that these planula were placed in the sea water, along with different concentrations of oxybenzone. They were exposed for 8 hours in light, 8 in dark, one full day, and 24 hours in the dark. It was found that after all time periods, there had been negative changes in the planulae. The figure below shows the changes that occurred during the different time periods and at different concentrations of oxybenzone. Figure A is the control planula. It has a cucumber-like shape, and although it is not visible, it has cilia that keeps it in constant motion. This planula was exposed for 8 hours in light. Figure B shows a planula also exposed for 8 hours in light, but also to 22.8 parts per billion of oxybenzone. Already it is noticeable that the oxybenzone transformed the planula from a long shaped figure to a round, circle shaped figure. It was also observed that this planula started to experience bleaching of the epidermis and reduced cilia movement. Bleaching is the loss of structure of the planula as well as the loss of pigments used in photosynthesis. Figure C and D were also exposed for 8 hours in the light, except C was in 228 parts per billion oxybenzone, while D was 2.28 parts per million. In C, the amount of brown spots decreased from B, which shows that the epidermis is continuing to be bleached by the oxybenzone. The brown spots are significant for the occurrence of photosynthesis. The shape also changed to a thumbprint shape. D shows even more bleaching and white/transparent color, along with decreased brown spots and more of a circle shape. At this point, there is very low cilia movement and a very transparent color of the planula. Figure E shows planula exposed for 8 hours in the light in 28.8 parts per million. This final trial shows an almost complete loss of brown spots on the specimen, which gives the planula a very strong transparent and opaque look, making it almost invisible. The shape of the planula has also gone from a ciliated, cucumber shaped specimen to a very round, and bare figure. These results show that oxybenzone has a deteriorating effect on planula and other organisms as well.
The toxic effects that oxybenzone has on the planula as shown in the study represents the overall effect it has on organisms and their development. When the oxybenzone reaches the coral reefs, it has the same effect as it has on the planula. Oxybenzone toxicity damages the endocrine system in the organism, causes death to occur in the coral, and harms the DNA of the organisms dependent on the reefs. It bleaches the reef white, making it non accessible to the organisms that depend on it, and the oxybenzone also deprives the reefs of their essential nutrients. This eventually not only kills the coral reefs, but also the ocean wildlife as well. According to the U.S National Park Service, “somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 tons of sunscreen enters coral reefs around the world each year.” This statistic shows how detrimental sunscreen is on the wildlife in the ocean. Craig Downs, one of the authors from the study above, stated that because of this increase in sunscreen entering the water, about 80% of coral reefs have been lost.

Although it may seem minor, this problem is very severe because eventually it affects humans. A damage to the coral reefs and wildlife that depend on it cause a decrease in the amount of rescues (food) available for humans. Even though we cannot prevent humans from wearing sunscreen or going in the ocean, we can help limit the amount that goes into the water. We can promote the usage of sunscreens that do not contain this toxic chemical, such as Badger Sunscreen, Tru Kid Sunny Days, Soleo Organics, UV Natural, California Baby, and many more. Sunscreens like Coppertone, Haiwan Tropic, Neutrogena, Aveeno, Banana Boat, and No-Ad contain oxybenzone therefore when used will have a harming effect on the ocean wildlife. There are other ways, such as enforcing people to wipe off their sunscreen before they enter the water or before they shower to reduce the amount that gets into the water, but this can cause harm to the human themselves, making them more prone to get sunburnt. So the question of whether our lives or the coral reefs are more important.

It is hard to completely prevent sunscreen from entering the water, but there are ways that humans can take caution when it comes to how much sunscreen damages the coral reefs. Eventually, the damaging of the coral reefs will affect us as humans, so taking action now would help humans and ocean wildlife survive from this toxic chemical.

I was sitting in my room and all of a sudden I got really happy, I was dancing around and jamming out to whatever music I had playing and I started thinking about why I was happy. In general it’s pretty easy to read someone’s emotion based off of their facial expressions, whether it’s a smile when they are happy or the eyebrow raise when they are ticked. As humans we are usually really good at reading into these expressions and knowing exactly what is going on, but that got me to wondering why exactly we smile when we are happy? Why do we make the facial expressions we do in response to our emotions?

As I started my research, I came a cross Paul Ekman and his studies. Ekman is a scientist who has written several books about his findings. In his book “Unmasking the Face: A Guide to Recognizing Emotions from Facial Clues,” Ekman shows well researched data on several aspects of emotion. In a study he conducted he showed people pictures of emotions and then had them either pick the word that corresponds to the image or come up with their own word for the picture. His study found that across the board the emotions happy, sad, surprise, fear, anger and disgust were constant amongst the population. In another study Ekman conducted he showed stress inducing videos to American and Japanese college students once by themselves and then again with someone in the room asking questions. This study was constructed to see if the emotions were constant across culture. To avoid the confounding variable of “learned recognition” and response to popular media, Ekman conducted this study in New Guinea, where individuals had no connection with the outside world. The tests had to be modified slightly due to the language barrier and varying social norms, but this test also held with Ekman’s hypothesis that Emotions are constant among all humans. Due to Ekman’s thorough investigation, attention to potential third variables, and large sample size he was able to show that facial expressions are constant across humanity.

Facial expressions as we know can be both voluntary and involuntary. Humans can vary their expressions to a point, but through the findings of Ekman they still follow the idea that facial expressions are constant. But I still hadn’t found why. I came across an article that was not a science journal and was not as credible as Ekman and his book but in it I started to get answers. Lauri Nummenmaa, a psychologist at Aalto University stated “Our emotional system in the brain sends signals to the body so we can deal with our situation.” This is known through psychology with the autonomic and somatic nervous systems. Just as it is animal reaction to run when something scares it and our body naturally calms itself down once it is safe, it is a rush of signals that causes emotions.

The emotions are caused by these signals in conjunction with chemicals in the brain. When someone is depressed there is some sort of imbalance of the chemicals in the brain, which is why certain drugs are used to correct the imbalance. The brain is very complex and different studies differ on exactly which chemicals are part of happiness, some having more components than others. The neurochemicals that are agreed upon across the sources I referenced are Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin and Endorphins. Each is responsible for a different aspect of happiness. Dopamine is considered the “reward molecule,” this chemical is released anytime someone has that feeling of accomplishment. Oxytocin is known as the “bonding molecule,” this is the chemical is released when someone is with a loved one and is experiencing physical contact. Serotonin is the “confidence molecule,” which is associated with self worth. Endorphins are linked with physical activity of both innocent and sexual natures and make them a pleasurable part of human life. These chemicals, potentially combined with many others, are the components of happiness. 

So to date it has been established that humans are constant in their expressions and they have the same chemicals coursing through their bodies, which are the associated cause of emotion, so it seems that chemicals cause facial expressions. This is a correlational conclusion, but it is widely accepted. Dr. Nakia Gordon on the other hand states that smiling can actually cause ones mood to increase, opening up the possibility of reverse causation.  Charles Darwin  had suggested that facial expressions were an indication for animals to communicate, an animal would bear its teeth as warning, and that humans re-established the idea of bearing teeth as a form of greeting. Darwin’s ideology may be correct but it also may not, it is unclear whether human expressions are only based off the chemical responses, or if there is a third confounding variable that influences why we make certain expressions in conjunction with certain emotions. Either way, the study of why we smile is one that has puzzled many scientists!

 

 

Americans finish their plates because they see it as a task. right
Americans eat a lot of food because they are nurturing their bodies. left

In life there are certain things we cannot avoid. Ignorance, Bliss, Love, Hate, Depression, Euphoria, Confusion, Determination. (I put them in caps because each word is so powerful in itself). We ARE fixated as humans to believe in something, something that drives us, something that gives us greater definition. Whether that be religion, science, drugs, love, family, or friends.

The thing is, why is it that it use to be so much more common for humans to flourish through love and communication but the only definition I now perceive is a generation of lost souls. What is the fun in forming yourself to only satisfy the people whom surround you? You know that’s an endless chase right? Because we can never satisfy everybody.

I watched this documentary the other day on Netflix called “Chefs Table.” (If you have not watched it I suggest you do, and I’m sure you have an account, who doesn’t.) In this film you get to watch the rigorous yet depressing things that life inevitably entails through Massimo Bottura.

1.Why is it that in modern day society everyone tries to conquer all and truly believes that all these draining activities will never catch up with their mentality?

Technology.

2.Where is the beauty in honoring an individual who puts their heart and soul in the one thing they truly believe in?

