THE SCIENCE BEHIND MOTIVATION

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It’s getting to that time in the school year when the novelty of new classes and new friends is wearing off. We’re all feeling lethargic and low on energy as we’re studying for midterms and writing more papers. We don’t feel motivated anymore—or maybe we never did to begin with. Nevertheless, I think we can all agree that if we were more motivated about school it would be a lot easier to get our work done sooner and more efficiently. So why can’t we? What is the science behind motivation that is holding us back from doing our best?

This came as a surprise to me, but what motivates us is the chemical dopamine.  In 2012, a study was published by two psychology professors at the University of Connecticut that explained their findings on the function of dopamine. According to their findings, dopamine should no longer be considered as a “reward” chemical because dopamine is a much more diverse chemical found at the root of motivation.

According to a study from researchers at a university in Spain, dopamine is a neurotransmitter that, at its core, motivates us to act. It is the most basic chemical that is released to tell us how to react to a situation, either positively or negatively.

Another study published by Michael Treadway and David Zald of Vanderbilt University in 2012 also proved that dopamine is connected with motivation, and went even deeper in their study. Using a PET scan, they scanned the brains of highly motivational people and less motivational people. They found that dopamine was found in the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex of the brain in the people who were highly motivational and in the anterior insula in the people who were less motivational. This study is significant in the science behind motivation because, as Treadway said, “this study provides new information about how dopamine determines individual differences in the behavior of human reward-seekers.”

So what does all of this mean? It means that scientists have found the mechanism behind motivation: dopamine; and have rejected the null hypotheses that dopamine is only associated with pleasure.

According to this article, lack of motivation, or procrastination, can be attributed to an emotional coping mechanism. When we procrastinate we put ourselves at the present time ahead of ourselves in the future. Most of the time we use avoidance to cope with our emotions, which can quickly turn into procrastination. This can also be attributed to a lack of regulation skills.

So what can we do to be more motivated? According to neurologist Dr. Willis, the best thing to do is rewire our brains and set tangible goals. These goals can be unrelated to school work, such as goals related to physical activity or learning a new hobby. The more we meet these other goals, the more our brains will train to meet every goal we set, including those related to schoolwork.

Related to that, Pychyl said that the most important thing to do is set little goals, as in breaking our work into several parts, so we don’t feel overwhelmed with one big assignment.

Related to that, Thomas W. Malone and Mark R. Lepper have discovered that creating incentives for yourself actually backfires. As hard is this may seem to comprehend, according to the two psychologists, doing the tasks is a reward in itself and the only reward we should need. That seems pretty tough to wrap our minds around, because it is going against our basic human nature. But this also ties in with how dopamine is the mechanism behind motivation. Because it is considered a “reward” chemical, us just being motivated to do something should be enough incentive for us to do it. So the next time you’re writing a paper or studying for a test, remember that your brain has the capabilities to reward itself without an outside incentive.

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Dan Ariely published a book about cheating called The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How we Lie to Everyone- Especially Ourselves. The book describes multiple experiments about cheating and also Ariely’s own experiments where he created scenarios that would prompt people to cheat. Ariely came to the conclusion that “under the right conditions, most people are willing to cheat a little bit”. One would expect all people to be innocent, but under certain situations people may behave out of the ordinary. Those people are concerned more about the end results over the method used to attain that result, even if it means cheating. In some situations it would feel as though the ends justify the means, however cheating is never justifiable.

There are many factors that affect the desire to cheat in a school environment.  These factors include Sex, Age, School, type of course (online or lecture), size of course (classroom or auditorium), etc. However, pinpointing the specific environment that encourages more people to cheat and assigning more proctors to watch students like a hawk during an exam is not the solution. Instead, one should adjust the environment so that people are less tempted to cheat. There are many factors that affect the desire to cheat. This includes: the course itself, the course requirements, the nature of the course, the professor, etc. With the right mix of these factors one could potentially create an environment where students are less willing to cheat on a test than compared to another environment where students are willing to cheat despite the presence of proctors.

A trio of researchers in Britain conducted an experiment called “Princess Alice.” In this experiment, a handful of kids age 5-9 are told to throw a ball at a target while using their non-dominant hand and also have their backs facing the target. Because of how impossible this task is, many kids resorted to cheating in order to get the prize for landing the ball on the target, a small toy. The children are put into 4 categories: those who had adult supervision, those who believed in/unsure Princess Alice’s existence, those who didn’t believe in Princess Alice’s existence, and those who did not have supervision at all. Princess Alice sort of symbolizes the children’s guilty conscience; the idea of a being that is watching their every move made the children unwilling to cheat. What was interesting about the Princess Alice experiment is that the group of children who believed in her existence performed almost the same as the children who were in the presence of an adult. If we could somehow use the Princess Alice concept and apply it to college classrooms, we may be able to reduce cheating. On the other hand this experiment only had 11 subjects which make the results not so reliable.

George M Diekhoff and a group of researchers conducted a survey regarding cheating behaviors in higher education. About 700 students from United States and Japanese Universities were surveyed. The purpose of this survey was to find out which types of students are more likely to cheat. The study shows that 55% of Japanese students admitted to cheating, more than twice the amount of American students. Japanese students are more willing to cheat because more is on the line for them. This is because Japanese students’ grades heavily rely on the final exam with their final grade extremely dependent on the performance of one exam. On the other hand, American students’ grades are based on many things such as multiple exams throughout the year, quizzes, and homework. Thus, Japanese students are more compelled to cheat than compared to American students.

“High-stakes” tests induce people to cheat. Courses with only two or three test grades that affect your final grade would pressurize an average student to cheat. These high-stakes tests will induce your desire to cheat by so much that even the punishment for getting caught cheating wouldn’t faze you. A good example of this is the Chinese civil-service exams. If you do well on the CCS exams, you will be guaranteed a good job position in the Chinese government. If you fail however, you will be a dishonor to your family and not get a good job (unless you decide to devote another 3 years to studying). The punishment for cheating in the CCS exam was extremely severe and goes up to the death penalty. Even the death penalty did not faze the CCS test takers because of how “high-stake” the test was.

Does this mean we shouldn’t have any high-stake tests in our education system? No, high-stake tests are essential, but the correct solution for this is to have many lower stake tests/quizzes to better prepare the students so they will do well on the high-stake tests without being tempted to cheat. Reducing cheating and increasing learning go hand in hand.

75% of students surveyed admitted to cheating at least once in college. This 75% has been constant since 1963. In recent years, in a survey with 150,000 students across different institutions the amount admitted to cheating was between 60-70%. You may think that the cheating rate has lowered, however the method of survey (online vs paper for the 1963 survey) could affect the results. On the bright side, there is no concrete evidence that the rate of cheating has increased either. The fact that this number, 75%, has remained constant for the past 50 years indicate to us that we haven’t been doing enough regarding this matter.

Students are less tempted to cheat when a course offers multiple low-stake tests compared to just two or three high-stake tests. Not only does multiple low-stake tests reduce cheating, it also increases learning. In an experiment conducted by Henry L. Roediger III and Jeffrey D. Karpicke, the participants had to study 40 English-Swahili word pairs and was tested on their memory. One group was given all 40 words at once and was tested after every study session. Another group was also given 40 words and was tested after every study session but they removed every correct pair they got correct after each test. Both groups performed the same on the four post study session tests and also the final exam. The conclusion from this experiment is: it isn’t about the amount of information given, it is about the frequency of testing. However it isn’t just simply frequent testing either, it is about the memory and retrieval of information. There are many ways to practice retrieving information. For example, “minute paper” is where you take out a piece of paper in the last 5 minutes of class and write concepts you learned in class that day.  We cannot fully prevent cheating in the school environment, however, schools can definitely change the nature of the courses and course requirements so that students are not pressured or tempted to cheat.

