I’m sure we have all heard the five second rule at some point in our lives, and it states that if you drop food on the ground, you’ll have five seconds to pick it up and still be able to eat it. Obviously if you drop something outside or on a very dirty floor, you should not eat it because the food will definitely be dirty, however I was curious to see if there was some truth to this myth. If food was dropped on a normal floor, I wondered if it would actually take five seconds for germs to accumulate on it.

A study was done by Jillian Clarke to determine if this myth is true. She covered floor tiles with E.coli and then dropped gummy bears and cookies onto the contaminated floor. She removed the food from the floor after five seconds and observed that a lot of bacteria had gotten onto the food despite the fact that it was only on the floor for five seconds. This experiment shows that the five second rule is not true because bacteria still managed to get on the food within five seconds.

A concern about this experiment may be that floors will not be as dirty as the one Clarke used, and that for the most part floors are kept relatively clean, especially in houses which is where the five second rule is most commonly used. A study done by the Hygiene Council showed that common kitchen floors have a lot of bacteria on them. They have 830 per square inch, which is double that of inside a trashcan. This shows that floors are usually dirty and that bacteria would contaminate the food.

These two studies provide pretty solid evidence that the five second rule is not true. Bacteria clearly got onto foo within five seconds, and floors contain enough bacteria for this to happen. Based on this I would not trust the five second rule and I recommend that nobody else does too despite who says its okay or how good the food looks.

source 1: http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/five-second-rule2.htm

source 2: http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/five-second-rule.htm

I have heard this all my life. Every single time I crack my knuckles my mom yells at me saying that I am going to get arthritis if I continue to do this. I have been cracking my knuckles pretty much all of my life, and it has become sort of a habit. So it made me wonder if there was actually truth to what she was saying. She is a nurse, so I figured she maybe has some sort of medical facts that support it, however I have also heard many people say that this is only a myth. This intrigued me, so I decided to investigate and find out if cracking your knuckles truly causes arthritis.

A study was done by Dr. Donald Unger to determine if cracking knuckles caused arthritis. He decided to use himself for the experiment. For 50 years he would crack his knuckles on his left hand, but not on his right hand. Dr. Unger reported that he cracked the knuckles on his left hand at least 36,500 times. The result of this study was that despite him cracking the knuckles on his left hand, he did not have any arthritis or differences in either of his hands.

That study was only done of one person, so I still wanted to see more evidence from a larger study of people. A study was done by the Uniformed services University of the Health Sciences. The study looked at 215 people, 20% of them cracked their knuckles regularly. The result of the study was that 18.1% of the people that cracked their knuckles had arthritis while 21.5% of the people who didn’t crack their knuckles had arthritis. The conclusion of this study is that people who crack their knuckles do not have a better chance of getting arthritis than people who don’t.

After looking at both of these studies, I think that it is safe to say that cracking your knuckles will not cause you to get arthritis. There could still be evidence that we have not yet found that proves otherwise, but for now we can say that this is true. Although I think it would be good to do a larger study of this to be more certain. Cracking knuckles may not be beneficial, but it does not seem to be harmful, so now when my mom tells me to stop, I can provide her with some factual evidence of why it is okay.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/259603.php

I like to laugh a lot, and honestly, who doesn’t? Nonetheless, I have always been known to laugh more than the average teenager. Unfortunately, this is not always a good quality. When I hear bad news or someone else tells me a sad story, my first instinct is to try and laugh it off. Although humor can be used as a coping mechanism, there are some circumstances where I have gotten myself in some trouble. Anyways, in the majority of situations, scientists, and the public in general, believe that laughter has numerous health benefits, but is there any validity behind this belief, and is it fair to say that laughter is actually the best medicine?

There are many theories that laughing is healthy, with numerous short and long term benefits. According to the Mayo Clinic, laughter can increase the endorphins that are released by the brain, which can trigger a positive feeling in people’s bodies. Laughing is also thought to increase oxygen intake and stimulate muscles, lungs, and the heart. Additionally, laughter can help to relax muscles, relieving stress and tension in the body. On the other hand, one possible long term effect of laughing is that it helps the body produce its own natural painkillers. Similarly, by releasing neuropeptides, the body can possibly prevent disease more effectively for people who laugh a lot. Unfortunately, none of these beliefs are supported by any evidence in this instance.