Massimo was a very determined chef who never gave up on his specific vision, even after being torn down time after time. Every critic hated what he brought to the table, Gilmore encouraged him to refine his vision with a mixture of pedantry and love. But honestly now thanks to Gilmore he exposed Bottura to Maurizio Cattelan at the 1997 Venice Biennale, where 2,000 taxidermied pigeons pooping on the walls, crystallized Bottura’s will to pursue his vision at Osteria Francescana. But whats the difference between him and the rest of this world. He’s a fighter, where the hell are the fighters?

For the longest time I wanted to start politics because when I want something, I get it. No one can stop me once I have my eyes set on a certain goal. The thing is I cannot go against what I believe in. Honesty. How can I rule the world when my people are nothing but blind white sheep? How can I rule the world when I know my message I broadcasted throughout my campaign is only being jeopardized every approaching day in the Oval? Here is a video of a some type of UFO seen in the sky over California 2 days ago. And you want to know how the government responds? scared, scared of course. The latest claim is that it was a “Military missile.”

So for those of you who thought I was crazy the other day in class for raising my hand and saying aliens indeed exist, HAH!

Antibiotics are the holy grail of this past century. Penicillin, being the first antibiotic discovered in 1929, is estimated saving over 200 million lives since its first actual use as a medicine in 1942. However, these drugs have been used so widely that infectious organisms that the antibiotics are supposed to kill have adapted, according to the CDC. This is making these antibiotic drugs less effective, a major problem in our society today. Each year, approximately 2 million people become infected with bacteria that resist antibiotics, which results with at least 23,000 deaths due to these infections. However, due to a a recent incredible scientific discovery, we may have found a way to fix that: Teixobactin.

The discovery of antibiotic Teixobactin is the first in nearly 30 years and, according to scientists, has the potential to fight against a range of major infections. The infections listed include fatal ones such as tuberculosis and pneumonia. Studies have also shown that this prototype drug works against harmful bacteria in such a unique way that is greatly unlikely to lead to drug-resistance. Drug resistance–the decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics–has quickened in recent years and has alluded to a major problem in our world due to the dependency we hold on these drugs. The resistance has spread worldwide. With the success that Teixobactin is capable of, we have the opportunity to avoid increased resistance and the number of deaths that it would cause.

Where does it come from?

Simply put, Teixobactin is from the soil. It comes from a bacterium called Eleftheria terrae. Soil is full of bacteria which are always in competition, killing off each other for the resources and Eleftheria terrae happens to use Teixobactin as its weapon to kill off the other bacteria. Since it is only present in soil bacteria, most organisms haven’t been exposed to it enough to develop resistance traits–the reason for its hopeful success. Another interesting part about its discovery is how it was found. Teixobactin was found in a soil microbe which, in the past, have been extremely difficult to discover alive antibiotics in. 99% of soil microbes can’t be grown in a lab because the conventional method kills them off. With Teixobactin, however, researchers discovered a method to keep more of these microbes alive to grown in a lab.

  

 

With success in mouse studies, Teixobactin is looking incredibly hopeful for the future of medicine. The true test will come soon when clinical trials with humans begin, revealing side effects not evident with the mice if there are any. It will take time (and money) for this antibiotic to be developed, but it is seemingly worth the wait at this point in time.

 

Recently in the U.S., soy has become an increasingly popular ingredient in people’s diets. People commonly think that soy has properties that can reduce the risks of breast cancer and prostate cancer. On the other hand, people also think that soy intake can lead to an increase in estrogen in men, causing them to have a lack in sex drive, be over-emotional, and even grow breasts. The purpose of this post is to investigate the true effects of soy based off of credible studies.

In 1998, Chrisato Nagata, M.D., of the Department of Health and the Gifu University of Medicine in Japan, and a group of four other Japanese scientists created a study to analyze soy’s effects on breast cancer. The logic behind the soy-breast cancer connection is that many people think estrogens cause the development of breast cancer and that the isoflavones (phytoestrogens) in soy can reduce the estrogen levels. In order to test whether soy reduces estrogen levels, Nagata et al. randomly assigned 29 premenopausal women to the control group on their regular diet and 31 premenopausal women to a soymilk diet and ran the study for the time it took for three menstrual cycles to end in all the participants. Before starting the study period, the participants filled out a questionnaire on their menstrual histories and basic demographic information. The participants were also weighed before and after the study period. The answers to the questionnaire showed no significant differences in height, weight, smoking frequency, or other demographic variables between the two groups of women, which helped to root out confounding variables. They were also weighed after the experiment. The soy-supplemented diet consisted of a daily intake of 400 mL of soymilk. At the end of the first and third menstrual cycles for both of the groups of study participants, follicular-phase blood samples were taken.

At the end of the study period, the study found a 23% decrease in estrone levels in the soymilk-supplemented group and a 0.6% increase in the control group. The study also found a 27% decrease in estradiol levels in the soy group and a 4% increase in the control group. The participants also kept record of the menstrual cycle length that showed that the control group’s cycles were shortened by 1 day whereas the supplemented group’s cycles on average increased by 2 days. Based off of statistical analysis, though, these results were deemed statistically insignificant and it was concluded that a larger study is necessary to confirm the results of this study that support the theory that soy intake increases menstrual cycle length while reducing estrogen levels in women, therefore preventing breast cancer.

Jill M. Hamilton-Reeves, Ph.D., of the Department of Food Science and Nutrition and the University of Kansas, along with a group of four other scientists ran a 6-month long, single-blinded, placebo-controlled study to test the theory that soy products can reduce prostate cancer risk. Steroid hormones have commonly been associated with increasing the risk of prostate cancer and the theory being tested is that soy can reduce the amount of those hormones. The study consisted of 58 male participants who were randomly divided into three groups. One group was instructed to consume a soy protein isolate daily that contained 107 mg of isoflavones. Another group consumed an alcohol-washed soy protein isolate daily that was made up of less than 6 mg of isoflavones and the final group drank a milk protein isolate daily that contained 0 mg of isoflavones. Serum samples that were tested for a variety of hormones were taken from the participants at the beginning of the study, halfway through (3 months), and at the conclusion of the study period. Also, prostate biopsy samples were taken before and after the study period and analyzed for estrogen receptor-β expression and androgen receptor (AR) expression. Relative to the first samples taken, the group consuming less than 6 mg of isoflavones had a significant increase in serum estradiol concentration. However, the most significant results were that the group consuming 107 mg a day of insoflavones was found to have a significant decrease in AR expression levels in comparison to the other groups, which indicates that soy and other foods that are rich in isoflavones may in fact be capable of reducing the risk of prostate cancer.

In an attempt to test whether soy can actually reduce serum estrone concentrations and possibly verify Hamilton-Reeves’s results, Christo Nagata and the same group of scientists in Japan made a randomized dietary intervention study of 35 men between the ages of 22 to 50. The men were divided into 2 groups, one given a soy-supplemented diet of 400 mL of soymilk daily and the other asked to stick to their regular no-soy diet. In order to find the estrone concentrations, Nagata et al. took the blood samples of the participants every two weeks for 12 months. After the study period, there were notable differences in the serum estrone samples taken between the two groups. The serum estrone decreased in the soy-supplemented group and increased in the control group, as shown in the graph below. By lowering the circulating estrone concentrations in men, this difference supports the hypothesis that soy reduces prostate cancer risk, but it is still not proven.

In addition to these studies, there have been experiments on male rats that have rejected the hypothesis that soy products cause decreases in testosterone in men. Mindy S. Kurzer of the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota, did a meta-analysis in 2002 and cited these experiments. Other cited examples include a dietary study done on 14 men between 18 and 35 years of age in which after soymilk intake of 40 mg per day for 3 months, there were no differences found in sperm count or quality compared to before the study period. There is the possibility that the results from this meta-analysis were affected by the file drawer problem, meaning that studies finding no significant effects from soy on the human body were put into the file drawer and therefore not used for this meta-analysis, but that would only support the hypothesis that soy does not “feminize” men. Overall, all the experiments above, while inconclusive, suggest that soy may reduce breast and prostate cancer risk while also not reducing testosterone or other hormones in men.

 

 

In one of my previous posts, I discussed the negative effects of night eating and what many of my sources mentioned was the dietary benefit of eating breakfast. Being a regular breakfast eater, I decided to research whether I have been making the right choice. After reading many studies, the favored answer is yes.