Recently, I have taken the initiative to start routinely going to the gym, with the hopes that I can finally add some muscle to my pudgy frame. Though I hope to progressively accumulate muscle mass, I do not know the most efficient way. I was always told to consume protein after a workout (involving lifting weights), as it would apparently help build muscle, assuming that I had taken the liberty to work/stretch them out beforehand. But what is all this craze on creatine!? How come I see these behemoth shaped humans at the gym with these colorful juices that are apparently pre-workout/creatine? I always wondered why everyone at the gym, especially the huge dudes with a ton of muscle drank the supplement, but I never knew why.

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What is creatine? And what does creatine supposedly do?

Creatine (or regularly sold Creatine monohydrate) is a supplement that promotes muscle growth and reduces fatigue when exercising. This leads to both an increase in muscle mass and overall power when weightlifting, as well as an increase in performance of an exercise. Creatine is actually already naturally found within our own bodies, as a molecule that releases forms of energy (ATP) to our cells when needed during times of strenuous workouts.

But does taking creatine actually work?

In order to draw a conclusion, we must first ask some preliminary questions. First, does creatine intake directly correlate to larger muscle mass, or reversely, does larger muscle mass correlate to in-taking more creatine? Additionally, does a confounding variable (Z) affect them both?

As stated earlier, creatine is already found within our bodies, so why do people take additional creatine supplements? Well, according to a study done by Physiol Genomics, creatine was tested to see its effects on mass and power output within the human subjects. This was an experimental study, performed with randomized double-blind placebo trials. 12 men were observed when given a control placebo and creatine supplement. They were given the placebo for 10 days, and muscular changes were observed through biopsies for a 28 day period. The subjects were then given creatine monohydrate for 10 days to later investigate its effect on the muscle. The study found that when given the creatine monohydrate, subjects saw an increase in the fat-free mass, (muscle mass and water retention) as muscle fiber diameter and over all weight increased up to 9%. In addition, it was shown to upregulate other cellular components, with their results believed to be possibly supporting muscle growth indirectly. The results were significant, as the p-value was less than 5% (p<0.05), meaning these results were very likely not due to chance alone. We can also rule out reverse causation, as increase in muscle does not necessarily mean increase in creatine. Though this study shows the results of taking creatine supplements alone, we must next ask how the results change when performing an exercise.

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Because creatine is used as a performance-enhancer when exercising, many athletes take this supplement. In another study done by J Medical Association Thailand, creatine was given to long-distance swimmers to test its effect on endurance. The experiment, once again performed as a randomized double-blind placebo, consisted of 38 swimmers split into a control and test group. Half (19) were given a solution of creatine monohydrate within an orange solution twice a day, for a week, while the other half was given that same quantity of just the orange solution. Results fit the common belief that creatine is a performance-enhancing supplement. Swimmers that had taken the supplemented solution decreased their time. The results were determined have a significant difference between the control group timings and creatine-supplemented group timings, as the p-value was less than 5%.

Given the studies, creatine intake has shown evidence of having an effect on both muscle increase and growth, and positive performance. However, these are only two studies, and there can be many confound variables when testing just one substance on subjects, because the effects of other supplements such as protein, could have affected the studies. Though the p-values were less than 5%, the trial sizes in the studies were not large, so I would further the investigation and experiment process for a more thorough understanding of creatine’s benefits.

However, given the evidence and the large personnel (population wise and physical size wise) that takes creatine supplements in the gym, it may seem rational to begin taking creatine supplements if I want to fully pursue my initiative of accumulating muscle mass.

Sources:

https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16083193

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17957000

This blog post was inspired by my aunt who was recently diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Ever since her diagnosis, she has completely changed her lifestyle; she’s eating everything raw and organically grown and exercising daily. Immediately after this change in lifestyle, her tumor markers had declined. In the past couple of months she had stopped exercising daily because it was hard to keep up with and when going into the doctors to get her tumor markers checked, she found them to have increased. Being frightened by this, she noticed the only thing she had changed was the exercise, so, she began to exercise daily once again. On her most recent visit to get the tumor markers checked, she realized they had gone down. My aunt was very happy and immediately made a correlation between her tumor markers and exercise. Now, I understand that this is anecdotal evidence, but this story sparked my curiosity and begged the question: Can exercise help fight breast cancer?

In this study it was concluded (and as you can see in the graph) that by exercising it improves the growth of tumor markers.

In another study that involves mice injected with breast cancer and aerobic exercise, it is found that this exercise can actually slow the growth of tumors. Tumors are usually in areas that are oxygen deficient however, chemotherapy works better when there is oxygen. With exercise, it increases the amount of oxygen-rich blood that goes through the body. As the article goes on, it gives the details of the experiment and meta-analyses and concludes that the mice that had the chemotherapy and exercised had the slowest tumor growth by far in comparison to inactive mice, solely active mice, and mice who received chemotherapy but were inactive. However, it was also evident in the blood markers that the exercise killed the tumors without the help of the chemotherapy. I understand that this study involves mice and not people but I don’t think exercise can hurt a person fighting breast cancer.

Not only is exercise shown to be effective in decreasing the tumor markers, but also in the prevention of  breast cancer in general. In this article, it talks about how active women have been known to have a lesser probability of getting breast cancer.
I think all of these studies show significant evidence that exercising can aid in stopping cancer. I also think that there is a world of more knowledge to obtain on the topic, but I don’t think exercising can hurt you either way.

image via google

Take a trip down to your closest park on a Saturday morning and it is likely you will find many little kids running around attempting to play soccer. The fans get rowdy and if you take a closer look, you will see many, many ‘soccer’ moms. The parking lots are filled with mini vans and the side lines host many mothers seeking to watch their child score the next goal. Take a closer look at these moms, not too close, look towards their wrist. It is likely that you may see many of them wearing fitness trackers. They may have their own personal reasons for using them, but it is likely they noticed they no longer fit into their clothes from five years and thought that buying a fitness tracker would be the first major step in getting back into shape. However, they may have been very wrong, even counterproductive to their effort to lose weight.

Fitness technology has come a very long way recently. These bands now can constantly track heart rate, steps, flights climbed, calories burned, and the quality of sleep; they can even give you your estimated weight if you input what you have eaten. The trackers are extremely modern and their technology only keeps increasing.

Researches became interested if these trackers actually help individuals who use them. Consequently, they decided to perform an experiment with 800 people ages 21-65. Their goal was to find if the use of fitness trackers actually improves the user’s health. This study was done shortly after another study was done and concluded that the fitness trackers are less effective than self-monitoring your own weight.

First Study

The first study was done on a group of 470 people who were either considered to be overweight or obese. Everyone in the group was put onto a controlled low-calorie diet and an exercise plan. This randomized control experiment went on for 2 years and 6 months in, after everyone in the study had time to adjust to new diet and exercise plans, half of the individuals were given a Fit Core Armband- the other half simply just tracked things on their own. After 2 years, the researchers found that those who used the armband only lost an average of 7.7 pounds while those who were self-tracking lost an average of 13 pounds. From this data, the researches came to the conclusion that weight-loss trackers do not aid in weight-loss, rather it is more effective to simply self-track and follow a good diet and excise plan.

