Many of my friends have suffered from acne all throughout high school. They take on numerous ways to minimize acne such as moisturizers, creams and prescribed medicines by dermatologists. Acne can cause many young individuals to feel worse about themselves and some question the ways that they need to go about minimizing these blemishes. Many people believe that acne is caused by sweat,while studies shown it has no effect. I wanted to find the best ways in order to combat acne, if there really was such a way.

Acne first is defined as a disease of the Pilosebaceous units. These units are made up of a sebaceous gland that will then connect to the follicle, containing a strand of hair. The glands make an oily substance that empties within the surface of the skin opening the hair, which is known as the pore. Acne is first seen when the follicle that contains the hair, sebum and keratinocytes, produces a plug. Oils allow a bacteria known as Propionibacterium acnes have chemicals that attract white blood cells to cause an inflammation most commonly on the upper back, chest and face.

There are many precautions that have been studied to prevent the negative affects from working out with the human skin. Touching your skin is the worsts and preventing it will eliminate blemishes or clogged pores. While working out, touching your skin can move oils and bacteria into your skin leading to inflammation. A study was shown with football players who wore dirty equipment showed worse acne in these locations. This went against the many factors that exercise can get rid of toxins in the body. This experiment had many variables that helped to prove the causation of acne since football equipment does contain a lot of sweat that is not cleaned off. Even those who just lay on their sheets after working out will contain dirt that can cause irritation to the skin. To improve hygiene, it was recommended to wash your face with a gentle pH balancing cleanser. The sweat is not the main focus of these studies, it is the hygiene and care that one takes on after exercise.

There is actually no argument that can state that exercise is bad for humans. As you are working off those calories and relieving stress from such a busy week, individuals begin to believe that sweat could cause acne to those who are prone to have it. According to the Children’s Hospital of Colorado, sweat doesn’t have any affect on acne. Sweat begins when you begin your workout, which is made up of water and small amounts of ammonia, urea, salt and sugar. Sweat flushes these impurities from the skin. Exercise could be known to help the skin because in face it increases blood flow to an individual’s skin and brings nutrients through your body. 

One major experiment was through a single-blinded, randomized, controlled trial that was tested on athletic males. It first began when guys had to workout 5 days a week for 2 weeks straight. The control group did not exercise, the next group showered within the first hour after the experiment and group 3 waiting longer than 4 hours to shower. The subjects were all wearing the same 100% cotton t-shirt so there were no outside variables towards the amount of acne. The amount of acne was counted after they worked out on day 14. These results concluded that

As many people believe exercise can help acne, some believe it can worsen. This study proved that 20.4% improved, 21.4% got worse and 29.1% had no affect. The information to this experiment proved that other tests need to be done in order to see the causation. There have been many debates about the real cause is acne such as genetics, stress and dietary choices. All in all, exercise is the best thing to relieve the stress, as many college students seem to follow that step today. The gym is very humid and causes many types of bacteria to harm humans. With the proper techniques, many will see that sweat is not the problem to their inflamed skin, but the proper care after their workout may cause their skin to break out.

Use This Class To Use Your Vote

Something that Andrew always said that was the goal of the Science 200 course was to be a good consumer of science. This means knowing how to identify what good science and studies look like and differentiating them with what is simply misleading and unsupported hypotheses. Being a good consumer of Science and scientific information is a very important skill and one that will especially become useful when election season comes around.

In fact, one of the course objectives of the course is to learn the societal implications of thinking scientifically, specifically the contemporary utility of science for everyday life, for business and for governance. The majority of our Science 200 class are Underclassmen (especially Freshmen) and many are coming of age where they have the opportunity to participate and vote in their first election which will happen to be a Presidential election. If science will be part of the solution to every problem in the 21st century then it is important that we consume science in a manner in which we know where each candidate stands. Whether it is global warming or just the support and funding of scientific research many candidates have a wide range of views and policies on science.

Many people our age do not choose to participate in voting, our demographic has the lowest voting turnout. For those of us who do choose to vote however it is important we keep conscious that each candidate has their respective stances on issues such as vaccinations, climate change, and funding of education and sciences. For instance, did you know Sen. Rand Paul was a climate change skeptic? Or that Sen. Sanders spoke out against a resolution which would dismantle strong environmental rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency.

No matter how you vote next year I hope everyone uses what they learn in this course to take in consideration who and what they support. No matter how you hope I hope we represent ourselves, this class, and our generation well.

Is It Possible to be Scared to Death?

We have all heard the saying, “you scared me to death” and have all experienced those gut-wrenching moments when you are scared. But is it really possible to die from a traumatic event? Can a scary moment actually KILL you?

In extremely rare instances, you can be scared so bad, that it will actually cause your death. ASAP Science states, “When a person is frightened by something, his body’s fight or flight response kicks in. Adrenaline is released, which makes the heart beat more quickly, sending more blood to the muscles.” How our body reacts to this is what is interesting. The person who is now frightened gets “super strength” and “super speed” so to call. They will also experience the psychological term we refer to as “fight or flight” which has side effects such as dilation of your pupils, reduced speed of your digestion, along with other symptoms.

Neurologist Martin A. Samuels told Scientific American in 2009 states, “All of this increases the chances of succeeding in a fight or running away from, say, an aggressive jaguar. This process certainly would be of help to primitive humans, but the problem, of course, is that in the modern world there is very limited advantage of the fight-or-flight response. There is a downside to revving up your nervous system like this.”

Usually in this fight or flight, your reactions and change in your body are only for a duration of time, not forever. When someone is continually scared, though, and the strain on your heart from a fight or flight response, this can turn into a situation that will be toxic towards your heart. When you are scared you experience a rush of adrenaline, which inhibits the relaxation of your muscles. If you experience an excessive amount of these symptoms, you can actually die. You can see more in depth information on the topic here. Also check out this youtube video on the exact same topic.