In 1996, Catherine S. Berkey of Harvard Medical School and a group of three other Harvard University scientists used a questionnaire to come to their own conclusion on the somewhat controversial topic. In this observational study, the scientists sent questionnaires to nurses who were parents all over the United States and got answers back from over 16 882 children (8980 girls and 7791 boys) ages 9 to 14. For those who responded to the questionnaire, they were sent the same questions three years later to analyze the annual effects of their breakfast habits. In the study, weight was measured in terms of body mass index (BMI). Of all the participants, 7545 girls and 5962 boys provided annual data regarding BMI-change.   The study grouped participants based on their average weekly consumption of breakfast: 1-2 days, 3-4 days, or 5 plus.

The participants answered questions that evaluated their physical activity, inactivity (watching TV, playing videogame, etc.), energy intake, race, schoolwork, and their Tanner maturation stage, which measures their sexual maturity. The race question proved to be important because 94.7% of participants were white, 0.9% African American, 1.5% Hispanic, 1.5% Asian, and 1.4% other. These percentages show an obvious lack of comparative representation among many American ethnicities, but based off of the raw number of participants, there was still enough representation in itself. The study found that breakfast skippers were more likely to be overweight. With the breakfast skippers, 26.4% of boys and 25.3% of girls were overweight whereas with the breakfast eaters, 21.2% of boys and 15.8% of girls were overweight. A more surprising finding is that overweight boys and girls gained less weight annually than the overweight children who ate breakfast daily. The results suggest that skipping breakfast is only beneficial weight-wise for those who are overweight. That is not the case for academic achievement, though. According to the graph of results below, the relative risk (RR) for doing very well at school was the highest with the participants who frequently ate breakfast.

In Japan, a study on this topic was conducted by a team of 9 scientists including Midori Nishiyama, Ph.D., from the Education Support Center and the Division of Education for Community Medicine at Dokkyo Medical University. In their paper, they observed the relationship between breakfast skipping and unhealthy behavior, academic success, and sense of coherence (SOC), which is made up of comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. Here, the first component is confidence in grasping one’s present circumstance or predicting the future, the second is the sense that one is capable of coping with stress, and the latter regards well-being and the sense that one’s life is meaningful. For the study, Nishiyama et al. issued questionnaires to 92 first-year students (57 men, 37 women) at Dokkyo University’s medical school. The participants answered two self-evaluation questionnaires assessing SOC and lifestyle, one in July of 2010 and the second in August of 2011. In this study, breakfast eaters said they ate breakfast at least 6 times per week and the rest of the participants were categorized as breakfast skippers. 65.9% of participants answered to be breakfast eaters the first year and 55.4% the second year.

The study found that breakfast eaters on average had better annual test scores than breakfast skippers. It also found that breakfast eaters were significantly less likely to use sleeping pills. The most surprising results of this study claim was that breakfast skippers had less stress. However, they were also less likely to have the manageability to combat stress, but that was only found among participants in the first year. Concerning the other SOC scores, the only other considerable differences were that breakfast eaters tested better for meaningfulness in the first year and comprehensibility in the second.

In 1985 in Australia, a very similar study began. Dr. Kylie J. Smith and 5 others from the Menzies Research Institute of the University of Tasmania created a questionnaire that was completed nationally by 9-15 year old Australians, 2184 of whom finished the follow-up questionnaire between 2004 and 2006. Of the 2184, 1730 of the participants had their waists measured by trained staff and had blood samples taken after 12-hour fasts. In the follow up, the participants were between the ages 26 and 36. The objective of this analysis was to find the connection between breakfast eating and cardiometabolic risk over a span of about 20 years from childhood to adulthood. Cardiometabolic risk indicates one’s chances of having diabetes, heart disease, or a stroke (Office of Mental Health). The participants were broken up into 4 groups – breakfast eaters in both childhood and adulthood, in only childhood, in only adulthood, and neither. Based off of the blood tests, waist measurements, and the answers to the questions, the results were very one-sided. The participants in the “neither” category had a larger weight circumference, higher fasting insulin, and higher total and LDL cholesterol than those who ate breakfast in both childhood and adulthood. The framework of this study suggests that there is a possibility that it suffers from the Texas Sharp Shooter problem, but the fact that the results were only based off of relatively few questions and measurements is enough to reject that possibility.

While these studies do not unequivocally prove the dietary significance of breakfast, they provide sufficient data that support causation between breakfast and good health. A problem with these studies as a whole is that they are all observational, which means that the chance of confounding variables affecting their results is high. Out of this array of studies, the ones that seem least likely to have been affected by confounding variables are the studies conducted in Australia and the United States because the sample sizes for those two are very large. In sum, these studies conclude that skipping breakfast reduces stress, causes bad grades, has a negative association with overall health, has cardiometabolic risks, and causes everyone besides the obese to gain weight.

About a month ago, I began reading this novel by Gary Mack titled, “Minds Gym”. The novel explains how your mind influences your athletic performance as much as your physical skills does, if not more so. I noticed that this concept can be applied to other types of performances and not just athletic. For example, I thought about how throughout high school/college many people are stressed out about homework, tests, projects, and different clubs/organizations, which sometimes results in very low test scores, unorganized events, and other negative consequences. Many times I thought to myself that they should not be as stressed as they are; but rather more relaxed. Although stress is common among most individuals, is it good for you?

Null hypothesis: Stress is not good for you.

Alternative hypothesis: Stress is good for you.

“Stress is the body’s way of responding to any type of demand or threat. When one feels threatened the nervous system responds by releasing stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, which rouse the body for emergency action.” When one gets stressed blood pressure rises, breathing becomes more rapid, the digestive system slows down, heart rate rises, the immune system goes down, muscles become tense, and we do not sleep according to this article.

After some research I found that stress can have positive and negative effects.

Above is the Yerkes-Dodson Law, it states that as stress levels rise, so does the performance levels to an extent. During the “calm” portion of the curve, people tend to be torpid and perform poorly. Then the stress portion is where people feel energized, motivated, and “in the zone”; optimal performance occurs during this point. In order to test this hypothesis, Yerkes and Dodson did an experiment on rats where they had them try to find the way out of a maze, if the rats took the wrong route they were given electric shocks. During the experiment, the researchers were looking for the optimum punishment, where rats learned the quickest. They found that as the voltage of the shock increased, so did the rats performance until it reached a voltage that was too high which leads to the third portion of the performance curve – “distress”. When the stress levels rose beyond a certain point, the rats began to under perform as they started to slow down, freeze, and retreat to avoid being struck by extreme voltages.

The Bottom Line in this study was: “When motivating people, find ways to increase their arousal level but only to the point where performance is maximized. Different people have different overload points so do be careful about this.”

Firdaus Dhabhar, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and member of the Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection claims that short-term-stress (fight or flight response) stimulates immune activity. This response is another benefit of stress. Dhabar concluded this after subjecting rats to mild stress, which in turn caused immense mobilization of several types of immune cells into the bloodstream, skin, and other tissues thus improving the immune system.

In addition, Dhabhar and his colleagues performed an experiment previous to the one above to figure out whether or not stress enhances recovery from surgery. They conducted the experiment by recruiting 57 patients who were scheduled for surgery to repair damaged cartilage in their knee joints. Three to ten days before the surgery, patients gave blood samples to establish a baseline count of  immune cells in their blood. Then again on the morning of their surgery before the administrating anesthesia, searching for an increase of immune cells in the bloodstream. Dhabar believed that patients should be somewhat stressed/anxious about half an hour before surgery thus activating the short-term immune response. Researchers found that three major types of immune cells: lymphocytes, monocytes, and neutrophils redistributed throughout the body. They then calculated the median redistribution. Patients above the median were labeled “high responders”, and those smaller than the median or unchanged were grouped as “low responders”. Researchers then followed up with the patients for one year, checking knee inflammation and used the Lysholm scale in order to rank knee function, pain, and mobility. Patients who elicited positive stress during surgery increased recovery as early as one week post-surgery. Low responders had scores around 80 and never recovered as much as the other group.

Also during this study, researchers found that women were less likely to show an adaptive response than men.  On average their lymphocyte redistribution numbers were almost four times lower than males’, and also had lower overall knee recovery.

Conclusion of the experiment: High levels of stress before surgery enhances the chances of recovery from surgery. Also that women are less likely than men to fully recover from surgery, therefor more research needs to be done to explain this conundrum.

Take Home Message From This Blog: Stress seems very likely to benefit people in various situations. Although stress can sometimes be beneficial, when levels of it are too high it can be detrimental to one’s performance and health.