Second Study

The second study was conducted on 800 participants from Singapore. The participants were split up into 4 groups: control group, fitbit group, and the final two groups were given a fitbit and either a donation to charity or cash reward for the initial 6 months of the trial. The study found that the highest increase in activity came from those with a cash incentive, and the least from the only fitbit group (not including the control group). The study came to conclude that the device did not improve the user’s health.

Analysis

Both of these studies came to very serious conclusions- they both are showing that fitness trackers are not effective. Two studies are not enough to find a valid conclusion when there are many other variables that need to be analyzed. Individual motivation (confounding variable) is a huge deal when looking at weight loss. Due to randomization it should turn out that the groups in the study have an equally average motivation but wearing the bands or incentives may play into that. I believe the first study was much better done than the second. While individuals may have had more motivation to prove that they could lose weight without the fitness tracker, it was a very small difference in the difference between those wearing and those not wearing the tracker. While this experiment controlled the fitness tracker as the only manipulated variable, the second study decided to implement a cash incentive. I believe this part of the study was completely unnecessary because it is obvious if you provide people with an incentive they are going to do more of that activity (simple economics), and is not really in relation to the question if “just fitbits” increase a person’s health.

I have no choice to 100% agree with the conclusion of this study despite how ridiculous it is. It is obvious that a fitbit is not going to increase one’s health. However, that is not the purpose of a fitbit, the purpose is for an individual to be able to easily track their fitness and log their progress. In the first study, the fitbit group did lose weight and in the second study they were also shown having an adequate number of daily steps. Now there may be some correlation between wearing a fitbit and having less motivation, but more research would need to be done to conclude that. It is interesting that the groups wearing fitbits did not lose more weight than those who were not, but until a mechanism can be found to why this it the data does not mean much besides a correlation.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/21/fitness-trackers-may-not-aid-weight-loss-study-finds

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/04/fitness-trackers-do-not-increase-activity-enough-to-noticeably-improve-health

We’ve all heard the debate on the internet and the news in the past few months, should you or should you not vaccinate? As you know, vaccination is giving yourself (or your child) a shot that gives them a killed/not harmful virus in order to stimulate your body’s immune system, making antibodies and thus lessening the chance of getting that disease. However, in recent years parents across the country have gone against vaccinating their kids, stating that vaccination harms you far more than any benefits it may give. You may have your own opinion on this topic, but let’s look at this scientifically.

First, we’re going to be looking at what the null and alternate hypotheses are. The null suggests that the vaccination does nothing, making them useless. More interestingly, there are two alternate hypotheses in this case. Either the vaccination makes you better, or it makes you worse. Regardless, it does affect you in some way, making both an alternate hypothesis. There’s also chance to look out for, perhaps in the form of you getting better/not getting the illness but not due to the vaccination or getting the illness even though you took the vaccination. Reverse causation would mean that getting better or worse makes the vaccination, making it not possible in this case. So, we have three options: The null hypothesis, alternative hypothesis 1 (vaccinations make you less susceptible to illness and disease), and alternate hypothesis 2 (vaccinations make you more susceptible to illness and disease, or make you worse off in some fashion).

Is vaccinating a good thing for you? Source

Background: Obviously, there are multiple ways to look at this question. We can look at how it affects children, how it affects a specific disease, etc. After looking through Google Scholar for some time, I finally found a study I thought would be relevant to us early adulthood students, especially the women of our class. We’re (hopefully) a bit of a way off from having kids of our own and likewise are well past a majority of our vaccinations. However, HPV is something that can significantly affect women at our age, so I believe that should be the focus of this blog. Obviously, the Human Papimillovirus (HPV) is extremely prevalent in young adult women, causing things like an increase in the risk of cancer, especially cervical cancer. This can make young women barren for life, according to this CDC article.

The Procedure: Now, onwards to the study, which happened in Queensland, Australia between 2007-2011. In this study, the researchers vaccinated the women, aged between 12-27 and having their first cervical pap smear, and observed their risk of cervical cancer over the next four years. Obviously, as we discussed in class, this is an observational study. The independent variable is the vaccination given, while the dependent variable is their health in the next four years. It should be mentioned that there wasn’t an ethics problem here, because instead of not giving HPV vaccines to women (which is very unethical and could cause them to get cervical cancer), they limited their participants to those getting a free, first time cervical pap smear, making sure there was no ethical bias. The participants were split into 4 groups based off of age: 11-14, 15-18, 19-22, and 23-27 years. This was used to determine the effectiveness of the vaccinations the older the woman gets. They then judged the data based on of their age, socioeconomic status, and remoteness to take those possible other causes off of the table.

Vaccine has made many diseases decrease between 75-100%! Source

The Results: Comparing the vaccination results to a controlled group of women’s cervical cancer rates. According to the study, there was a 46% reduced rate in high-grade cervical abnormalities amongst women who got vaccinated over those who didn’t, and a 34% reduced rate over any other kind of cervical abnormalities over the control. Needless to say, that is a big difference between the vaccinated and the non-vaccinated. Another major point was that there was a benefit, albeit not a big one, to getting double vaccinated, bumping that rate even higher. The results also showed that the older you got, the less the vaccine helped prevent HPV. That’s quite an interesting finding that the study did not set out to find, but is definitely important in understanding when is the prime time to vaccinate women for HPV to get the best chance of cervical cancer prevention.

So, the data definitely supports the first alternate hypothesis we presented at the beginning of the blog. Indeed, the data clearly shows that the women who took the vaccination were almost half as likely not to get cervical cancer in the next four years. That’s a pretty good increase. In class, we often talk about if this data is guaranteed, or the hypothesis is ruled correct. Well, obviously there are hundreds of studies on the effects of vaccinations, but for this blog we’re only relying on this one source to verify that vaccinations have HPV. However, like Andrew said, the data shown tells you that it would be in your best interest to follow through and vaccinate yourself, especially at the young ages the women in our class.

Farming is something so banal in our modern, highly urbanised world, it’s easy to forget it even exists if you don’t come into contact with it often enough. But it has been a major factor in human civilisation since the beginning of what can even be called “civilisation”: with agriculture, humans were able to settle to tend to their crops instead of hunting for food, and soon enough, the farmers found themselves with a lot of free time between planting, taking care of, and harvesting crops. This free time coming from a settled existence birthed the earliest forms of art, crafts and perhaps even religion. Settlements grew to become cities, which traded and communicated with each other, causing either alliances or war if they were too close together; soon, campaigns were fought against other cities, kingdoms and empires, and the ancient world was born. Literature, philosophy, science, engineering, everything we associate with the civilised world was only possible because our ancestors decided it was better to plant wheat and wait around for a while than to go hunting for some juicy gazelle meat right now.

So, what is the next step? We conquered almost all land on the planet, but our population is still growing. Is there going to be a point where humanity grows to such high numbers that Earth simply won’t have enough farming space to provide us with food? The solution to this problem is vertical farming, the next step in food production technology. The process used in Belgian startup Urban Crops, for example, is but an application of what we know about growing crops to an enclosed, compact environment: an automated system is set up so that the crops are planted in a substrate that imitates soil (to eliminate the issue of diseases and whatnot), rotated through one of dozens of shelves in a room blasted with LED lights and fed with a hydroponic system providing the plants with mineral rich water. When ready, the plants are rotated out and ready to be consumed, similarly to a factory production line and independent of season or climate conditions.