Most people, even some scientists and professionals in medicine, just accept the fact that laughter is beneficial. Luckily, there are multiple studies in regards to the relationship between laughter and health benefits that at least strive to provide some evidence of the null hypothesis, that laughter does not cause health benefits, or the alternative hypothesis, that laughter does cause health benefits. In one small study of 20 people between the ages of 60 and 80, conducted by researchers at Loma Linda University, the participants each took a quick memory test and saliva samples to measure their levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. Half were asked to watch a funny video, while the other half were supposed to sit silently. After about twenty minutes, the participants took another memory test and their cortisol levels were measured again. The group that laughed from the funny video improved by 43.6% in recalling events, while the group that sat silently only improved by 20.3%. The group that laughed also had a larger decrease in stress levels than the group that sat silently. Another small study conducted by Vanderbilt University indicated that laughing for about 10-15 minutes a day can burn up to 40 calories.

Other small studies, according to Susan Brink, suggested even more benefits of laughter. In a 2005 study, scientists calculated the blood flow of 20 people before and after they watched a sad and a funny movie. They discovered that after watching the funny movie, the average blood flow for each person had increased by 22%, whereas after the sad movie, the average blood flow was more restricted for 14 out of the 20 volunteers. Interestingly, a 2003 study of 33 women showed that not just laughing, but laughing out loud, had more natural killer cell activity, which helps people fight diseases. Lastly, according to Noreen Fraser, scientists have conducted multiple studies, which started in the 1970s, involving the relationship between laughing and brain waves. These scientists claim that laughter creates a sense of well-being by releasing endorphins from the brain.

While there are a substantial number of studies supporting the belief that laughter might, in fact, be the best medicine, none of these studies have been large enough. Also, many studies that supposedly “prove” that laughter is the best medicine are not conducted correctly. For instance, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center, in one of the few large-scale studies regarding this topic, researchers found that laughing will reduce the risk of heart disease. In an observational study of 300 people, where half had already either had a heart attack or heart surgery and half had not, the participants were given a questionnaire to rate themselves on how much they laugh in certain situations. Not surprisingly, the people who have never experienced a heart attack or heart surgery laughed more. I say “not surprisingly” because this study shows that people who have undergone heart surgery or a heart attack are less likely to laugh a lot, which is a fairly obvious conclusion. Yet, the researchers claim that this study proves the opposite, that laughter reduces the chance of getting a heart attack or heart surgery, which is absurd based on the manner in which the study was organized.

Besides incorrectly conducted studies, some studies simply do not provide enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis that laughter does not provide people with health benefits, or to fail to reject the null hypothesis. According to William Strean, researchers believe that studies determining whether laughter is the best medicine or not barely provide any evidence that laughter has positive health benefits. However, Strean does go on to admit that there really aren’t any negative effects of laughter. Thus, people can take the risk of laughing as it can really only cause positive health effects. Well, most of the time… (look at picture below).

Consequently, in my opinion, I believe people should laugh, but not because it is the best medicine. In class, we discussed how unhappiness does not actually correlate with sickness, despite many people’s belief that it does. This is a similar situation. I think it is safe to say, based off of studies that have been conducted so far, that laughter is definitely not the best medicine. The original saying was probably meant as an exaggeration, but in the literal sense of the phrase, I would consider it to be incorrect. However, numerous studies have indicated that laughter could cause certain health benefits. Although more research needs to be done, laughter can’t hurt anybody. Therefore, I would advise everyone to laugh, as people could easily gain health benefits from doing so, and if not, the worst that happens is that they wasted a few seconds of breath, which is not the end of the world.

It should come to no surprise that I, just like everyone on this planet, love drinking water and spreading the good word about the benefits this miracle liquid offers to those who drink enough of it daily. Yet, it recently dawned on me that when I am drinking water, most of the time it is straight from the tap. Given a number of controversies with what is found in tap water, it got me thinking about the involvement of fluoride within my everyday life, and just how frequently this chemical seeps its way into my body. So in this post, I wish to propose the question of whether or not tap water with fluoride in it actually has any sort of foreseeable negative side effects, and whether or not I should make the swift switch towards buying bottled water instead of bottling it myself straight from the tap.

A Picture of Me After an Hour Without Water. Source: https://cdn.meme.am/instances/50019299.jpg.