So when you hear the saying, “you scared me to death” next time, remember that this is possible, and if this person is elderly or experiencing it in excessive amounts, make sure you take it easy on them.

One of the most appealing sciences for me is genetic engineering. The power of this science is growing from day to day and in this blog post I’m going to be talking about an intriguing, but at the same time very interesting topic- cloning.

But, first of all, what is cloning? Cloning – a method for isolating and identifying DNA fragments, as well as receive them in unlimited quantities. First cloning experiment dates back to more than hundred years, Hans Spemann split the two-cell embryo salamander equally and was able to grow a full body, from each divided part. Spemann’s discovery was then followed many other attempts to recreate a clone, but the most famous and long-living clone was a sheep named Dolly. It was a first clone created on the basis of the genetic material of an adult, not a fetus or embryo as its predecessors. However, the source of DNA, according to the assumption of some scientists, caused several problems in cloned sheep. The ends of the chromosomes in the body of Dolly – the telomeres – were as short as that of its nuclear donor – adult sheep. Enzyme called telomerase is responsible for the lengths of the fragment in a body. In the case of an adult mammal organism- only the fabric of stem cells and reproductive cells are constantly extending, whereas all other cells in a body shorten after each division. When the chromosomes reach a critical length, the cell stops dividing. That’s why telomerase is considered one of the main intracellular mechanisms that regulate life span of cells.Today, it is hard to say exactly whether Dolly’s old chromosomes were the primary cause of her early death. She lived 6.5 years, which is slightly more than half the normal sheep lifespan. Experts were forced to kill Dolly, as she developed a virus called adenomatosis (benign tumors) of the lungs and severe arthritis. Common sheep also often suffer from these diseases, but more often at the end of life, so excluding the hypothesis of telomere length is obviously impossible. Scientists who wanted to test this hypothesis, could not confirm it: artificial “aging of” cell nuclei through their long-term cultivation in vitro gave a completely opposite result: the length of the telomeres in the chromosomes of newborns greatly increased and even surpassed normal levels. Telomeres of cloned animals may be shorter than their ordinary counterparts, but this is not the only problem. Most mammalian embryos obtained by cloning dies. The moment of birth is also critical. Newborn clones often suffer from gigantism, die from respiratory distress, developmental defects of the kidneys, liver, heart, brain, and the lack of white blood cells in the blood. And after that, scientists and people still ask themselves… is cloning really dangerous?Many people argue against cloning, claiming that this is unethical and has limitation in religious and social aspects. However I personally disagree with that opinion. Science of genetics is a great opportunity to explore life, find cures for the diseases and make huge breakthroughs in medicine. In my support, I can bring an example of a study, where 2 research groups have independently produced human embryonic stem-cell lines from embryos cloned from adult cells. First team researchers led by Young Gie Chung and Dong Ryul Lee at the CHA University in Seoul reported in Cell Stem Cell that they had cloned embryonic stem-cell (ES cell) lines made using nuclei from two healthy men, aged 35 and 75. And in a paper published on Nature‘s website today, a team led by regenerative medicine specialist Dieter Egli at the New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute describes ES cells derived from a cloned embryo containing the DNA from a 32-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes. The researchers also succeeded in differentiating these ES cells into insulin-producing cells.

Sources:

Baker, Monya. “Stem Cells Made by Cloning Adult Humans.” Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, 28 Apr. 2014. Web. 04 Dec. 2015. <http://www.nature.com/news/stem-cells-made-by-cloning-adult-humans-1.15107>

Tachibana, M. et al. Cell 153, 1228–1238 (2013).

Chung, Y. G. et al. Cell Stem Cell http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2014.03.015 (2014).

Yamada, M. et al. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13287 (2014).

Sparman, M. L., Tachibana, M. & Mitalipov, S. Int. J. Dev. Biol. 54, 1671–1678 (2010).

Every two weeks I go to the nail salon and get a manicure. Without my nails perfectly painted and colored I feel incomplete. Every two weeks when I step into the nail salon I instantly smell the strong nail polish and chemicals that are being applied to customers nails across the store. Then I began thinking, are these strong fumes bad for the workers to be inhaling all day?

            The strong smell of nail polish remover is mainly made up of Acetone, Ethyl Acetate and Butyl Acetate. Acetone is known to be toxic to humans, both on the skin and to breathe in. Nail Polish remover can cause your nails to be brittle or even irritate your skin while using it. Some workers at nail salons have acetone poisoning and are not even aware of it. Acetone positioning is when there is more acetone in your body then the live can breakdown. Even though acetone positioning most likely will not cause death, it can cause liver damage.

Asian health services and cancer prevention institute of California conducted a randomized controlled study on 20 nail salon workers and owners. Through this study they discovered that half of 74 salons had poor methods for ventilations, this is a huge issue because this allows workers to inhale a lot more poisons then they should. The study also reported that 80% of workers reported health concerns due to work such and 50% of workers reported acute health symptoms (headaches, dizziness, difficulty breathing, skin irritations.) This study provided some information but I think by increasing the sample size of nail salons visited it would be a better study. I also think it is worth mentioning that these acute health symptoms could be a result of outside factors such as living conditions at home.

Other then acute health risks some studies have reported a link between miscarriage and salon work. Esther John, Ph.D conducted a study at the university of North Carolina at Chapel Hill school of public health. His results were based on a survey and concluded, “ we found association between spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) and the number of hours worked per day in cosmetology, the number of chemical services performed per week, the use of formaldehyde-based disinfectants, and work in salons where nail sculpturing was performed by other employees.” Being that this is the first of many studies to follow I am going to conclude that correlation might not equal causation. I think a study needs to be conducted to measure the levels of toxins being ingested by salon workers.