This system is tremendously efficient when compared with traditional farming, as it requires a smaller area, has higher yields and consumes only a small fraction of the water currently used in fields. While Europeans are still sceptic about the prospect, since their populations are small and their fields are close to their cities, this system could be revolutionary in densely populated and highly urbanised areas such as NYC, Beijing and Delhi. This means that transport rates will go down as cities’ demands can be fulfilled by themselves, fresh produce will be available to people even in the middle of Manhattan, and most important of all, traditional farms will gradually disappear as we have no need for them anymore. And with the advent of lab-grown meat, we can do away with outdoors food production altogether, leaving nature to reclaim the land we no longer have any use for.

This will change the dynamic of human existence forever. We will finally become a truly urban civilisation, harvesting what we need from our own technology instead of nature. While a world of cities dotted around immaculate natural landscapes is hard to imagine, it is possibly where we are headed to with this technology. As indoors farming becomes more widespread, it will be massively more successful than old farms due to its low costs and high yields, eventually causing traditional farmers to either abandon their farms and come to the cities or migrate to vertical farming as well. This may be the next – and last – agricultural exodus, making humankind, at long last, be the city-dwelling species it has always longed to be.

Anger is one of the basic emotional reaction. When I wake up in the morning especially when I have to take class in the 8 a.m., I feel a little bit grumpy, angry. At that time, I always tell my roommate “don’t talk to me.” It is kind of uncomfortable. But It seems that the only reason is that I didn’t have enough time to sleep. In order to let me feel better in the morning, I do some researches about this
question.

According to the article of Daily Mail, on average, people have black moods at least two mornings a week. It is easily understandable that if people have a bad attitude about the day, they may have black moods.  Alice D. Domar, Ph.D., executive director of the Domar Center for Mind/Body Health, argues that people just feel grumpy in few days of a week because they are not looking forward to working. In other words, if there are not enough things which can bring joy and happiness to people, they will feel bad. So having a happy life could help improve the happiness of your morning Also, these black moods could be associated with not getting enough rest and being tired, bad night’s sleep.

However, Allison G. Harvey, Ph.D, professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and director of the Golden Bear Sleep and Mood Research Clinic, indicates that “The process of waking up is slow — not like a light switch, much slower,” and “These feelings are not pleasant, but do not necessarily indicate having had a poor night of sleep.” The reason is connected to sleep inertia. This term given in 1976 means that a transitional period of grogginess between waking and being full awake. Transition between sleep mode and awake mode actually lasts a long time. Because when we wake up, our brain-stem arousal systems are instantly activated. But our cortical regions, especially the part of the brain involved in decision-making and self-control, need to take longer to work. According to a neuroscientist and chronobiology expert, Kenneth Wright,“ Cognition is best several hours prior to habitual sleep time, and worst near habitual wake time.” What he said can explain why in the early morning, our memory, reaction time and ability to deal with problems suffer.

Also, morning depression is also associated with the setting of our internal alarm clock—our circadian rhythm. If there are difference between our actually required wake-up time and our natural wake-up time depended on our circadian rhythm, we would feel uncomfortable. The circadian rhythm is affected by some specific hormones, such as cortisol and melatonin. To be specific, cortisol can make people energetic and active in the daytime and melatonin can makes people tired and sleepy at night. Thus, if our circadian rhythm is disrupted, our body physically starts to produce hormones at the wrong time. So this will affect negatively not only on our health but also on our emotion.

Luckily, the effects of sleep inertia and circadian rhythm can be changed according to Kenneth P. Wright Jr.’s experiment. So people, in order to avoid black moods in the morning, can make a certain lifestyle to regulate and stabilize circadian rhythm. For example, going to bed and get up at certain times, doing exercise frequently, and eating regularly are helpful. So the sleep-wake cycle can synchronize with the body clock.

Reference:

Source1 Source2 Source3 Source4

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Hearing the same joke, some people laugh until they cry, but some people do not have any reaction. Watching a tearjerker, some people cry throughout, but some people can still laugh. What cause these difference? It is easy for us to combine these reactions with cultural factors, personal experience and personality. Actually, they are not all the answers for this question.

Recently, a paper published in “Emotion” shows that genes may affect emotional expression. The present research examined the effect of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene on objectively coded positive emotional expressions. By the way, Researchers commonly report it with two variations in
humans: the short allele (“s”) and the long allele (“l”). Three studies with independent samples of participants were conducted. To be specific, study 1 examined young adults watching still cartoons; study 2 examined young, middle-aged, and older adults watching a thematically ambiguous yet subtly amusing film clip; and study 3 examined middle-aged and older spouses discussing an area of marital conflict (that typically produces both positive and negative emotion).

I want to introduce the way researchers code participants’ emotional expressions. It is named Facial Action Coding System (FACS). FACS is a research tool useful for measuring any facial expression a human being can make. It is an anatomically based system for comprehensively describing all observable facial movement. So it helps researchers to test and analyze objectively without experimenter effect.

After analysis of three studies, results showed that the short allele of 5-HTTLPR predicted heightened positive emotional expressions. To sum up, people with “s” allele (genotype is ss or sl) are more sensitive and more easily to affect by environment, experience and stimulus. In order words, the more “s” alleles people have, the more times they laugh.

If you think this research is not very convincing, I find another paper published in 2012 having the similar conclusion. The researchers identified 77 pertinent effect sizes on 9361 subjects from 30 reports, providing data for two meta analyses on the moderating role of 5HTTLPR when it comes to the impact of the environment on development. According to this research, “we found 41 effect sizes (N = 5863) for the association between negative environments and developmental outcomes with or without significant moderation by 5HTTLPR genotype and 36 effect sizes (N = 3498) for the potentially 5HTTLPR-moderated association between positive environments and developmental outcomes”. Then they got a result that people with “s” allele, called them ss/sl carriers were significantly more vulnerable to negative environments than ll carriers, which support the diathesis-stress model. These children are easy to have emotional disorder in adolescence if they would face unfortunate experience. Controversially, they also benefit more if they could grow up in healthy and warm environment. So this result just fits in the previous experiment’s conclusion.

Although we get the conclusion, we still have a lot of space to explore in the neurobiological mechanism to find the specific results. But at least now we know that laugh or not can be caused by our genes, which I never imagine before. So next time when you see someone appears distant to you, it may not mean that he or she doesn’t like you, but means that he or she doesn’t have many “s” alleles. ?

Source1 Source2 Source3

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What is the correlation between the length of time spent together in courtship and the resulting marriage?

According to popular online dating site eharmony, on average couples decide to wait 2.8 years to marry after having showed romantic interest. But today’s question deals with a common dilemma that most of us will have to face at one point of our lives. What is the optimal length of time to date; or a matter of fact IS there such a thing and when does too much dating become detrimental for a marriage. In addition, there are an abundance of third variables and factors that can attribute to a successful marriage such as the timing of the relationship, parental support, and money variables. However, I believe the success of a long term marriage lies within the courtship period between the two mates.

For our purposes, let’s consider the courtship period to be considered the time when you first establish a dating relationship, the period of engagement, and to the eve of your wedding night. My hypothesis is that a longer courtship will ultimately lead to a lasting marriage not ending in divorce.

An article from the New Republic analysis the a study of 952 people in California that have been married for at least three years and found a positive correlation between the length of courtship and reported marital satisfaction. According to the study done by psychologist Scott Randall Hansen, the divorce rates were highest among couples that had spent less than six months dating. These high divorce rates are likely due to impulsiveness or impatience within the relationship that ultimately resulted in an unhappy marriage.