 

Sources:

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-symptoms-causes-and-effects.htm

https://ccme.osu.edu/WebCastsFiles/562The%20Management%20of%20Stress%20-%202.pdf

http://changingminds.org/explanations/motivation/yerkes-dodson.htm

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278262607000322

http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2009/12/good-stress-response-enhances-recovery-from-surgery-stanford-study-shows.html

Recently in class we have been talking about vaccinations and if they are worth the risk. Last year in Disneyland, 111 people were infected by the measles virus when it spread throughout the theme park. Most of these people were not vaccinated, even though the measles vaccine has been available since 1968. Since then, Californians have been pushing to ban vaccination opt- out due to personal and religious beliefs.

Dr. Richard Pan, a California State Senator (D), was named a hero by TIME Magazine for his work to provide a safe environment for school children. Pan’s bill, which was prompted by the measles outbreak at Disneyland, was signed into law under the name SB 277. This bill requires children to get all of their vaccinations, in order to create a safer learning environment for those kids who cannot be vaccinated for medical purposes.

As of June 30, 2015, California passed SB 277 into law, and it will take affect on July 1, 2016. With this law, California tykes are required to have their vaccination record in full when they enter kindergarten and seventh grade. If it isn’t  up to date- they will be banned from all public and private schools. People who chose not to vaccinate their child have the option of homeschooling their child or doing independent studies at the public schools. Now, “personal belief” is not a good enough reason for children to not be vaccinated, children must have a specific medical condition that prevents them from getting vaccinated.

California is the state with the most measles cases so far in 2015 and it is also one of the 17 states that still has personal belief laws, but it is the first state to get rid of opting out of vaccinations for religious beliefs. Personal belief laws has taken a toll on California in the past, when 10 children died of whooping cough. A study done on this topic showed that many cases of whooping cough came from those children who were not vaccinated due to “personal belief.” Other children were left to suffer because they were exempt from being vaccinated either because of medical reasons. The case broke in the first place because not enough children were vaccinated to create herd immunity, which occurs when enough of the population is vaccinated so the rest of the non-vaccinated population is safe. (measles is so highly contagious that 90-95% of the population must be vaccinated in order to generate immunity, while whooping cough requires about 94% ).

Although these numbers are relatively high, Dr. Pan says that children must be safe in school, and among the Californian school population, there should be close to 100% immunity.

Opponents of SB277, including an anti-SB277 organization that took the URL of sb277.org, say that this law violates children’s constitutional right to receive an education.

Another complaint is that this law violates religious freedoms. According to this website, MMR vaccines contain the cells of aborted babies, and those against abortion should therefore be against the MMR vaccine. Other religious protests include: people who think that God made their bodies to be able to protect them naturally and that vaccines do not help with their health, and that unless it is the religious belief of a person that God punishes non-vaccinators, it is a step over religious boundaries to claim that every child must be vaccinated.

This site went on to harp on the cliche that vaccines kill and injure an uncountable number of people a year, and that a government that is powerful enough to force people to get vaccinations that could harm them has too much control.

Most of these complaints are easily arguable. Vaccines obviously help the health of people, since a vaccine is what eradicated polio. Secondly, there is no merit to whether your religious belief allows you to get vaccinated or not. If religious belief is what the government based all of its laws on, I’m sure many people would have the belief that paying your taxes got you punished by God. And as for vaccines harming people, as we went over in class, you are much more likely to get killed in a car accident than you are from getting a vaccine.

California’s new law is something that the rest of America should adopt. For the greater good of the rest of the children in contact with those who are not vaccinated, as well as for the greater good of the community as a whole, vaccinations can help immensely with children remaining healthy.

 

 

It is not even a debate that tap water is a better economical and environmental choice than bottled water, although buying bottled water is good for the economy as a whole. What is a debate, though, is which is safer health-wise. Despite the fact that many people do not actually know whether their own tap water is cleaner than the bottled water they buy, people globally spend more than $100 billion dollars on bottled water a year, which on average costs about a thousand times more (Karlstrom and Dell’Amore). The debate over which type of water is healthier does not have a constant answer as there are many different municipal (tap) water systems and brands of water bottles. After doing the research, though, it becomes easier to approach this decision moving forward.

Peter Gleick, Ph.D., a member of the International Water Academy and the National Academy of Sciences and also the author of the book Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water, appeared on Boston’s NPR news station and had many interesting things to say on the topic. For one of them, he highlighted the tendency for many bottled water brands to name themselves based off of what consumers want to see their water come from. As an example, he gave the brand Glacier Mountain Natural Spring Water, which, contrary to its name, is produced in New Jersey. When people think of bottled water, they usually think of pure, natural spring water. According to Gleick, though, about 40% to 45% of all bottled water originates as municipal water. Some well-known examples include Dasani and Nestle Pure Life. That almost seems like false advertisement, but in reality, there is no federally imposed obligation to put the source of the water on the bottle. Also, filtered tap water should be as clean as any as long as the processors do a thorough job.

Gleick also touches on the regulation differences between bottled and tap water, which are easy to find. Unlike in the case of tap water, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates bottled water because it considers it to be a food (Goodson). The FDA is much more lax in its regulations of bottled water than the U.S. Enviornmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in its control over municipal water systems. To compare the regulations, the FDA reviews facilities making bottled water on average every 2.5 years whereas the EPA will inspect a municipal water system as many as dozens of times daily, but to be fair, it is a rare occurrence for the FDA to be dissatisfied after inspections. In order to find out about these rare occurrences, Gleick contacted the FDA and after months, it released information to him that disclosed that there had already been 100 official recalls. Reasons for the recalls included contaminations with kerosene, mold, and algae. Other problems included findings of yeast, glass particles, and fecal coliforms, which are pathogenic to humans. Another bottled water producer was recalled months after cricket parts were found in their water. This means that there is a possibility that for as long as 2.5 years or maybe even longer, this company was distributing bottled water with cricket parts inside. Not all bottled water is under that lax inspection, though. Only bottled water that is involved in interstate commerce receives these inspections (Gleick). For what Gleick estimates to be around 60% to 70% of all bottled water, the FDA has absolutely no authority and thus these brands have little incentive to produce the highest quality of water possible. Even after exposing the risks of drinking bottled water, Gleik acknowledged that there could be new chemicals being placed into municipal water systems that the EPA is not testing for under the Safe Drinking Water Act, which was originally passed in 1974.

A comparative study in Cleveland, Ohio run by James A. Lalumandier, DDS and Leona W. Ayers, MD, took 57 samples of 5 categories of bottled water and compared them to the city’s municipal water in order to find the difference in tooth decay prevention (fluoride levels) and bacterial levels. The bottled water was purchased from local stores and the tap water was collected from 4 of Cleveland’s water processing plants. Fluoride levels were found through an ion-selective electrode method and bacterial counts were measured as colony-forming units (CFUs) per milliliter. The scientists compared the fluoride levels to the Ohio state-wide standard of 1.00 mg/L of fluoride with the range of 0.80 to 1.30 mg/L being acceptable. Of all the 57 samples of bottled water tested, only 3 came within the acceptable level of fluoride whereas all 4 tap water samples came within 0.04 mg/L of the optimal level of 1.00 mg/L. The bacterial counts in the tap water ranged from 0.2 to 2.7 CFUs/mL whereas the bottled water samples ranged widely from 0.01 to 4900 CFUs/mL. Based off of these results, tap water is generally better for tooth decay prevention and some bottled water is less bacteria-concentrated while others have alarmingly high bacteria counts. In terms of bacterial counts for the bottled water, the majority (32) of the samples had less than 0.02 CFU/mL, 10 had counts between 0.02 and 1.10 CFU/mL, 8 contained between 6 and 30 CFUs/mL, 1 sample contained 530 CFUs/mL, and 6 samples contained between 1500 and 4900 CFUs/mL. The complete set of bacteria-related results is in the chart below. The results indicate that Lalumandier and Ayers did not have any bias toward either tap or bottled water. Also, based off of the procedure of the experiment, it is unlikely that confounding variables or chance affected these results.

According to the previous information, some new conceptions can be added to the common knowledge regarding the tap versus bottled water argument. In general, we already know that tap water is better for the environment and your wallet and that bottled water tastes better and is better for the economy. Now we also know that tap water is better for your teeth and is not nearly as risky as many people believe it to be and we know that negligent regulations by the FDA can cause some bottled water to be much less safe than tap water. The argument over which is better varies on a case-by-case basis. Moving forward, you are more likely to be picking the right bottled water if it is in interstate commerce. Also, the best brands of bottled water are safer than tap water concerning bacteria count. If you do not know which bottled water to choose, tap water is a safe bet.