Not only has the concern of salon workers health be mentioned for concern but the health of people like me who go to the salon every 2 weeks and get a “gel manicure”. Gel manicure came out to please customers by guaranteeing the polish would last for 2 weeks. When applying gel you place your hands under UV lights to allow the gel polish to set properly. Setting your hands under UV lights brought concern for many people. UV lights tend to cause cancer and these lights were no exception. A recent study conducted by a few doctors at the Medical College of Georgia concluded that even with numerous exposures to these lamps, the risk for developing cancer is small. The study also showed that it would only take 11 visits over two years to reach the levels of exposure that would cause sun damage. After hearing this information many salons switched over to non- UV lamps.

All in all, salon workers are putting themselves at a high risk everyday that they go to work and this needs to be explored more through studies and research.

http://www.nailsmag.com/article/92848/study-shows-correlation-between-hairdressing-miscarriage-risk-to-nail-technicia

http://www.chemistryislife.com/the-chemistry-of-nail-polish-remover

http://www.healthline.com/health/acetone-poisoning#Symptoms3

http://www.latimes.com/fashion/alltherage/la-ar-gel-manicures-cancer-study-20140529-story.html

We like to think that doctors can fix anything with their latex-gloved hands and their drugs.  But the truth is, there are multiple bacteria out there that can attack a persons body, that don’t necessarily have a drug to help treat it. These are called Super Bugs, and they can be potentially life threatening if not quickly taken care of by a medical professional.

What is C. Diff?

C. difficile is a toxin producing bacteria that grows inside your colon, causing painful and uncomfortable swelling. C. Diff is short for clostridium difficile colitis. The bacterial infection can be caused by numerous things.

For example, when my grandfather was in the hospital a few years ago battling esophageal cancer, he caught some type of bug. When the doctors pumped him full of anti biotics, it killed the bacteria causing the bug, but didn’t kill the C. diff bacteria. This let the C. diff bacteria take over the colon.

Symptoms

The most common type of symptom is liquid stool, usually occurring up to 15 times a day. It can also cause intense abdominal pain and loss of appetite.  The issue with the stool is that is very infectious, which is usually how the bacteria spreads from person to person.

Risks of C. Diff 

In patients over the age of 65, it may lead to death. It can also cause colorectal cancer, or the need to have gastrointestinal surgery. It can also lead to kidney problems or even failure as well as create a weakened immune system.

Treating C. Diff

Since there is no antibiotic designed especially to combat the C. diff bacteria itself, different steps have to be taken to rid the body of the harmful super bug.  To begin, doctors usually “pump the patient full of oral antibiotics such as metronidazole, dificid, or vancocin .” In over 25% of the cases, another round of the 10-14 day treatment needs to be administered.  But in some extreme cases, like my grandfathers, none of the antibiotics worked. So they had to pump him full of probiotics. Probiotics are healthy bacteria that settle in your gut. In this case, they kill the C. diff bacteria and can help to prevent it from reoccurring. One of the easiest way to to try and aid the super bug is to drink as many fluids as possible.

How You Can Prevent It

Now, obviously there is no way to completely prevent getting this super bug, especially if in the hospital. Since the bug produces infectious diarrhea, it unfortunately is quite an easy bacteria to spread. However, you can try to prevent it using some other tactics. The most obvious being wash your hands thoroughly and frequently and do NOT take antibiotics unless prescribed by your doctor. Also, when cleaning surfaces be sure to use products such as bleach.

New Research

New research shows that by giving spores of the C. diff bacteria to patients, the chances of the super bug reoccurring are very low.  Scientists have also discovered that by doing stool transplants, there is a 90% success rate in stopping reoccurrence. Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT) is a procedure in which fecal matter, or stool, is collected from a tested donor, mixed with a saline or other solution, strained, and placed in a patient, by colonoscopy, endoscopy, sigmoidoscopy, or enema.  The point of this procedure is to replace bad bacteria with good bacteria.

This is a picture of C. Diff bacteria inside a gut

How Bad is Stress?

We all know, especially as college students how stressful everyday life can be. In each scenario a bit of stress goes into every decision we make, but with all this stress out there in the world I wonder how stress effects your body physically and mentally in the long run, can stressing out really be detrimental to your health, or is it just an emotion that goes into motivating us to do the next task in life?

According to merckengage.com, stress can be caused by external factors like major life changes, work or school demand, relationship difficulties, and more. All of these external factors result in side effects that cause physical pain and damage to one’s body. All these factors cause problems like frequent headaches, dizziness, panic attacks, sweating, feeling overwhelmed, etc. Some of the effects of stress can seriously hurt you in the long run. Stress can even cause more serious issues like high blood pressure diabetes, asthma, sleep deprivation and insomnia, and more life altering conditions. There is an entire list of things that stress affects that our body deals with regularly, and some things that aren’t dealt with so easily.

While it is clear that stress is not something to be fond of, through my research I learned that my original idea of stress being only bad for your body is still argued, even by two different websites. WebMd says “The human body is designed to experience stress and react to it”, this information was found here.

As I sit by and type one of 6 blog posts I realize that there has to be a way of dealing with this stress, instead of just talking about it. So I went further into my research and started looking for ways to decrease stress in a human being, just so I was able to provide light on the topic that we all want to see the light from. A psychologist would be the best option if someone was severely suffering from stress at an abnormally high frequency, however there are less severe options to handling stress than going straight to there. If you are suffering from increased amounts of stress due to any circumstances I advise you to seek help, look at this link for answers, and also please enjoy this picture of a puppy in addition to the other help resources.

We can get through the battle together and end stress one puppy picture at a time.