If there is a positive correlation between not dating enough leading to a higher divorce rate, can waiting too long have some adverse effects for a couple’s future?

While most relationships that last up to 3 years usually lead to lasting marriages, relationships that hit 5 or 10 years could potentially not lead to marriage at all. To analyze the reverse causation, data proving that relationships that last let’s say over 5 years would have to result in a higher rate of break up and divorce. To my dismay, I failed to find concrete evidence to support the reverse causality as most of the research happened to be anecdotal relationships posted on online forums.

While we may conjecture to find an optimal amount of time dating before marriage, I believe relationships with people go further beyond statistical measurements and often times are very situational.

Thank you for the read!

-Sammy Lee

Having Lived in Pennsylvania for a little over two years, it can be seen by many, not just myself that the level of drug addiction has skyrocketed in the state let alone the country. According the the Pennsylvania Coroners Association, there were approximately 1946 drug related deaths in 2010, where as in 2014, 2489 people had drug related deaths  (Malawskey,Mapping Pennsylvania’s Worsening Heroin Crisis) . As it can be possibly foreseen, the number of drug users to to increase. With the increase of drug addicts, we see a change in in our neighborhoods , where flourishing towns become havens of drug activity, and taking with it the innocent lives that ae affected. It can be fairly said that we are taught that people become addicted to drugs because of their chemical nature and properties, but should we treat addiction the same way.

During the, 20th century, experiments on drug addiction were tested via the use of lab rats in a closed environment. A rat would be placed in a cage and was given two drinking apparatuses to choose from, one containing normal water, the other containing water laced with drugs such as cocaine or heroin. In these experiments, it was generally seen that the rat  would choose the laced water , and would continue to consume the laced water until it would die. However, in 1981, the results of a study made by a psychologist named Bruce. K Alexander saw that there was a possibility of a compounding variable. Like humans, rats are also social animals that can be affected by social displacement. Alexander then created a new setting in which to test his hypothesis. Instead of placing the rats in a metal cage, he created what is now known as Rat park, a haven for rats that allowed the rats to play, mate, and interact with other rats. With the change in environment, placed two bottles in Rat park, one that was laced with a drug and one that had normal water in it. With the change of environment, Alexander also placed eight male and eight male and eight females in single cages, while placing 8 male and 8 female rats into Rat park, to create a fair sized social group for the rats as well as having a group that could be compared.   While he did observe that the rats would sometimes use the laced water, the rats in Rat park would rather prefer the consumption of the non-drug laced water. ( BRUCE K. ALEXANDER, BARRY L. BEYERSTEIN, PATRICIA F. HADAWAY AND ROBERT B. COAMBS, Effect of Early and Later Colony Housing on Oral Ingestion of Morphine in Rats).

With this experiment in mind, how can we apply it to drug treatment for addiction today. One of the many methods used for drug rehabilitation is rapid detoxification, which uses drug to sedate a person while they go through withdrawal symptoms . While it be seen as a quick fix comapred to in-patient therapy, which can last from 6 to 12 months, however, with the rapid detox, there are issues of relapse. My high school drug education teacher told us that her family had to enter her sister in a inpatient treatment program because of ow many times her sister had relapsed. Our teacher had explained that since her sister’s body did not go through the pain caused by withdrawal,  her sister would constantly relapse. With inpatient treatment, people will stay at a secluded location that offers a addict that chance to become sober while having a socially positive enviroment.  In-patient treatment can be seen as more successful in a few cases because it offers a change of environment for those that are , similar to to how Bruce Alexander created a change in the environments for the rats.

While, the subject of of what addiction truly is may be interpreted in many ways,  I hope that this blog opens the thought on how drug addiction rehabilitation treatment can be changed as well as change the views as to what addiction can be viewed as.

References;

“Choosing Inpatient Rehab vs. Outpatient Rehabilitation.” Choosing Inpatient Rehab vs. Outpatient Rehabilitation. N.p., n.d. http://www.rehabs.com/about/inpatient-vs-outpatient-rehabs/

“Effect of Early and Later Colony Housing on Oral Ingestion of Morphine in Rats”, BRUCE K. ALEXANDER, BARRY L. BEYERSTEIN, PATRICIA F. HADAWAY AND ROBERT B. COAMBS , http://www.brucekalexander.com/pdf/Rat%20Park%201981%20PB&B.pdf  December 5, 1980

Malawskey, Nick. “Mapping Pennsylvania’s Worsening Heroin Crisis.” PennLive.com. N.p., 2016. http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/03/pennsylvanias_heroin_crisis_is.html .

“Opiate Detox and Detoxification.” Opiate Detox and Detoxification. N.p., n.d. http://luxury.rehabs.com/opiate-detox/ .

“Rat Park.” Addiction: The View from (2010). N.p., n.d. http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/rat-park/148-addiction-the-view-from-rat-park .

“Report on Overdose Death Statistics 2014”, Pennsylvania State Coroners Association, http://www.pacoroners.org/Uploads/Pennsylvania_State_Coroners_Association_Drug_Report_2014.pdf

Millions of Americans are facing health problems all over the country. The foods and drinks they are imbibing are impacting their overall well being immensely. One example of this is the consumption of diet soda. Most people are oblivious to what they are putting into their body while consuming this type of soft drink.

The ingredients found in diet soda are different from the ingredients found in regular soda. The ingredients found in regular Coke are composed of natural non synthesized sugars. For example, aspartame, Splenda, saccharin, and Nutrasweet are artificial sweeteners found in diet soft drinks. Consumers may think that artificial sweeteners are better for the body rather than pure sugar, but that’s not true. Here is a list of ingredients in a Diet Coke, which are similar to ingredients in all other diet sodas. Caramel color in diet soda is very harmful to the body. This color is obtained by melting corn with cane sugar. In this caramel coloring, there is 4-methylimidazol. Exposure to this toxin causes serious heath problems. An experimental study was performed by The National Toxicology Program, showing male and female mice that were exposed to 4-Methylimidazol for long durations of time were more likely to develop cancer of the lungs. Caramel color is the one similar ingredient that is found in both diet and regular Coke.

In another study conducted by Dr. Elinav of Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department  of Immunology, found that artificial sweeteners were the catalyst to glucose intolerance and metabolic disease. This was an experimental study performed on mice. One group of mice were given water with artificial sweeteners in it, and the other group of mice were given straight water. He was very thorough with the experiment, as he performed it a number of times with different sets of mice and different dosages of artificial sweeteners. The scientist looked deeper into the issue and found evidence that the problems could be cultivating in the gut microbiota (the place where our bacteria is stored in the digestive track). As the artificial sweeteners travel through the body’s system, they encounter many bacteria. Elinav took the microbiota from the mice who drank the artificially sweetened water, and put it in the mice who drank the clean water. These newly “infected” mice soon developed glucose intolerance as well. This proved that changes to the gut microbiota were responsible for metabolism alterations and an intolerance to glucose. Dr. Elinav then performed an experiment with artificial sweeteners on humans and found similar conclusions about the human microbiota. In conclusion to this study, he found that the majority of volunteers developed glucose intolerance.