I have been asking myself this question for a while now and I thought that writing a blog on this would give me the perfect opportunity to address it (after a lot of research of course). First, let me give a definition of what an Internet troll actually is. According to Jiwon Shin, Ph.D., of the Teachers College of Columbia University, “A troll is a person who interrupts communications on the Internet, and (is) often seen as problematic or even (as) criminals.” Of course, there are many different kinds of trolls. There are trolls all over the web and are most commonly found on Wikipedia, social media sites like Facebook, and a wide variety of comment sections and chat rooms. So what is the common personality of the Internet troll? How do we perceive them? What are their motives? I am going to try to answer these questions in a review of recent studies. When researches try to answer these questions, they try to find any kind of correlation between trolls and what is known as “the Dark Tetrad of personality”: sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, the last of which is characterized by deception and dishonesty (Buckels, Trapnell, and Paulhaus).

In a 2010 observational study of trolls, Pnina Shachaf and Noriko Hara, both of the School of Library and Information Science Of Indiana University, Bloomington, interviewed an amount of only 8 Wikipedia system operators (sysops) with undisclosed names and asked them how they perceived trolls to be after showing them the cases of 11 different Wikipedia trolls. Being system operators, the people in charge of kicking out trolls, the sysops were in regular and often times adversary contact with them. After conducting the interviews, Shachaf and Hara found themes of attention seeking, boredom, opposition to authority, gratification, revenge, and a sadistic longing to mentally harm Internet communities and their users. These were the most popular motivations the sysops attributed to trolling, but instead of being actual evidence, they are indicators of social science theories. Of all these motivations, boredom was the most popular answer among the interviewees. The 8 sysops generally found trolls to fit under the category of the Dark Tetrad.

What many studies like the previous one don’t include is a gender-based analysis of the troll. Aware of this, Professors Pnina Fichman, Ph.D., and Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo of the School of Informatics and Computing at the Bloomington campus of the University of Indiana decided to research this specific topic. In their paper, they state that the main reason for this is because females have represented a small minority of Internet trolls and female-driven cases of trolling have been considerably less severe. They cite Susan C. Herring, another Professor of Information Science and Linguistics at Indiana University, Bloomington, who theorized the reason for this to be in the sexual disposition toward conflict. Trolls thrive on creating conflict and females tend to avoid it, she says.

Part of a list of hypotheses tested in their gender-based study of trolls, Fichman and Sanfilippo predicted that male and female trolls are perceived differently. The two professors tested this hypothesis by presenting three different scenarios to the 100 participants of their study. The participants, 75% female, 23% male, and 2% identifying as other, represented a wide variety of degree majors and academic statuses. The scenarios were of trolls operating on Wikipedia, Yahoo! Answers, and the online gaming site League of Legends. For each question, every participant was given a variation of the troll’s name. The names were Emily, Todd, and AbcD. The participants were then asked to assume the motivations of trolls unaware of the significance of the names. According to the results of the study in the “Hypothesis 3” section of the chart below, participants “perceived Todd and AbcD to be motivated by malevolence, humor, and instigation at a higher frequency than Emily, who was perceived to be comparatively more ideological”, thus supporting the hypothesis that trolls are perceived differently in accordance with gender (Fichman and Sanfilippo).

Now I am going to get to the matter of the actual motives behind trolling, at least according to the trolls. Erin E. Buckles and Paul D. Trapnell from the Psychology Department of Winnipeg University along with Delroy L. Paulhaus from the University of British Columbia created a questionnaire for trolls themselves with a main focus on the correlation between the Dark Tetrad and trolling (Buckels, Trapnell, and Paulhaus). 418 participants were recruited and based off of the answers to a question in which the participants were asked to choose their favorite commenting hobby if any at all, 5.8% of the participants were trolls. The remaining multiple-choice questions assessed the Dark Tetrad qualities of the participants and the results were staggering. The chart below displays the results and almost certainly proves that Internet trolls are prone to the negative character traits of the Dark Tetrad.

These data support the common conception that Internet trolls are generally more sadistic, narcissistic, and psychopathic than the average person. There are noticeable shortcomings to all these studies, though. With this being a social sciences topic, I was only able to find observational studies, which are more prone to confounding variables than experiments. Factors like race and upbringing were not accounted for in these studies. There is a possibility that this could have led to false positives in all the studies. Chance could have also caused false positives. In the first experiment mentioned, there were only 8 participants as opposed to the other two having at least 100 participants. This means that the results of the first study are particularly at risk of being a collective fluke.

 

It is widely accepted that apes are the smartest creatures after humans. In addition it’s also strongly believed that humans are descendants of apes, altered by long evolution processes. Nowadays scientists are trying to understand whether monkeys would eventually gain human-like intellect, and be able to understand and even speak our language.

Almost every decade scientists discover new findings about monkeys. Probably the most interesting question that they strive to answer is the fact of teaching them communication skills. The most obvious answer to the question of what distinguishes man from the apes: is the ability to speak. It is believed that people have learned to produce and understand speech at a late stage of evolution when the ways of their ancestors and the ancestors of apes diverged. However, discussions on this subject do not stop, and some experts advocate the view that not only humans can communicate. After years of research Lisa Heimbauer from Georgia State University concluded that the ability to develop speech was observed both: in ancient humans and apes. “It’s the amount of practice, and not some special properties of the person. We, simply from our birth, learn to understand what we say, and reproduce these words, we simply have more experience.  Monkeys also possess the language abilities, and can develop the appropriate skills, “- said Heimbauer.

According to the most common theory, communication occurred simultaneously with the joint work. Primitive people had to somehow communicate with each other and transmit important messages to hunt effectively or simply to warn relatives of potential dangers. It is believed that at this time, our ancestors began to develop a more sophisticated speech, rather than aboriginal sounds. It is worth noting that the primitive alarm system exists in monkeys as well.  Certain sound or gesture could mean particular concept. People, on the other hand, can build a sequence of sounds or gestures, where meaning is made up of their set, and every single element can mean nothing.  For example if in a word, phrase or a whole sentence a certain sound is distorted, meaning is still clear. This ability exists among chimpanzees as well, proved Heimbauer.

Chimpanzee named Kanzi from birth lives among people. At the moment, she is already 25 years old. To communicate with researchers, Kanzi uses a special board on which the characters are drawn, each of which links to a specific concept. When Kanzi hears any known word or concept, she accurately indicates the correct character. Overall she is capable of recognizing somewhat 128 different concepts.

During the experiment, carried out on Kanzi, scientists played distorted audio words and she had to choose one the corresponding figure out of four.  Sound was distorted either by addition of noise or by lowering the pitch. Surprisingly, the monkey correctly identified 55% of the words, distorted by noise and 40% by pitch lowering. When the same experiment was conducted on 3.5 years old children, the results were almost the same: 65% of correct answers for noise distortion, and 40% for the tone.

Although the research conducted by Heimbauer is supported by strong data and arguments, I don’t consider recognition of verbal concepts as a developed language. Yes, obviously chimpanzee Kanzi, turned out to be a very smart animal, recognizing more than 100 concepts, but these experiments do not necessarily prove that communication might occur between animals and humans. In her experiment, Lisa Heimbauer proved that chimpanzees are capable of efficiently perform the given commands and recognize concepts, but this applies to other “smart” animals as well: For example, recently I read an article that octopus Candid could identify patterns simply from observation. Overall answering the main question of my blog- “can monkeys eventually communicate with humans” it is not impossible. The recent study conducted neurobiologist Genevieve Konopka and her lab group at the University of California–Los Angeles examined a gene called FOXP2, which is linked to human language. The same gene is found in monkeys, however due to mutations of the gene, their brain cannot operate the same way as ours.

Sources:

Kramer, By Miriam. “‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’: Why Apes Can’t Speak Like Humans.” LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 17 July 2014. Web. 11 Oct. 2015. <http://www.livescience.com/46853-can-apes-speak-like-humans.html>.

Viegas, Jennifer. “Smart Chimp Gets Speech like Humans.” Discovery News. N.p., 31 Oct. 2011. Web. 10 Oct. 2015. <http://news.discovery.com/animals/zoo-animals/chimpanzee-human-speech-111031.htm>.

 

“Population growth is a choice, not an inexorable force of nature.”