Just last year, my parents told me that it was essential that I took a low dose aspirin everyday. I was diagnosed with a clotting disorder known as Prothrombin 20210A Mutation, where the body produces an excess amount of Prothrombin, which when levels are high can form blood clots. Either one or both copies of the gene can be inherited and both, depending on one or both of your parents passing down this gene, which is a higher risk of clotting.

Although many see this mutation as being something traumatic or bad to someone’s life, ever think there may be something good to this trait? There’s only 2% of Americans who have this mutation. Although lose dose aspirin is suggested to take frequently, maybe this is something that is actually saving humans’ lives. An experiment has been done where there were initially women who were given either 100 mg of aspirin or a placebo. There were findings that over 100 more women who were given the low dose of aspirin did not result in a cardiovascular disease. Although they did not give exact conclusions that seem to explain the effects of aspirin, scientists may have a hard time proving due to waiting many years in order to see results. Scientists are still trying to prove if the correlation of low dose aspirin prevents heart attacks. In this one study, science proved that Analysis concluded that aspirin significantly reduced the risk of major cardiovascular events, ischemic stroke, and myocardial infarction among women 65 years of age or older. 

Though there isn’t any proof of causation, low dose aspirin once a day has had a strong correlation with reducing cancer in the colon, esophagus, stomach, and rectum. Back to my previous post, some say that Alzheimer’s can be reversed with aspirin. Professor of internal medicine, Mark Fendrick at University of Michigan states “Aspirin is the one drug I would take to a desert with me” Does this mean that besides the negative effects of avoiding long periods of immobility, refraining from cigarette soking, from birth control and difficulties during pregnancy may actually just mean that this low dose aspirin will actually make me live a longer life, or even save the lives of new borns? With preventions to such cancers and cardiovascular diseases, this may be the drug that is actually doing wonders for some people. 

There haven’t been many experiments based on this gene mutation since it is not known to be commonly tested but many doctors are finding that those who do clot may have been living with the gene mutation and were unaware. From previous doctor visits, the mutation is recently becoming more common and humans are almost dying from the mutation because they weren’t aware of the precautions. Clotting has now ranked third most common cause of death, behind cancer. Blood clots themselves affect an estimated of 900,000 a year and although most who do not have this gene mutation, those who know if it are at a better chance of preventing it and may actually live a longer life.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are two types of people in this world; the ones who define themselves, and the ones who are in constant search of definition.

Generativity- a capacity to care or others in a broader way than previous stages to nurture that which outlives the self

At some point in your life you will come across something at least once that you will truly find bigger than yourself. It comes with maturity and I know there is no speeding that up, but patience is a virtue and love is not something you search for.

Stagnation- Being self centered and self indulgement with a lack of concern about contributing to the welfare of society

A very commonly asked question is if people’s personalities change and I am about to answer that question for you.

OCEAN
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

Right here are the 5 aspects of personality that tend to never change. Personality does relatively stay stable overtime and any changes that do occur are relatively modest.
Ex: Ones who are neurotic, become a little less neurotic

Let me make this a little clearer, here is the list again.

Openness
-imaginative or practical
-variety or routine
-independent or conforming

Conscientiousness
-organized or disorganized
-careful or careless
-disciplined or impulsive

Extraversion
-sociable or retiring
-fun-loving or somber
-affectionate or reserved

Agreeableness
-softhearted or ruthless
-trusting or suspicious
-helpful or suspicious

Neuroticism
-calm or anxious
-secure or insecure
-self satisfied or self pitying

On the study done if people really do change, they had 2,000 40 year olds who were told to think about their personalities and whether they changed or not. 52% said they stayed the same, 39% said they changed a little, and 9% said they changed a lot. So in total 90% felt their personality stayed relatively stable. The study related a lot with Erickson’s “Stability vs. Change.”

Stability- adult personality is stable over time
Change- adult personality is a continual process of change and growth

Okay so that was a lot of information, let me give it to you short.
In general agreeableness and conscientiousness increase in middle age (but remember!!! if you categorized yourself as ruthless or suspicious under their topics, these will increase as well) And as for extraversion and openness, these either don’t change or decrease slightly. Becoming comfortable in your environment is key in feeling as comfortable as you can, cause your surroundings don’t only need to fit your needs, but need to allow you to be successful. Our personality is responsive to life experiences, but that change exists within boundaries. Just because a person has a change of perspective does not necessarily mean it changes them. Take a moment to question, Is it really you changing or you just learning more about yourself?

Food for thought! have a great weekend

As I was reading through the blogs, I came across a post that discussed the disadvantages to cramming for tests. This got me wondering, as I have always found I’ve done just fine by cramming for tests. What is it that makes me different from others that my brain would actually prefer cramming? What is it that I do differently? My conclusion: I translate.

Almost every time I study, I translate the English to Spanish. I’m not totally bilingual, nor does my family speak Spanish, I just realized in middle school that I was much better in Spanish than all my other classes. I realized that translating the words somehow allowed me to memorize them quicker than if I was just memorizing regular English vocabulary words. So, in order to increase my knowledge of Spanish and retain more information when studying in English, I began translating everything, back and forth. Now, it has almost come as second nature. But what are the other added benefits to having a ‘bilingual brain?’ According to this study, how the brain organizes languages has not totally been concluded, however technological advances show that bilingual people, whom rapidly toggle back and forth between two languages show more activity in the right hemisphere in the brain that monolingual speaker, which could help attention and control.

In the past, researchers had thought that exposing children to multiple languages too early on might delay their language schools, however this has recently been shown to be completely false. New research shows that bilingual children are able to learn words quicker than monolingual, nor do they show any “language confusion.”