A similar, but observational study, was performed, only now measuring diet soda and its correlation to metabolic syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes. Long story short, the correlation between consumption of diet soda and these two diseases were not in fact, due to causality. That did not mean that metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes were completely out of the picture when it came to consumption of diet soda. It all came down to the frequency in which a person drinks it. If diet soda is consumed everyday, then those people are more likely to develop metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

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To make another point, if you ever see the word aspartame in the ingredients list, DON’T BUY THE PRODUCT. Aspartame is a synthetic sugar replacement. Metabolic acidosis is something that occurs when aspartame converts into formaldehyde, which is a preservative that dead bodies are retained in. Formaldehyde then turns into formic acid, a poison released by fire ants when they sting. All of these reactions take place once aspartame surmounts 86 degrees fahrenheit. So, if aspartame is an ingredient in diet soda, do you really want these chemical reactions happening inside your body?

Based on the conclusions of these studies, we can confirm that diet soda is deleterious to one’s health. The diet soft drink is a red flag indicating many health problems down the road for loyal consumers. There are proven studies that link certain health problems to consistent diet soda ingestion. People who enjoy diet soda should consider an alternative such as water, ice tea, or even regular soda. Diet soda is detrimental to your health, and consumption must be limited.

Upon entering college, it’s been hard for me to get my usual 8 hours of sleep. Between studying, sorority meetings, and going out with friends I find that many times sleep falls at the bottom of my priority list. Because of my new habit of staying up late, I find that I tend to eat more since I’m awake for more hours of the day. This hunger then leads me to making some popcorn, eating some ice-cream, or even going as far as ordering Gumby’s famous pokey sticks with my roommate late at night. I’ve started to consider the idea that lack of sleep really does affect your weight gain because of it’s impact on our hunger and decided to look into it further.

Image found here.

It is commonly said that a lack of sleep causes weight gain; but why? I found out that insufficient sleep affects our hunger and 2 hormones in our bodies called, ghrelin and leptin that affect our “fullness” sensation. The first hormone, ghrelin is responsible for releasing signals in our brains that says “it’s time to eat”. Insufficient sleep causes the body to produce more ghrelin. The second hormone, leptin is responsible for telling your brain when to stop eating. When you are sleep deprived the body produces less of this hormone and thus, you tend to eat more. Another hormone that is impacted from little sleep is the stress hormone, cortisol. The levels of this hormone spike which tells your body to conserve energy since you are awake for a longer amount of time. This then leads to your body holding on to more fat, causing weight gain (Web MD).

There have been many studies performed that help prove this hypothesis. One was conducted by the Nurses’ Health Study where researchers followed 60,000 women for 16 years recording different aspects of their lifestyles such as weight, sleep habits, and diet. It is important to know that at the beginning of the study, all women involved were healthy with no weight issues. At the end of the study, 16 years later, it was found that women who slept under 5 hours per night had a 15 percent higher risk of becoming obese in contrast with those who slept more than 7 hours per night. Results also showed that women who had insufficient sleep were at a 30 percent higher risk of gaining 30 pounds over the course of the study than those who slept 7 or more hours (Harvard School of Public Health).

Image found here.

After many tests and studies, scientists and researchers conclude to reject the null hypothesis that lack of sleep has no negative effects on our health and/ or weight gain. There are several potential mechanisms behind this, one being that insufficient sleep directly causes over eating/ weight gain through the over/ under production of certain hormones in our bodies that control our hunger. Another regarding a third z variable that because people are awake for longer periods of time during the day, they eat more, which then causes weight gain. Another potential possibility could be that perhaps short sleepers are too tired to exercise or perform any physical activity and thus, end up sitting around or laying down more frequently causing weight gain. Further possibilities such as reverse causation, meaning that weight gain/ obesity causes a lack of sleep, are unlikely as I have not found any research that could provide possible causes for that. As always, chance is a possibility and it could be a coincidence that people who get a short amount of sleep tend to gain more weight than those who get 7+ hours.

After researching this topic I decided I should start prioritizing my sleep more if I want to avoid the “freshmen 15”. While I have yet to show any significant weight gain since my late night habits, it is reasonable to conclude that getting insufficient sleep long term can have some negative side effects such as weight gain. Although chance is still a possibility in terms of weight gain, it is still a good idea to get between 7-9 hours of sleep each night. With that being said, sweet dreams!

I think you may hear of that someone says “people who are blood group A are mosquitoes’ magnets”, or someone mention that O type of blood always attract mosquitoes. Many of my friends have complained that their own blood types are mosquitoes’ favorite, but they have different types of blood，including A, B, O and AB (covering all types of blood). Certainly, some people are badly bitten by the mosquitoes especially in the summer. Is it because there is a specific type of blood attracting mosquitoes mostly?

In order to find the correlation or relationship between mosquitoes and blood types, some scientists did the experiment which had been published in “Nature “in 1972. The experimenters chose pairs of subjects who contrasted in ABO blood group statues to see whether physiological factors could affect the selection of human hosts for feeding by mosquito. To be specific, 102 subjects put their arms into a box which contained 20 female mosquitoes during the ten minutes’ testing time. Analysis of the blood group data reveals that the mosquitoes preferentially selected hosts of blood group O. However, the basis of this result is not obvious, although they took more than 100 times experiments (repeated experiments). Additionally, this experiment was done in the seventies of last century, the period that people had still explored mosquitoes. So this conclusion is not very convincing.

Before I try to explain the reason that mosquito like some certain types of blood, I’d like to find out that what in our body attract mosquitoes, like the heat we release， chemical components of our sweat, or something else.

Actually among these factors, CO2 (carbon dioxide) is the main clue for mosquito to find you. The airflow of CO2 can largely help mosquito to find direction and lock target. In field experiment, mosquito trap containing CO2 can trap more than 8 to 45 times of numbers of mosquitoes than mosquito trap without containing CO2. Although different types of mosquitoes may have a little difference, they usually depend on CO2 to find targets. Cooperating with 1-octen-3-ol and lactic acid (a component of human sweat), mosquitoes are easier to find targets. DEET, (N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) the world’s most widely used topical insect repellent, with broad effectiveness against most insects, strongly inhibits the co-receptor of mosquitoes so that DEET can work well.

So a man dripping with sweat are mosquitoes favorite because their sweat and CO₂ releasing by gasping for breath have fatal attraction for mosquitoes. Also, people with faster metabolism rate easily attract mosquitoes.

Now let’s go back to the experiment I mention above. The leader of the experiment in 1972 is Corinne Shear Wood, a pioneering medical anthropologist. She did other experiments to improve the existed experiment and eliminate confounding variables, just like the experiment we saw in the SC200 class which repeating and modifying to get real conclusion. In the experiment, she segmented the landing and blood meal of mosquitoes; on close examination, she also chose the test sample with different skin pigmentation, age, sex, skin temperature, degrees of subcutaneous fat and relative nutritional status. But none of these factors could be demonstrated to be acting as host determinants. In “New Evidence for a Late Introduction of Malaria into the New World”, she points out that the result of investigation suggest that a factor which has definite attraction or repulsion value to the mosquito is related, to statistically significant degree, to the subject’s ABO blood-group status. In conclusion, it reveals that the hosts with blood-group O are often chosen by mosquito. And blood-group O has more dominant attraction than blood group A and B.

After 20 years, in 2004 Japanese scientist Yoshikazu Shirai had started to study this question again. He did three different studies that are landing preference among ABO blood groups, among secretors or nonsecretors, and among ABH antigens. He got the result that despite differences in the methods used in these studies, the landing preferences are the same; that is, O > B > AB > A. It seems that we have already gotten correct answer. But, actually, not. His experiment has different result with Wood’s. In his result, although O has much attraction than A, O doesn’t have more obvious attraction than B and AB. In addition, according to his report, Shirai said “ even the landing tests on ABH antigens do not provide an explanation for the landing preference among ABO blood groups, and there may be other unknown influences underlying the differences of ABO landing preference. In fact, ABH antigens are thought to exist on human skin in low concentrations, and we suppose that mosquitoes cannot perceive them.”