–Institute for Population Studies

While the public may not be worried about the growing population of our world, demographers certainly are. For centuries, scientists have warned about future detrimental impacts of population growth. Since population growth appears to carry benefits, the average person struggles to understand the harsh tolls it is taking on our world. If the population continues to increase, our species will be negatively affected in numerous ways, including nutrition and standards of living.

John Wilmoth, head of the United Nations Populations Division and an author published in Science, has estimated that in 2050, the population will be roughly 9.6 billion people, and that by 2100, Earth will inhabit 10.9 billion people. Wilmoth states that these numbers are not predictions, but rather “ ‘are projections of what will happen if current trends continue.’ “ Other predictions from the UN suggest that the population could potentially add one billion people every decade, therefore surpassing 16 billion at the end of the century. One of the
leading factors of population growth is the world’s birth rate. I believe these estimates differ due to the unpredictability of this and other similar matters. Africa is expected to be the main leader in the increase of population over the next century, and health experts believe that this is due to low access to family planning resources and education throughout the continent. As a well-developed country, it is necessary that we take our knowledge and resources and spread them throughout the world, especially in struggling nations. I believe that creating more effective programs that focus on health education and providing family resources in these African countries would help slow the population rate.

Another prominent contribution to the rise in population is an increase in the quality of health care in developed countries, which results in longer lifespans. Furthermore, the infant mortality rate in underdeveloped nations is high and therefore, parents birth more children to ensure a higher chance of some surviving. Generally, a majority of these children do survive and reproduce, therefore exponentially increasing the world population. Based on this research, I believe an extremely effective way to help slow population growth is to provide these nations with adequate health care. While financially this would be a hurdle, the demand for health care is skyrocketing. Events in one country heavily affect other countries throughout the world, which was recently seen through the outbreak of Ebola. Therefore, helping other nations will help us in return.

Population growth poses several complications for humans. One of the created issues is food. How are we going to feed all of these people? Truthfully speaking, it does not seem realistic. Currently, one billion people throughout the world go to bed hungry. That is one in seven. 25,000 of these people die daily of malnutrition, and nearly 18,000 of these individuals are under five years old. In addition to food, one billion people do not have access to clean, drinkable water. Increasing the population will only further worsen these issues. I think that it is crucial that before we concern ourselves with the issue of feeding billions of additional people in the upcoming years, we find a solution to nourish the people currently living on Earth through more effective means of food production and distribution.

Another concern includes shortages of housing. In order to make room for housing and other buildings, the United States uses roughly 1.2 million acres of rural land each year. My chain of thought begins as this: an increase in population means more housing would be needed. More housing would result in destruction of rural and fertile land, which in turn would reduce the world’s food supply. All of these issues are intertwined, and therefore we must approach each problem with caution and understand that resolving one issue will have an effect on the others.

While there are numerous solutions to help the population problem, I believe that one of the most realistic and effective ways would be to improve health care throughout the world. Unfortunately, conducting experiments is hard because we only have one Earth. Therefore, we must base our hypotheses on current data. I think that improvements in health care would result in a lower infant mortality rate, and in turn would decrease the total fertility rate, or the number of births per woman. Improving health care is not only limited to medicine, but also includes nutrition. To me, it is important to help provide developing countries with beneficial meals and clean drinking water. While it is challenging for a single person to slow population growth, being aware of these issues is the best way to start.

After reading this article on the class blog about male balding, I wanted to look more into hair-loss in women. Ironically, a friend of mine told me recently that her hair has been falling out. Was this due to stress, medical issues, or something else altogether? I’m going to try to figure it out.

In the article mentioned above, Androgenetic alopceia as that name of the common balding pattern in men. However, American Hair Loss Association uses the term when talking about baldness in both men and women. The AHLA article reports that while testosterone is at the center of the balding process, Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is the real problem. DHT binds to receptors in scalp follicles, shrinking them so healthy hair is unable to survive. Though women have lower levels of testosterone to begin with, this can still lead to DHT-triggered hair loss. Hormonal balance is incredibly important when discussing hair-loss because testosterone levels are one leading cause of this problem. AHLA writes, “Androgenic alopecia can be caused by a variety of factors tied to the actions of hormones, including, ovarian cysts, the taking of high androgen index birth control pills, pregnancy, and menopause”.

This leads me to wonder if perhaps my friend’s birth control could be the cause of her hair-loss. On this page, AHLA describes how contraceptives suppress ovulation by using various levels of estrogen and progestin. They report that those who are predisposed to hormonal-related hair loss or are hypersensitive to hormonal changes could experience hair-loss when on the pill or more commonly, when they stop taking the pill. I do not think many women are aware of the this potential side effect. It is common knowledge that contraceptives can relieve period pains, and clear skin, but the potential for hair-loss is not as commonly known. Maybe this is because only those who are predisposed to hair-loss are more commonly affected, therefore, doctors do not discuss such potentials unless the patient’s medical history calls for it.  The AHLA recommends that women wanting to use the pill merely to avoid contraception, should take low-androgen index pills. Remember, testosterone and DHT are different kinds of androgen.

Before

 After

 

 

 

The Bernstein Medical Center for Hair Restoration writes in this article that oral contraceptives can cause hair loss and be a treatment for it. They list drug-induced shedding and facilitating female pattern genetic hair loss as two mechanisms by which birth control pills cause hair loss. In the case of helping hair growth, the pill prolongs the anagen phase (growing phase), however, these higher estrogen-level pills have a greater incidence of other side effects. In a study found here, researchers looked into “the ability of an oral supplement to increase hair growth in women with thinning hair”. This randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled trial took healthy women ages 21 to 75 and gave them either Viviscal® Maximum Strength or the placebo twice a day for 180 days. A large number of variables were controlled for and even excluded a lot of participants. Surprisingly, those with androgenetic alopecia who, by the opinion of the researcher, might be at greater risk or interfere with clinical evaluations were excluded from the study. The mean number of terminal hairs in the test area in placebo patients was 256 to begin with and it ended with 242.2 after 180 days. Conversely, patients who took the medication began with 271 and ended with 609.6. This supports their hypothesis that Viviscal® increases hair growth in women with thinning hair. At the end of the article it reports that larger studies are underway to look into this drug’s effect on hair counts and thickness.

Upon looking at both sides of this interesting topic, I think it is safe to say that the potential for hair loss due to birth control pills is low enough that most women should not worry about it. However, that does not mean they should not be cautious. Those that have a delicate hormonal balance or are predisposed to hair loss, should consult their doctor. For everyone else, if the worry is still there, stick to a lower androgen level pill. Lastly, for those with hair loss, maybe birth control will be the new remedy in the future!

 

We have all had that health class where the motto for about a month was “alcohol is bad!” It does all these horrible things to your body including killing brain cells. There really isn’t any disputing the fact that alcohol is bad for you and it does horrible things to your body, but one of those horrible things might just be a myth.

So wait, where did this idea that alcohol kills brain cells come from? Like many inadvisable substances at very high doses, alcohol can kill brain cells. How high of a dosage of alcohol is needed to kill brain cells? Well, this amount of alcohol would kill you before it gets to your brain cells. So even the heaviest of drinkers really aren’t killing brain cells in their lifetime.

Debunking this myth all started with a study in 1993 by Grethe Jensen. Jensen did an observational study in which he counted the neurons in a group of deceased alcoholics and deceased non-alcoholics. Jensen found that the difference in neurons was non-existent between the two groups.

So could this study have been a false positive? It is possible, but many studies similar to this have been conducted since  with similar results backing up the findings. A meta-analysis was conducted in 2009 which helped debunk the myth with its findings amongst many studies suggesting alcohol does not kill brain cells.

Why would there have been a belief that alcohol kills brain cells in the first place? Remember that alcohol is a disinfectant and has the ability to kill bacteria and cells. However, this fact alone is not enough to leave the impression it kills brain cells. The fact that alcohol affects on the brain can be debilitating probably could lead to the conclusion it has permanent affects on brain cells. Yet, studies suggest otherwise.

The fact of the matter is, alcohol consumption at a humanly possible level does not kill brain cells. Still, keep in mind, alcohol has other damaging affects on the body which have not been disproved… yet.

http://popups.ulg.ac.be/0351-580X/index.php?id=1717&file=1

http://www.popsci.com/10-brain-myths-busted?image=7

http://gizmodo.com/drinking-alcohol-doesnt-actually-kill-brain-cells-1498785941?

https://www.activememory.com/news/10popularbrainmythsbusted

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/10/alcohol-does-not-kill-brain-cells/

 

 

I think I speak for many of us when I say that naps are becoming a key portion to college survival. Personally, I have always been bad at naps because they always kept me up all night, leaving me to regret the decision later. But I will say that I tend to nap more frequently now that I’m in college. It’s not much but it’s more than usual. I was researching why I am so bad at napping, when I came across a Smithsonian article about naps hiding some underlying medical problems, which got me reading.