Photo source

“Scientists are learning that speaking more than one language may have cognitive benefits that extend from childhood into old age” (BrainFActs.org)

According to new research, the brain develops some advantages over those who are monolingual. This study suggests that those we are fluent in two languages, particularly since early childhood, both enhances their ability to concentrate as well as protect against dementia and other age-related cognitive declines.

The article suggests that children also have advantages when it comes to school. Bilingual students are able to focus on a task and tune out distractions. They also have an enhanced ability to concentrate, which is a sign of a healthy memory. The researchers suggest that managing two languages allows the brain to sharpen, to retain and focus information while ignoring the irrelevant information. This may explain why I find it easier to study and focus in comparison to others.

This article refers to bilingual people as “brain bodybuilders. Researcher Ellen Bialystok, a psychologist at York University in Toronto, agreed with the idea that bilingual people are more efficient at higher-level brain functions, according to the article. This is because bilingual people are constantly switching between languages, which allows them to choose with to use and which to ignore. According to the study, the brain of monolingual people had to work much harder during tasks than bilingual people.

The study also shows that bilingual adults have denser gray brain matter, or the brain tissue packed with information-processing nerve cells and fibers.) This was especially found in the left hemisphere of the brain, where most of the language and communication skills are controlled. This was the strongest in people who were immersed in two languages before the age of five, and were proficient at their second language.

Research also suggests that bilingualism may delay the onset of age-related dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists don’t particularly know why, but they theorize that speaking two languages may increase blood flow and oxygen to the brain, and keep nerve connections healthy.

This Tedtalk further explains the advantages of being bilingual.

I learned a lot from this specific study, and I am glad I now have a better understanding of how my brain particularly functions. I’ve always found it easier to concentrate when I translate things back and forth, and this study explained why. I don’t think this study could have suffered from anything such as the Texas sharpshooter or file drawer problem, since this is relatively new research and many studies came to the same conclusion about brain activity. I am pleased with the results with this study, I believe that they did a good job concluding the information. I would like to see the brain measured during more complex tasks, other than focusing on a single word. I think it would be beneficial to study the effects of cramming on a bilingual brain, since the bilingual brain is said to be able to focus and concentrate on relevant information compared to that of a monolingual.

A recent Huffington Post article summarized the findings of the meta-analysis called “Having Less, Giving More: The Influence of Social Class on Prosocial Behavior.” This analysis took a few different studies and compared them. All of the studies came to roughly the same conclusion: if you are rich, you are selfish and have less empathy towards others than people of a lower socioeconomic standing. To me this sounds ridiculous but lets take a look.

The first study, “Study of the Day: Rich People Feel Less Empathy” that was posted on goodmenproject.com. It had mock job interviews with about 300 people where each person was supposed to tell the emotion of a stranger from a photograph. People of higher socioeconomic standing had a much harder time of determining feelings than those of lower social class. This was the first major study done regarding something like this. I am not convinced though because the study doesn’t mention how these people were picked or how much of a variance between social class was represented. Also, 300 people is not enough to convince me when this world is made up of a few billion. Its a good start but lets move to the next one.

The next study was, “Low-Income People Quicker to Show Compassion.” There is not many detail on this study besides the fact that lower income people are more compassionate was their finding. People who read about the study gave a quick backlash of comments saying that this couldn’t be true. Personally, without more information on the study I don’t know how true it is either.

Another thing this meta-analysis looked at was the article from thinkprocess.org called, ” ‘U.S.’ Chamber of Commerce Lobbied to Help Kill Bill to Provide Health Care to 9/11 First Responders.” The title pretty much explains the article. The bill that was supposed to help get 9/11 first responders health care was viciously shut down by the U.S. Many 9/11 first responders were dying of asbestosis. The reason it was shut down was because the money to fund it came from closing a tax loophole in foreign trade. The Chamber did not want to damage relations with an unknown foreign power by shutting down this tax loophole so this bill about the first responders was shut down instead. The Chamber never released which foreign power was pressuring them to make this decision. The article itself makes it sound like the Chamber is made up of bad, selfish people, but in reality they may have been saving us from another major international crisis that we didn’t know about. So I don’t think its fully fair to be so critical regarding the Chamber. The Chamber did say that they support the bill if there was a way to fund it differently.

Another study that was looked at was, “Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior.” This study stated, “Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals.” Also, it said, “Upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.” This study is also not explained in this meta-analysis so I have a hard time believing how credible it actually is. With little information given about this study, it could just be people making things up (like that one graduate student’s study we talked about in class during the $100 challenge). This study claimed that people of higher economic class feel more entitled to things than others.

The meta-analysis concludes by saying that rich people aren’t empathetic because their parents raise them to be selfish and strive for success regardless of the cost while other lower class parents teach their children to “care about the welfare of others.” That seems like it was just pulled out of a hat to me. None of the “studies” discussed mentioned parents relation to a child’s selfishness. Now this does sound like a good theory and something that should be tested but it hasn’t been yet.

Overall, I think this is just kind of a bizarre meta-analysis. It doesn’t go very in depth with each study and while it has an interesting main idea, it doesn’t execute the analysis very well. But still, I simply think this idea is wrong. These studies don’t actually explicitly say that they’ve looked at the most rich people in the world. Look at Oprah for example. She is a very generous person and helps those in need whenever she can. Taylor Swift and other celebrities are involved in outreach programs. Warren Buffet even states that he doesn’t know why he doesn’t get taxed as much as his secretary here. These are some of the richest people in the world but being rich doesn’t mean you don’t care about others.

The reason you care about other people comes down to a little part of the brain. The amygdalae is a little piece of your brain and the size of this  piece directly correlates with how much you care about others. This video below explains it in more depth. I think a study should be done on different socioeconomic people’s size of amygdalae. Until that happens, I’m not convinced.