Fluoride has been introduced into the United States’ water supply since 1945 where it has since steadily rose over the course of 60 years to be included in almost all major United States cities as it currently is today. The arguments arose for the inclusion of fluoride into the public supply before the 50s, and it’s introduction is mainly credited to a Dr. H. Trendley Dean, who, according to the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, conducted a large scale study of schoolchildren in Grand Rapids, Michigan by making the city the first in the nation to introduce fluoride into its water supply. As a result of the 30,000 children monitored over the course of a decades long period, tooth decay had declined significantly, about 60%, and since then, fluoride was introduced, and has remained, within our water supply – like two peas in a pod.

If Those Peas were Elementally Treated, of course. Source: http://files.recipetips.com/kitchen/images/refimages/kitchen_advice/fruit_veg/peas/prep%20and%20cook/pod%20peas/sugar%20snap%20cole%20slaw/rinsing.jpg.

Just last year however, the United States government, for the first time since the fluoride measure was introduced, actually lowered the recommended amount of fluoride in our water supply from between 0.7mg/L – 1.2 mg/L to just 0.7mg/L as the highest limit, according to the United States Dept. of Health & Human Services. The government argues that the introduction of various sources of fluoride through the use of mouthwashes, tooth paste, and other drinking sources within the last few decades is actually doing more harm than good for our children, and thus the descaling of the fluoride is necessary for societal health.

Even with all of this influence of fluoride in our everyday lives – is it actually damaging? Not necessarily. Out of numerous studies, which are highlighted in a nice meta-analysis of about 50 total studies done over the past few decades being compiled by the American Cancer Society, hardly any conclude with solid evidence that fluoride within water supplies actually causes cancer, or any other types of bodily damages for that matter. Only in extremely high doses, according to the Cancer Council of Western Australia, is fluoride actually at risk of causing some damage to your bones or teeth over a prolonged period of time.

Fun Fact: Western Australia also gave us the Great Emu War. Thanks, Western Australia. Source: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/files/2014/08/emu-wars-running-ponies.jpg.

So, what have we learned today? Water is of course a fantastic resource responsible for almost all life on Earth, and without it we would surely parish. However, drinking tap water, or even bottled water, which also contains unregulated amounts of fluoride according to the Center for Disease Control, at this time is perfectly safe and not harmful in any way, shape, or form. Thus, the hypothesis that I portrayed above is to be determined as a null hypothesis – meaning that there is no actual relationship between an unhealthy life and the consumption of water containing levels of fluoride. Had there been sufficient enough evidence, or even if stronger evidence somehow arises in the future, then perhaps my current water drinking habits would be likely to change. Based on the evidence I have compiled through the numerous studies done over the past half century, it would be foolish for me to actually stop drinking tap, or even bottled, water at this point in time due to the fact it contains fluoride. Unless I start consuming toothpaste or mouthwash at an alarming rate, or move to an area plagued with high concentrations of fluoride, I should have nothing to worry about for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for reading this post! Have any comments or questions? Disagree with something I said? Want to learn more about the Great Emu War? Feel free to leave a reply!

Social media, in my opinion, is the face of our planet right now.  It is used for everything. People advertise, communicate, argue, do research, start relationships, get jobs, stalk their favorite celebrities etc.  It is the new form of human interaction and it has swept the developed world.  Twitter has 313 million active users, Facebook has 1.7 billion users, and Instagram has 500 million just to name a few.

http://marketingland.com/beginners-guide-social-media-marketing-10000-small-businesses-program-143217

With the mass popularity of these platforms, some people are bound to use some them more than others.  But are there people out there who actually have an addiction?

An addiction based upon a dictionary definition is, “The state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.”

Based upon this definition, one would have to be trapped by this habit, and the act of doing something such as not being able to access social media, or the deletion of an account would traumatize them.  Dr. Pamela B. Rutledge wrote an article for Psychology today taking a stance for the other side of this argument.  She believes people throw around the word, “addiction” too often in regards to social media.  She believes its the same as someone saying they are addicted to chocolate.  Sure, they may enjoy chocolate and indulge in it more than they should every now and again, but if chocolate was taken away from these people they wouldn’t go through withdrawal.  The same holds true for social media.  The article also goes into depth on how using social media is just a new and exciting way to communicate, so if people are spending time on it then so be it.

On the other side there has been studies conducted trying to prove the opposite, that some users are truly addicts.  Dr. Rutledge referenced a study where 200 students at the University of Maryland were asked to go 24 hours without any access to any media, and then write a reflection on their experiences.  Although not empirical, the results were very interesting.  Some students reported having mood changes, feeling sad, depressed, lonely, and confused to name a few.  Others reported that they naturally ended up browsing the web or accessing other forms of media without even thinking about it, and had to stop themselves after instinctively doing the action.  Some reported a “Phantom Ringing” phenomenon, where they felt a buzz in their pocket, or heard a ring that wasn’t there.  Personally I have felt a “phantom” buzz in my pocket on different occasions, and I had no idea it was a phenomenon.  And of course, some of the participants straight up couldn’t make it the 24 hours.