I’ll start off by saying that it isn’t the naps that are bad for our health. In fact, many studies have shown that naps are good for our bodies and give us that extra boost of energy during the day. But it’s the health concerns that cause us to nap that are the problem. People may choose to nap on a daily basis thinking nothing of it, just that they are tired or stressed and a nap will ease the pain. But, there could be problems causing fatigue and leading them to nap.

Cambridge University found that those who take naps during the day that last an hour or longer may die at younger ages than those who skip naps. They add that smaller naps of about 30 minutes or so were not associated with any health problems and did indeed add that extra energy boost.

The researchers chose an observational study route by following 16,000 British men and women ages 40-79 over 13 years. During this time, researchers questioned napping habits and put them into three different groups: people who napped for less than an hour a day; people who napped for more than an hour a day, and people who did not nap at all. Controlled factors included gender, socioeconomic status, alcohol intake, and mental illness.

Through the study they found that those who napped for an hour or longer were 32% more likely to have died than those who didn’t nap at all. Death causes varied but included heart disease, cancer, and respiratory illness. Essentially, researchers couldn’t find an exact link between long naps and death risk, but they concluded that extended daytime fatigue could be because of hidden heath issues.

And if you’re struggling to decide whether or not to take a nap, Time looked a little bit deeper into the issue. Dr. Sara Mednick said to ask yourself if you really NEED the nap and why you are taking it. One of the researchers on the Cambridge study agrees, saying that this might help combat any of those underlying issues.

The Cambridge study was very large indeed. It looked at a wide variety of people and overall, was well conducted. However, because this was a British study, there could be differences when it comes to Americans and nap patterns. In addition, since they have not been able to put their finger on a definite link between the two, there isn’t sufficient evidence to keep people from napping. And because we are not in the age range studied (40-79) I think naps will be just fine for us, for now.

Yes! You heard it here first! Poverty has now become contagious. First starting in the U.S., then China and Japan, some parts of Southern America and slowly making its way over to places like Europe and Dubai. Africa is so lucky they are nowhere near the contaminated areas.

What is the first thing you do when you wake up? What is the last thing you do before going to bed? What do you do when you are sad? What do you do when you are happy? What do you do before you shower? What do you do after you shower? What do you while you eat? What do you do when people talk to you?

Too many people are going to answer these questions with “I’m on my phone.”
OH.. and for the ones who don’t, they’re just too ignorant to admit to the fact that they indeed are somewhat addicted to their phones/ or at least have a high dependency on technology.
fools if you ask me.

I can actually tell you a funny story that happened to me this morning. I am waiting to get on the white loop and some smart soul had decided to stick his still burning cigarette into a trashcan. For those of you who don’t know, paper is flammable. But wait it gets better. I don’t have a phone (personal preference) so I could not make a call. I immediately take out my water bottle and start trying to be proactive about the situation. You wanna know what everyone else did? Took pictures for instagram, twitter, and snapchat. OMG!!!!! how exciting! There is a fire in this trashcan, and there is an intense cloud of smoke beginning to form, let’s take pics!!! I was literally panicking for help and since people only know how to communicate to their phones they would not even reply to me. Some of you might think it’s extreme that I chose to use the word “Poverty,” but if you don’t have yourself, you don’t have anything at all. The people in Africa may be exposed to so many more life threatening diseases, but at least they know love and family in ways we never will.

Ignorance.
and that my friend is this next generation.
So let’s continue to exploit the land that use to be so rich and prosperous in it’s love and pride. Let’s carry on the tradition of concealing the truth and prioritizing how to socially conform rather than really ever figuring out who we truly are.

This link here shows a previous Instagram model who is beginning to go viral on all types of social media. She decided to step back from what has now become “normal,” and confess the truth about what social media actually entails. Watch this video to take a closer look.

What’s crazier? The fact that everyone already knew this was going on, OR that it took this long for someone to say something?

I ENJOY!!! walking the campus, looking at the trees, smiling at the people walking by, helping who I can, engaging in positive relationships, and sometimes even spending time with just me to check up on how I am actually doing. and the saddest part about this was that all my new “friends” thought this was weird and I even began to alienate myself. We cannot define ourselves through other people, it is setting yourself up for destruction.
All this generation knows is running, but now the time has come, the disease is slowly but surely spreading. Ironic how we are the ones who actually infected ourselves. Now it’s time for you to choose what type of life you really want to keep living.

P.S.
I actually have a personal blog that I shared on my initial blog post, but I have one specific post that matches a lot with the theme of this blog post as well so if you wanna check it out, here you go!

And for those of you that I just finished ruining your day here is one video that will make you happy and one video that will make you hopeful.

Intro

Being a huge fan of meat, I can not stand a meal without meat, because I cannot enjoy anything if vegetable is the only thing I chew. However, my ambitious for meat has weaken after I have read an article on newspaper that claims that consume too much meat will makes people stupid. If I have to choose between my intelligence and meat, I will definitely chose to eat less meat, because there are way much pleasure we could earn by our intelligence rather than the joy you enjoy when you consume meat. So I decide to dig deeper if consume of meat will makes people stupid?

Studies

1. In 2008, Scientists in Southhampton University have done a research about this topic. The Target of the study were adult who were older than 30 years old (8170 people) , and the aim of the research is to investigate their IQ and dietary habit when they were 10 years old. The result of the research is 4.5% of the sample have habit of consume vegetable and 123 people in the sample like to eat meat in their meal very much. The researcher found out that people who prefer meat rather than vegetable only increase their IQ 15% when they became adult and the other who likes vegetable more have increase unto 38% of their IQ.
2. According to a Study from Harvard which published on Annals of Neurology, a study of 6,000 women was conducted in order to test their dietary habits and brains function in 4 years. They found out women who ate most saturated fat scored lower on tests of brain function and memory. Women who ate the most Monounsaturated fats scored higher on the test. However, this study only target women as sample, so it became less compelling to Men about this issue, also the weakness of this study will make people be confuse about the issue about whether Men’s IQ will affect by eating meat.
3. In National Child Development study (UK) ,  people who are vegetarian at age 42 have a higher Childhood general IQ than those who are not.Different than the second study, this study consider not only women but also men which eliminate the affect of bias between gender. By the way, the graph also show that the average childhood IQ of men in the study has a higher IQ than Women’s Childhood IQ.

Are Meat bad for us

After seeing those research above, people may be frighten about consumption of meat. 2 out of 3 studies above is investigating about childhood IQ, and the other one is a studies is only study which involve women. So there are chance that those studies can not 100% convincible to us. On the other side, people need a lot of element in meat to keep our body healthy, such as Vitamin-B, Protein and Omega-3 Fatty acid. So you are still the judge on how much meat you are going to consume.

Conclusion

There is definitely a correlation between the meat consumption and Intelligence, however,  it is possible that third variables may exist. By the way, eat some vegetable during you meal will definitely have no harm to your health or even improve your health, so it is good to balance your dietary habits in order to improve your health. One thing really important is consume too much meat may also cause obesity, and the problem follow by obesity is much worse than a lower IQ, because it may cause Death, So it is better for us to have appropriate amount meat for each meal but not overload.

Reference:

http://health.sina.com.cn/hc/ys/2014-08-14/0913146453.shtml

http://www.rd.com/health/healthy-eating/foods-that-make-you-dumb-2/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201005/why-vegetarians-are-more-intelligent-meat-eaters

We all know the fundamental elements to keeping ourselves healthy – eat vegetables, walk instead of taking the bus, get a good night’s sleep, and avoid the creamery at all costs. But now researchers are concluding that prayer has an unbelievably powerful effect on overall health, and the evidence to support it is quite spectacular. But is it really true that a prayer a day will keep the doctor away?

In the past couple of classes, Andrew discussed the healing power of prayer. As a class, we ultimately determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove that prayer heals; Leibovici’s conclusion was drawn from chance. But contrary to the consensus view, prayer did shorten hospital stays and the duration of fever, therefore prayer did do something. This may seem insignificant, but it lead me to wonder: maybe prayer cannot prevent mortality or heal chronically sick individuals, but can it increase overall health? Are people who pray generally in better health than those who do not? And I think Leibovici would be happy with the results I’ve found.