I love marvel movies. I just love them. Being a Chinese, I had a childhood without most of the comic like Ironman, fantasy 4, Spiderman, I fall in love with the franchise as soon as I watch the first movie. But something always got me thinking—why I always can feel the mood of the characters in the movies? I mean, the marvel franchise is good, but not the best. Then how come they can make such pleasant mood? Not only the movies, even the trailers? So I when to research it. From that, I learn what is a so called “can music”.

The reasonthat can music calls a can music, is defiantly not because it was held inside of a can. It’s more like a pre-complete music, with specific mood label on it. So when you have a crying scene, you can just find the tape that labels “sad” on it and put it on the video, just that simple.

The first can be music was mentioned in a passage of Motion Picture Patents Company, also label them with mood, then the artist can find them quickly when they need to use it in videos. Put it in a more interesting way to describe it, the can music system is more like a huge shelf, all the different type of feeling and mood correspond to a thousand diverse music, just take it when ever you need it. However, can music was not first applying on movies. In the early days, it was always used in commercials and trailers.

Another very important part of the can music, it always comes with the word “epic”, the easiest style that the audience will be reached on. The harmony is still the most common but also the most important. This always allows the song expresses a complete feeling and has a stronger scene of what is going to happen next. On the instruments that most of the can music nowadays will use are 3 main types combine together: the theme park use laboratories, then follow the chordophones, the drums are in the background. It was first seen in the Bourne identity franchise. Later be used widely in Hollywood.

So next time when you watch a movie, don’t be surprised that you will feel happy or sad at certain point, because when we watching the movies, we are just the pineapple in the can, and we can do nothing about it.

So as someone who struggled with severe acne and was medicated heavily for it, I always wanted another treatment. I tried medicine after medicine, whether it be topical creams to antibiotics, I finally broke down and took this awful medicine called Accutane. This medicine has so many side affects to the body whether it be constant chapped lips and dry skin to severe depression, so naturally I wanted another way to ease this process in order to not have to take the medicine.

One day my grandmother was talking to me on the phone and said that she suffered from the same issue when she was a child and needed a cure for the issue since they didn’t have the medicine that we have today back then. She told me that she used to wipe her face with rubbing alcohol to dry it out (which makes total sense), but then she told me she used to put honey on her face! This caught me completely off guard and so I looked into it to see if that was an old wives tale or if this was something that could actually work.

It turns out that the natural properties in honey are extremely beneficial to the human skin and can help to take away pimples. It acts as a natural antibiotic to help your skin eliminate existing pimples, then has many other traits to help keep pimples from coming back. To help prevent acne from coming back, honey has a natural osmotic effect that pulls out the toxins that cause acne to be severe. It also has many natural acids which help to prevent bacterial growth on the skin, and thus help to prevent the bacteria from penetrating the pores to cause infections that cause acne. Most of these causes are due to the fact that honey is a food that is naturally high in hydrogen peroxide, and this a crucial ingredient in most every topical cream that is used to eliminate acne.

Do you ever find yourself in a moment that believe has already happened in the past? It may sound strange but it is actually one of the world’s most interesting and though provoking science phenomenon and it’s called Deja vu. The official definition  of this phenomenon is, “the illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time.” Although it may seem like a hoax and something crazy people believe in there are real cases and studies that help us understand it.

People around the world face deja vu but they never really know why. In 2015, a man with chronic deja vu  surfaced looking for help. He stated that he would feel deja vu multiple times a day for minutes, sometimes even longer.  It was a nightmare for him because he couldn’t do anything without the feeling of him already doing it such as watching tv, listening to the radio, or reading the newspapers, and this never-ending time loop went on for eight years. This man is not the only person that has experienced chronic deja vu and scientists have yet to come up with a treatment or even a clear explanation for it. With this particular case, the man suffered from anxiety so they assumed that was the cause but people around the world experiencing chronic deja vu all don’t have anxiety so it that really a reliable cause?

Deja Vu is a mystery to many and there are multiple scientists out there with different viewpoints on the topic. Some say that it is just neurons misfiring, while others believe it happens when a person is having a seizure and there wires cross but cognitive psychology professor, Anne Cleary has her own thoughts. Her journal emphasizes the similarities between deja vu and the understanding of our recognition memory. Recognition memory  is the part of our brain that allows us to realize what we are experiencing is something that has already happened to us, such as seeing friends in the hallway. Recognition memory can be categorized into two parts, recollection and familiarity, and in Cleary’s eyes Deja Vu should be an example of familiarity based recognition because when experiencing deja vu we know that we have been there before but we don’t really know why.

Anne Cleary went on to complete a series of studies  that tested her beliefs on deja vu. For example, she had people study a list of random words they were later tested on but some words were replaced with ones that sounded similar. After hearing all the words the participants stated that they were familiar with the new words even though they couldn’t remember the original. The results of Cleary’s study proves that events that occur and that we go through are stored in our memory as individual fragments later explaining that Deja Vu may occur when some aspects of a current situation are similar to those of a past situation causing our brain to think it already happened when it is really just a familiar situation.

Deja Vu is a science phenomenon that has captivated the minds of many. People question whether it is real or not and if it does how does it happen, and although there is no concrete answers published, there are many theories that make total sense, including Anne Clearly’s.

In the United States over one in twenty children, spanning from ages four to seventeen, are diagnosed with medication for ADHD. This is a staggering 500% increase since 1990. As the number of people diagnosed with ADHD has increased, the enormous issue of ADHD drug abuse has grown into an epidemic. Ask any college student, whether they like it or not, it is scary how easy it is for someone to get their hands on drugs like Adderall or Ritalin. Many students do not use these drugs, and it is frustrating to students who do not use them because it appears to put them at a disadvantage. Society has created an incentive for students to use them just to keep up with the large amount of students who do. Although this is the case, these students may be wrong because ADHD prescription drugs may lead to worse grades.