In a short, he thought that his report could not prove that blood group affect mosquito feeding habits because of the lack of clear preference among human blood groups exhibited in his study.

To sum up, currently our studies about blood groups and mosquito feeding habits are superficial. It is probably because we don’t have large sample size, or we cannot control many confounding variables. So now we don’t have exactly causal relation between blood group and mosquito feeding habits.

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Now a days we all know someone who has gone through and survived or lost their battle with cancer. Cancer is caused by an out of control cell growth, but unfortunately that is not the only thing that will cause cancer. Some other things that cause cancer are smoking, infections, and even lack of exercise. However, now there is concern that some deodorants cause breast cancer. The reason why is because the certain substances can be absorbed into the skin or through nicks in your skin from shaving. In fact most antiperspirants are linked to breast cancer because deodorant is applied there frequently. Surprisingly scientists have not found concrete evidence that deodorants cause cancer.

Some scientists believe that from the aluminum based compounds in deodorants that are left on the skin cause hormonal effects. Estrogen can promote the growth of cancer cells, which is why if an accelerated rate of estrogen develops, then you are more likely to get breast cancer. Another thing that researchers have focused on are parabens. According to the article parabens are found in deodorants and antiperspirants that act like estrogen in the body’s cells. Even though these things are found in food, the FDA has said that deodorants do not contain parabens as well. However, the author of the study of the parabens did not study healthy breast tissue or breast tissue that has cancer.

There are many other factors that contribute to the cause of cancer. Smoking, gene mutations, family histories, and sunburns can cause cancer as well. Something like family history, which could act like a third variable, could also play a factor in getting breast cancer besides deodorants. Age also is a big factor because it takes years for cancer to develop. Gene mutation can be something you are born with or something that you get later in life from what you are exposed to. There are cells in genes that recognize when a mistake had been made so they can repair that mistake. Nevertheless, a mistake can be missed that causes cancer. This means that it does not have to be deodorant that causes cancer, it can be due to many other factors.

According to the American Cancer Society, there is no connection between breast cancer and deodorants. When it comes to applying deodorant after shaving, the only thing that might happen is infection, but more likely irritation. When it comes to the parabens, the American Cancer Society says that deodorants and antiperspirants do not contain them and if they did, paraben would be clearly stated on the label. But this does not mean that cancer is not still a threat to society. Having awareness towards this issue is the best defense we have against cancer. Knowing the signs and symptoms are the best way to know so you can catch it early. Keeping that in mind, hopefully after reading this blog post, you do not have to worry about your deodorant giving you cancer.

Sources:

Cancer picture found here.

Types of Cancer and Ribbons picture found here.

Pink Ribbon found here.

Though I do not agree with it, tattoos always seem to get the short end of the stick along with the people who have them. Parents never want their children to get tattoos because they are often scared it will change them, by making them more rebellious. Employers are scared to hire people with tattoos because for some unknown reason they might not be as trustworthy as the other applicant that does not have tattoos. Is there any truth to this at all though? Are people with tattoos really more rebellious or untrustworthy? Or do they just have a bad stereotype and it is all in our minds?

Viren Swami, a professor of psychology at University of Westminster, conducted an experiment in which he sought to find truth, if there was any, in whether people with tattoos are more aggressive than people without tattoos. He surveyed a group of 378 adults from London to get information about their aggression levels and rebellious nature. Out of 378 people, 25.7% of them had a tattoo, so only about a quarter which seems like kind of small sample size. The null hypothesis would be that tattoos do not have any correlation with aggression or rebelliousness, nothing is going on. The alternative hypothesis would be that tattoos do have a part in peoples aggression and rebellion. The results of Swami’s experiment were interesting. Adults with tattoos showed higher levels of reactive aggression and rebellion than those with no tattoos. However, when it came to proactive anger and rebellion, there did not seem to be a huge difference between the groups. So according to this study, those with tattoos may be quicker to react more aggressively in certain situations but not be proactive with their aggression.

So if people with tattoos are more likely to have higher aggression levels, is it the tattoos that are causing that? Or, are people who are more naturally aggressive and rebellious more likely to get tattoos? A third variable might also be responsible such as past life events. Finally, it might just be due to chance. However, I don’t believe that this study had a big enough sample size to conclude any solid information. I’m not sure surveying people always brings out the most honest answers too, but there might not have been a better way to gather the information. This study also didn’t take into account the reasoning behind why people got the tattoos. That could also affect the outcome. I wonder if the size or shape of the tattoo might affect this study. The bigger the tattoo, the more aggressive?

Another similar study was done at the University of Cincinnati by Keith King. King was studying if college students with tattoos were more likely to be involved with risky behaviors, such as drugs, than students without tattoos. Almost 30% of the 988 students that were surveyed had a tattoo. He found that those with tattoos were more likely to be linked with risky behavior. Again, it is possible the risky behavior was causing the tattoos, this study couldn’t say for sure.

Despite all of this information that I just talked about, I don’t think it’s okay to judge anybody on whether they have tattoos or not. People that don’t have tattoos get angry and do drugs too, it’s not a one and done deal. I think tattoos can be very beautiful and usually have incredible stories attached to them. I would need to see several other studies saying the same thing to believe this. I don’t think these studies should discourage employers from giving jobs to people with tattoos. Everyone is different and it’s important that we get to know one another on the inside, not just the outside.

Sources:

Study #1: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S174014451500100X 

Study #2: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0362331913001353 

Picture: www.tattoo.com/photo

from here

Like most of you ladies, I wear a bra every day, for every occasion. T-shirt bra, sports bra, trainer bra- we’ve worn them all! As a woman, breast health is extremely important, and nearly all of us have been affected by breast cancer in some way. In my situation, my grandmother has had breast cancer twice, and my Aunts have had breast tumors removed.

I wrote my last blog about how our deodorant could possibly be causing breast cancer, and while that could potentially be a real threat to our breasts, I am confident that we can rest assured knowing that if anything, we are safe from our bras.

Although nearly every American women wears a bra and is fine, there are always rumors of a correlation between breast cancer and wearing a bra. Even though this rumor is ever popular on the internet, exemplified by All Women’s Health, there is absolutely no proof that there is a correlation between wearing a bra and breast cancer. When it comes to breast cancer and our bras,  according to  Breast Cancer.org  it is theorized that bras with underwire (the average bra) blocks the drainage of lymph fluids from the breasts, trapping the fluids in the breast. Theoretically, this blockage leads to the development of breast cancer.

from here

Bra Wearing Not Associated with Breast Cancer Risk: A Population-Based Case–Control Stud is the only study conducted on this topic because of the conclusiveness of the study. According to the study, there is barely any credible scientific studies besides this one. The goal of the study was to analyze the relationship between cancer risk and wearing a bra. The null hypothesis was that wearing a bra does not cause breast cancer, and the alternative hypothesis is that wearing a bra does cause cancer.

The participants of the study were questioned on nearly every aspects of their bra-wearing habits, including size, brand, frequency of use, material, how many hours a day the bra was worn, if the bra had underwire, etc. With an impressively large p-value, the scientists failed to reject the null hypothesis. Thankfully for us, this experiment concluded that it was extremely unlikely that wearing a bra was linked to breast cancer. It was realized that there was only a minuscule difference between the breast health of women that wore bras, and women that did not wear bras.