Before we can take a look at the effect prayer has on the mind, body, and physical health, we must define the limits (or lack thereof) of prayer. We must assume that prayer is universal in its effects, and therefore regardless of a person’s religion, religious views, or religious affiliations, the effects of prayer remain the same. So maybe a person is praying to a God, or maybe they are praying to the Nittany Lion Shrine; the effects of their worship will be the same. We can assume this because of the impact prayer has on the brain, independent of the type of prayer. According to an article by Richard Schiffman, “Dr. Andrew Newberg conducted a study of Tibetan Buddhists in meditation and Franciscan nuns in prayer which showed comparable decreased activity in the parts of the brain that are associated with sense of self and spatial orientation in both groups”. Newberg also discovered that prayer and meditation increased levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with happiness and pleasure. Although the two groups differ in their practices, their psychological responses were equivalent.

Since the psychological responses to prayer are similar for all worshipers, let’s take a deeper look at how the brain is directly affected. Dr. Herbert Benson uses the term “the relaxation response,” (occurring during times of prayer and meditation) to describe the brains reaction to this mental state. Benson explains that at such times, “the body’s metabolism decreases, the heart rate slows, blood pressure goes down, and our breath becomes calmer and more regular”. This physiological state of worship is “correlated with slower brain waves, and feelings of control, tranquil alertness, and peace of mind”.

But are the effects of prayer temporary, or can we make more out of this “in-the-moment” experience? Research says that we can. An exceedingly large number (Benson argues over 50%) of doctor’s visits in the U.S. today are prompted by stress and anxiety related illnesses such as: depression, high blood pressure, ulcers, and migraine headaches. Therefore, these illnesses cannot only be prevented by prayer and cured by prayer, but prayer can also decrease your risk of developing them again. Various other studies also conclude the positive impact prayer can have on your health, and these impacts are lasting. Here are a couple of powerful experiments Schiffman discusses to prove that prayer truly improves health now, and for the future.

• “National Institutes of Health found individuals who prayed daily were shown to be 40 percent less likely to have high blood pressure than those without a regular prayer practice”
• “Research at Dartmouth Medical School found that patients with strong religious beliefs who underwent elective heart surgery were three times more likely to recover than those who were less religious”
• “A 2011 study of inner city youth with asthma by researchers at the University of Cincinnati indicates that those who practiced prayer and meditation experienced fewer and less severe symptoms than those who had not”
• “A recent survey reported in the Journal of Gerontology of 4,000 senior citizens in Durham, NC, found that people who prayed or meditated coped better with illness and lived longer than those who did not”

So are people who pray healthier than those who do not? Well, that really depends on the health of those who do not pray, and that alone is contributed to several other factors (smoking and drinking habits, diet, amount of sleep, hereditary issues ,etc.). But in class, Andrew stated that if prayer really does have a healing effect, other studies will find it. Have these studies I mentioned found it, or are we drawn to the conclusion of “Leibovici’s chance”? Well they have found that prayer does something, so I’ll let you decide.

 

What if someone told you that one sexual encounter you have in college could lead to a variety of detrimental health problems in the future? Would you rethink having the drunken one-night stand with a partner whom you know nothing about? Would you be more inclined to ask your new significant other about their past sexual experiences? Well readers, sexually transmitted diseases are an unfortunate, scary reality for more people than our society cares to acknowledge. Every jaw dropped in Andrew’s vaccine lecture when we were informed that “over 75% of people get HPV in their lives”. He also stated that 20% of students enter college with the human papilloma virus, while 80% leave college infected. This is quite disturbing information seeing how this virus has the potential to cause genital warts (pleasant- I know), cancer, and even death. The light that Andrew shed upon this topic that so greatly effects my contemporaries compelled me to do more research on how STD’s effect college students.

An article on NPR explains a term called “information aversion” which is used by social scientists to explain human being’s tendency to avoid hearing harmful information. The article explains a study in which college student’s were presented with the opportunity to take a blood test for the herpes simplex virus, a common STD “that spreads via contact”. Type 1 of the virus “produces cold sores”, while type 2 “targets the genitals”. After being shown photos of the effects of having the virus, students were given the option to be tested for it or not. The experimental design made sure to “eliminate extraneous reasons someone would decline the information” besides information aversion (aka, third variables). The results showed that only 5% of participants declined the test for type 1 herpes, while three times as many declined the test for type 2. This information seems to point directly towards the hypothesis being tested. What are the implications of this “information aversion” towards one’s health? This ignorance has severe consequences. When one is not aware that they are infected with a dangerous virus, they can not make the intelligent decisions necessary to protect the health of future romantic/ sexual partners, leading to a rapid rise in the number of people infected. This website failed to go into detail about the number of participants in the study and if it was randomized, decreasing the reliability of the findings.

Nursing Schools website estimates that one in four college students will contract an STD during their time at college. Despite condoms ability to vastly lower one’s risk of being infected with an STD, the article presents some frightening statistics; “Only 54 percent of students regularly use condoms during vaginal intercourse, 29 percent during anal intercourse and only 4 percent during oral sex”. Another scary fact that highlights the danger of information aversion is that “80% of people who have a sexually transmitted disease experience no noticeable symptoms”, making getting tested extremely important.

Something that effects so many people, particularly those in my generation, with the potential to have such dangerous consequences should be researched in depth and cures should be looked into. It is extremely interesting and disturbing to hear the statistics I adressed above. I hope to have encouraged some of you reader’s to change your ways if you have been partaking in dangerous sexual activities and opened your eyes to some of the consequences your actions can lead to. Here is an extremely informational video on STD’s in general to further your knowledge on the topic and increase your future safety.

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GMO’s, or Genetically Modified Organisms, are a growing and very common occurrence in today’s world. These are plants and animals that have new genes put in or are breed with other plants to create a whole new plant. They are something of a marvel in modern science and they can help create a whole new world. However, a number of people are scared of GMO’s but should they?

According to this article on the history and issues with GMO’s,  the first GMO was a special Tomato made to stay firm no matter what happens because people wanted tomatoes to be like that in 1994. This was discontinued in 1997 when the company fell through. After that thousands of companies created there own trade marked genetic foods. They fused some food with soy beans and cotton to be completely pesticide resistant. These tomatoes, strawberries and such now do not get killed when certain pesticides are used. A really well put example for the article is that by adding a certain gene to rice make then create more vitamin A which can help children in developing countries. For the most part these are the good thins but a number of people are worried about how far genetics will go.  That is the thing with GMO’s we know of all the benefits but the downsides are much more theoretical and less known.

Some negatives from the previous example is that if they start putting peanut genes in carrots those carrots could create a protein that would make someone who is allergic to peanuts react. Another source talked about the ecological destruction of GMO’s. This source said that if any GMO’s got out it would catastrophic to the ecosystem. It does not have anything to do with the species and with what happens when viruses get to them. These viruses mix with the GMO’s to create whole new resistant viruses that can destroy all plant and animal life in an area. However, there is no evidence of this in scientific studies. It is all guess work and assumptions. Even the positives have never been tested or examined properly.

However, there are studies on the protein and vitamins concentrations in certain GMO’s compared to other normal foods. This study found that rice from Kyusha area had less protein and vitamins in them then the GMO’s  which makes sense but they also tested to see how safe the GMO’s are for people. However, the new GMO also have more Oleic Acid and Tryptophan then the normal food and this could be dangerous for people. However, the more they tested and the more they worked the less they found. TIN the end they stated there was no real danger in GMO’s. However, this study was a simulation and in the end was not really an experiment as much as it was an analysis. If they had had people eat the GMO’s in one group and normal food in the other. Then looked for any illnesses or issues. Then the results would be more interesting and leading. However, they did a statistic to see if what they found made sense and it backed them up. While an interesting study and worth some meriti, the study did not study GMO’s with allergy elements which would make more sense and be more dangerous.

In the end, GMO’s have to be studied and ever single one considered more carefully then they are now a days. IN fact almost 92% of all GMO’s are considered safe and open for everyone with no necessary labels or studies. dangerous or not they have to be studied more. They also need laws stating that they have to make what is a GMO and what is not as well as require studies. It only makes sense no matter what. GMO’s are still new and need to be studied.

Sources

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fs084

http://iscs.fem.sumdu.edu.ua/data/ISCS_Materials_2009.pdf#page=86

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141117