Scientists gathered 579 children between ages 7 and 10 who were diagnosed with ADHD. The children were then divided into four groups with different forms of treatment. The first group received a double blind placebo trial, which looked to assess four different doses of Ritalin. Another group was given “community care” which involved receiving medication from their local health resources. On average these children were given a lower amount of medication than those in the first group. The “behavioral treatment” group that involved a program focusing on how the kids’ behavior was and also focused on different social skills. They were also given time to work with teachers and develop classroom learning/behavior traits. The final group, “combined treatment”, received both the behavioral treatment methods and the medication management. After fourteen months of evaluation, they were given a standardized test that they also received before the study. Children in each group showed momentous improvements. These results are not very surprising because the children are all diagnosed with ADHD and the medication they receive is supposed to help them with their learning disability.

ADHD medication on those without ADHD leads to different results. A double blind study controlled by a placebo was conducted in 2011. The participants were given both a placebo and Ritalin. When they believed that they were receiving Ritalin, the most commons result was that they felt a stronger focus for an extended period of time. When they did not believe they were taking the drug and believed it was a placebo, the participants had lower scores on tests they had to complete.

It is clear that for those who truly have ADHD, consumption of the medication is necessary and by no means an unfair advantage. For those who are not diagnosed I can either reject or fail to reject the hypothesis. I have concluded that the ‘advantage’ gained by taking these pills can physiological, but may lead to short-term success in the classroom because of the increased focus the pills provide. Taking these medications without a prescription is illegal can be very dangerous and addictive which would leave students worse off in the long run. There are a few alternatives that doctors suggest that for a person without ADHD will find effective. These include getting plenty of sleep, avoid consuming caffeine, eating a healthy diet, and doing stress-relieving activities such as yoga.

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While it may seem strange, there is actually quite a lot of evidence suggesting animals can be gay. There have been reports coming in from over 450 countries, stating that on more than one occasion, people have seen 2 male or 2 female animals mating. According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, animals mate to procreate, as a means of continuing the species, which allows for a species to thrive in their natural habitat. Using this theory, any animals that mate but cannot produce offspring are at a genetic disadvantage and therefore cannot pass their traits on to the next generation.

This would suggest that homosexuality, if it were a biological “trait”, in animals would die out pretty quickly, because all animals that were gay could not have children. However, that hasn’t stopped many species of animals from being in homosexual relationships. While most famous cases are with penguins, there have been cases dolphins and even lions have been seen to have homosexual relationships. In some species, like the macaque, mating season becomes fierce because males have to compete with other females, as females mating with females seems to be a norm.

But as most of us know, homosexuality is not necessarily a biological trait. Of course, there may be something in our brains that tell us what our sexual preference is, but for the most part, our peers, our parents, our upbringing can largely influence our sexual orientation, However, in 2004, a study done on male rams found that in fact male rams that had a same sex preference exhibited a common difference in biological structure. All male rams that exhibited signs of homosexuality had more neurons in their hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is the part of the brain that regulates things like body temperature, blood pressure, and sexual preference. This is an interesting case, as this is the first study done that presents a possible correlation between homosexual tendencies and brain structure in animals. So it seems there may be a biological explanation for homosexual animal behaviour after all.

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Anyone who has suffered from a migraine before understands the need to understand what goes on inside your head that is causing you so much pain and discomfort.  Compounding the head pain are a number of other crippling symptoms that leave your body at the mercy of your mind.  Leaving you out of commission for any period of time, not only as a result of pain but nausea and light sensitivity.  Bury yourself in darkness and roll with the punches.

A study published by Rami Burstein and a couple other doctors on the National Center for Biotechnology Information stated: “We found that if the pain is not stopped within 10–20 minutes after it starts, the first set of neurons in the network, those located in the trigeminal ganglion, undergo molecular changes that make them hypersensitive to the changing pressure inside the head…”  The part of this that really jumped out at me was the molecular changes in parts of the brain.  Obviously, I’m not great at science (exhibit a: taking this class) but the molecular changes sounds like something that should be in the script of the Incredible Hulk not something going on in my brain.

VANCOUVER, BC, APRIL 11, 2008, BUSINESS, Actor Edward Norton is transformed into The Incredible Hulk. Key special effects for the summer blockbuster were created in Vancouver. (PHOTO: handout) [PNG Merlin Archive]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some tips before you go out buying that shoe are:

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

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

3. break them in

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

Everyone knows the supposed myth where if there is an earthquake, animals will begin to act strangely. Dogs will begin barking, birds will start flying, bees will start leaving the hive in large numbers, and even chickens will stop laying eggs. Although there is no conclusive evidence that this early warning behavior exists, there are several accounts and anecdotal evidence that supports this theory.

There are several explanations put forward by different people, but the general consensus that animals can do this because of their evolved, heightened senses that they would normally use to detect predators in the wild. In the same way that dogs can use their sense of smell to evaluate other dogs for hostility, animals can “sense” an abnormality around them, and therefore will behave erratically.

Not much work has been done to investigate this matter, but one study of note, conducted in 1988, by William K. Tong, evaluated the variety of different ways animals could be alerted about the presence of a disaster, including cracks in the ground, electro-magnetic waves, and so on. Tong listed disadvantages and possible reasons why animals would respond in different ways and documented abnormal behavior displayed in each species. Tong uses a table from a study conducted by Buskirk et al. in 1981, which shows how long different species of animals and fish take to start acting abnormally at different distances. The quickest out of all animals, according to this table, is the horse, which acts the strangest, quickest, at every distance.