So good news- we can keep wearing our bras. And even better news- this study escaped the file drawer!

from here

In class, Andrew has been bringing up what we call “the file drawer problem”. The file drawer problem is a type of publication bias, and has impacted the scientific community negatively. The file drawer problem is an issue in the sense that it embodies the concept of selective publication. Robert Rosenthal coined the term in 1979, and it is used to describe a situation where scientists will not publish their papers if they find negative, or “boring” results. Not every experiment will be able to reject the null hypothesis, but it is extremely important that experiments that don’t make waves still be published. For example, we now know that wearing our bras is fine, but, if this study had never been published, then this health rumor would still just be a rumor, and would not be able to be proven false with the hard evidence provided in this study. The file drawer problem is a real issue in the scientific community because it is ultimately just a loss of information that could be referenced to or used in in other various observations. Just because we get a result we don’t like doesn’t mean that that result isn’t important!

from here

Dogs are man’s best friend. There is no denying that because, whether you like dogs or not, our species have been working and living together for tens of thousands of years. Genome sequencing of modern dogs tells us they diverged from their cousins, the wolves, about 27000-40000 years ago, which means it’s possible humans were influencing lupine evolution even back then. From hunting accessories to pets to cuddle with, dog and man have been inseparable since we came together millennia ago. But they are not just in an occasional mutual relationship with us, as a recent study discovered, it might be in their genes to be close to us.

The research team, from Linköping University, in Sweden, conducted an experiment with beagles to find out how willing they would be to seek human assistance when presented with a challenge they could not solve. The researchers put the dogs in controlled environments with a human they had never seen before; they were then presented with three sliding doors with treats behind them, one of which was fixed and could not be moved by any means available to them. The most common reaction was for the dogs, after trying in vain to open the fixed door, to turn to the human for help. After the experiment, the dogs were scored based on their likeliness to seek human assistance and the few with the top and bottom scores had their genomes analysed. After compiling the results, the researchers came to the conclusion that five specific genes were likely linked to the observed behaviour – four of which are known to be associated with autism in humans. It is unclear if they can have the same effect on dogs as of yet.

While about 70% of the behaviour in dogs has to do with experience and psychology rather than genes, this may be the sign of a mutualistic relationship far deeper than previously known. A specialist in canine genetics from Cambridge University said that while this does shed some light on the depth of human-dog relationships, the experiment conducted investigated only a specific factor in how dogs perceive men, and that the full picture likely involves many more genes acting in their genomes to make them attracted to humans. This is only the tip of the iceberg on the subject, which may go deeper than expected. The Swedish researchers are now planning on doing similar tests on different breeds of dog to find if this is as widespread as assumed. It’s hard to say how far the rabbit hole will go, but one thing is for sure: our relationship with dogs is even more unique than it has ever known to be.

When it comes to studying for a major exam, I prefer to study by myself in fear that if I studied in a group setting I would become distracted and branch off into a conversation that would not be related too the material on the exam. While this is my preferred way of studying, many of my friends express the effectiveness of studying in a group setting and how it expands their understanding of the information because you can discuss the information with classmates.

Pro’s for Studying in Groups: A problem that many students face is procrastination. Living away from home and being in college, you have so much time on your hands and it is up to you on what you do with it. I know many students have procrastinated until the last minute before an exam and being in a study group just might be the answer to your solution. Studying in a group requires responsibility and you have to meet up at a specific time to study for a specific amount of hours.  Also, while working with other students and studying the same material gives you the opportunity to ask questions if you become confused on a certain segment of the textbook. You can also learn from others and pick up your peers study techniques that work for them.

Group Study

Pro’s for Studying Alone: A problem that many students face when it comes to study groups is distraction. Meeting up with your friends to study can quickly go from studying Economics and trying to understand the Law of  Demand, to a discussion about fantasy football rankings. Studying solo allows you to minimize distractions around you. You can focus on the information that you need more practice on, instead of reviewing material you might already know but have to clarify for a friend who doesn’t. Lastly, you can go at your own pace and take breaks when you desire.

Solo Study

Both study styles have advantageous and disadvantages and each individual student has their own way of studying that works to their advantage. If you study in a group it is important to find the right group members that can challenge you and further your knowledge of the material. If you are studying alone, staying on task and not procrastinating is the most important tip to keep in mind.

One way of determining which study style is most effective is running an observational study with a response variable.  How you could do this would be to take a group of students in the same class, with the same knowledge of the material and give them the same study guide and then split them up into two groups; students that study alone vs students that study in groups. Give each group the same amount of time to study for an exam and compare the average grade of the two groups after they take the exam.

Links:

https://www.speedyprep.com/blog/7-benefits-of-study-groups/

http://getcollegecredit.com/blog/article/studying_alone_vs._group_study_which_is_better

http://www.topuniversities.com/blog/joining-study-group-benefits

Anyone who has any familiarity with wrestling knows two things. Wrestlers are hard workers and they’re known to cut weight. I wrestled at the weight class 126 for my first three years in high school and my senior year I wrestled at 132. My freshman year I never had to cut weight and my sophomore year it was about four to five pounds every week. This is very minimal. The big jump was my junior year, where I started out weighing about 150 and had to descend to 126. I knew nothing about cutting weight and I Yo-yo’d every week . “Yo-yoing” means making your weight and then you eat/drink so much your weight shoots up to it’s natural weight. I was miserable and didn’t know how to get the weight down in a healthy way so I could compete at my best.

Over the off season between my junior and senior year in high school I began experimenting  I had gained quite a bit of weight (155) and began to worry. I decided I was going to wrestle 132, so I was a little relieved I didn’t have more to cut than what I was doing previously. Throughout the summer I learned a lot about what foods to eat and not eat and broke it down to a science. Six small meals a day with 34 ounces of water daily. Here’s a sample day for meals. 1)  Low fat  oz Muscle Milk and half an apple 2) Cliff bar 3) half a ham sandwich on whole wheat bread, 7 almonds, 8 oz water 4) Low fat 8 oz Muscle Milk 5) Half an apple, 7 almonds, 8 oz water 6) Small salad, 6 oz chicken breast, 17 oz water. This doesn’t seem like much, but with discipline it makes a difference. I went from not eating two days before a meet to having a full meal the night before weigh ins. The following article is part of one of many websites that taught me how to cut weight healthily

I’ve looked for a study specific to this topic ,however I couldn’t find something close to it. I believe it could be easily conducted. It would be an experimental study, because you’re manipulating the independent variable, which would be the method of cutting weight.  The dependent variable would be performance on the mat. The data could be recorded simply win and loss or by how many points scored, pins, etc. The control group would be wrestling who do not have to cut weight. There would be two experimental groups. The first would be wrestlers who cut weight by yo-yoing and eating responsibly and the second would be wrestlers restricted to a diet of six small,healthy meals a day. I believe that the wrestlers put on a restricted diet would have the best results.

This topic may seem foreign to many people, however to wrestlers it’s very important. Cutting weight the wrong way may have impacts on other things on a day to day basis such as sleep, grades, and interaction with family and friends. I hope there are a few of you who can relate to this and those completely new I’d like to read feedback.

Sources-

http://www.mattgentry.com/coachs-corner/wrestling-cutting-meal-plan/

Picture Source-

http://www.blackshoediaries.com/2016/3/6/11169122/penn-state-wrestling-big-ten-champions-sanderson-retherford-mcintosh