The conclusion of Tong’s study is that there is no conclusive evidence to completely support this theory, but anecdotal evidence supports the plausibility of such a concept. However, an interesting note made by geophysicist T. Rikitake was that because equipment that we can use to predict disasters is too expensive to set up everywhere in the world, sometimes we can rely on animal behavior to give some, if any, idea when the next disaster will strike.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the biggest political fights that has occurred over the past couple of years is the fight over the Keystone Oil Pipeline.  The pipeline would have transported oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast, and quickly became a hot button political issue.  Environmentalists feared what would happen if  an oil spill were to occur and resented the fact that the process required to extract oil from Canadian tar sands emitted even more carbon dioxide.  Eventually, President Obama would chose not to approve the pipeline causing Environmentalists to turn their attention to their next cause.

Recently activists in Utah were able to prevent the auctioning of government lands for oil drilling.  Protesters are currently planning to meet in Washington D.C. in order to try and prevent another land auction, while Environmentalists are busy paying attention to the Paris Climate Talks.

So does preventing drilling improve the economy?  There is evidence supporting the claim that some fossil fuels must remain undrilled if we are to prevent global temperatures from rising by more the two degrees Celsius.  If temperatures begin to rise by more than two degrees Celsius Earth would face changing weather patterns, rising sea levels, and losses in food supply.  While fossil fuel use needs to be limited, research shows that drilling does not need to stop immediately.  A study published in Nature a couple of years ago found that “a third of remaining oil reserves, half of gas reserves and 80% of coal reserves should remain unused.”  Despite this, it seems unlikely that the debate over drilling will end.

http://time.com/4102868/president-obama-rejects-keystone-xl-pipeline/#

http://time.com/4132636/activists-paris-climate-talks/

Right now, I’m yawning because I am starting this blog at 1:21 am the night before its due.  If you were to see me yawning, you’d correctly assume that I was tired- two things we normally always associate each other with.  But for dogs, it means something completely different.

When a dog yawns, there are multiple different things it could mean.  Being tired might be what it means, if the dog is stretched out in bed.  Generally, however, if a dog yawns in public, there might be something else happening.

For instance, it could  be a  sign of discomfort; the dog is trying to displace the feeling of stress, or inner conflict, with a safe, neutral behavior.  There are also other studies that indicate dogs yawn to let other dogs know how they are feeling. For example, “when a dogs is being menaced by another dog’s aggressive signals, the target of this display may simply respond with a yawn.” To humans, this may be a sign that the dog is bored, but the other dog sees the yawn and backs off with the aggression. It may be confused on how to continue the exchange, and might move on to friendlier tactics. There are studies showing that dominant dogs may yawn to make the submissive dogs more comfortable and relaxed.

But perhaps, the most interesting studies are the ones that show that dogs, in fact, catch a yawn from their owner. Researchers believe that this is a sign of dogs showing empathy, which is truly amazing.

The Study

In Japan, scientists took 25 different breeds of dogs, as well as their owners and set up a test all about yawning.  He asked the owners to fake yawn in front of their dogs, as well as give some honest ones too. What they found was remarkable.

The dogs heart rate, while watching their owners, did not increase- removing the option of the stress yawns.  What did happen, however, was that the dogs started mimicking their owners when they yawned. They were also able to differentiate between the fake yawns and the real ones.

What it Means 

What this shows, is that dogs are able to feel human emotions, and mimic them. They are also very attentive to their owners. They are smart creatures who are able to read their owners body language well, and can in fact, catch contagious yawns from humans.

(picture is from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130808-yawning-dogs-contagious-animals-empathy-science/)

As I was about to eat breakfast, I had trouble deciding which kind of cereal I wanted to eat. At After a few minutes of debating I finally picked “Trix” and the slogan “Trix are for kids” popped into my head, which is how I came up with the title of this blog. None the less, in my last blog post I talked about leisure, and one of its components: leisure. Now I will elude to the other component: play which is a context with improvisational potential, which provides for a creative outlet.  Also, it something apparently purposeless, voluntarily done for its own sake, and an activity which makes one feel good (loosens sense of obligation and time).

Why do we play?

• Development and Change
• Cultural Assimilation
• Learning and Practicing Skills
• Socializing
• Exploration of our Environment

Researchers from Concordia University and Wilfrid Laurier University examined the way grandparents can establish strong ties with the grandchildren. After observing the two different generations interact, lead author Shannon Hebblethwaite concluded that “shared leisure time allows grandchildren and their grandparents to establish common interests that , in turn, enable them to develop strong inter-generational relationships and pass down old traditions.

One example was, Gardening with grandma. In this study 16 grandparents aged 65 to 89 as well as 14 grandchildren aged 18 to 24 were investigated to see the interactions. Many times grandparents take  advantage of events that typically bond generations such as vacations, holidays, cooking, gardening, etc. in order teach, mentor and pass on legacies. On the reverse side, these encounters gave grandparents the chance to discover things like email, face timing, etc.

Additionally, play promotes development and change. For example, according to this article, during play, children from birth to age three begin to jabber to themselves and use gestures. This transitions to them slowly beginning to use words to communicate.

Follow this link to see more information on the items bulleted above.

Is Play Just for Kids?

One day in my parks and recreation class, a guest speaker visits and actually talked about “play”. He went on to explain how animals play as well, as do adults. After research, I found that most animals stop playing after adolescence.  This is because it is dangerous for adults to play since other animals are out to hunt them.

Humans are considered the “biggest players” since we display neoteny and retain juvenile characteristics into adulthood.

Are there any benefits from play after adolescence?

Certainly! Neoteny is an evolutionary strategy to retain plasticity, which is the quality of being easily shaped or molded. This allows humans to develop and grow their whole life.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110214115444.htm

http://www.parentingscience.com/benefits-of-play.html

http://udel.edu/~roberta/play/benefits.html