Although some of these students reports use words that may fall under addiction, its hard to tell if it could be a medically diagnosed addiction.   The problem with answering this question, is how new social media is.  Spending hours at a time scrolling through feeds, and feeling the need to check social media every 5 minutes, is definitely unhealthy.   Although on the other hand social media is a form of communication and a lot of good things can come from it.  If you’re spending hours online talking to people, building relationships, building a personal brand etc. Is that really a bad thing?

Because social media is so two sided, there is no true evidence to support my hypothesis that social media can become an addiction.  I personally believe it could definitely be an addiction, as I find myself instinctively checking social media, without even realizing what I’m doing, and my friends do the same.  We have the ability to control ourselves, and going back to the definition, I don’t feel enslaved by the habit. Although, I would bet there are people out there who can’t and truly are dependent on social media.

This topic actually applies to me right now… with all the cramming and parties that college students are a part of during the week and weekend it’s hard to get enough sleep, or so we think. Last night I went to sleep at around 4:30 in the morning cramming for an exam and I woke up way earlier than I usually do for work and had amazing energy throughout the day. This confuses me so much. Parents and teachers are always throwing the whole “get a good night’s sleep” in which they mean 8 or more hours of sleep. We’ve been told this since before we can remember, and yes getting 8 hours or more of sleep is extremely important, but most of the time it’s almost impossible for students and even adults with work, families, etc. I’ve heard from a lot of friends throughout high school and especially now that when someone gets less sleep than usual they are usually more alert the next day. Why is this?

It is shown that the less sleep you get the more active some parts of your brain become, while others become more inactive. When you sleep longer than you should or less than you should, you disturb your sleeping patterns, or circadian rhythm. This causes you to either wake up during a REM(deep sleep) cycle and feel even more tired or to wake up before you even hit the deep sleep cycle and be more alert. However, I’m not saying people shouldn’t sleep…especially students. Sleep actually enhances a person’s memory and learning ability. The more you sleep the better your brain can perform and the more information you can retain. When you’re fully awake is the best time to encounter new information and begin to memorize it, when you’re sleeping is when you actually retain the memory and it sticks in your brain. Sleep is still very important and necessary in everyone’s life. Would you pull all-nighters if you knew you’d be less tired in the morning?

Reference Sites:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sleep-deprivation-amps-up-brain/

http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep/learning-memory

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-michael-j-breus/how-come-i-feel-more-tire_b_428928.html

When I first heard about the anti-vaccination movement, I was floored. It was stunning to me that people were advocating for something that could be so dangerous to public health and the safety of children. From a young age, I was taught that getting my vaccinations was important, and even though I didn’t like the needles, I complied so that I didn’t get an infectious and dangerous disease. I still believe in vaccines to this day and have many questions about the validity of this anti-vaccine movement. Why do some people choose not to have their children vaccinated? Why are they so opposed to vaccines? And finally, do anti-vaccine proponents have a solid scientific basis for their beliefs? For this post, I decided to do some research and find out.

I decided to start with understanding the other side’s viewpoints, so I could determine whether or not they had any legitimacy to them. For my source of anti-vaccination arguments, I found this pretty thorough blog that didn’t seem all that credible in terms of presenting actual scientific research, but it did highlight all the key arguments of the anti-vaccination viewpoint. Upon clicking on the blog, I was smacked in the face by the first, and one of the most prominent arguments, against vaccines: vaccines cause autism.

The notion that vaccines can cause the development of autism has been around for quite some time and has been hotly debated. This belief originated from a study done in 1998 by British scientist Andrew Wakefield. The study followed twelve children and found a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccinations and the later development of behavioral disorders, most notably autism. Already, the study had a fundamental flaw in that it followed so few children and was absolutely riddled with confounding variables. Scientists picked up on the many flaws in the experiment, and Wakefield was criticized by others who even went so far as to declare fraud. This review of evidence in the field cited multiple studies where a causal link between vaccines and autism was not shown. The analysis then goes on to conclude that there is not enough evidence to declare that the vaccines are setting up children to develop autism. Both of these criticisms are examples of how peer review can stop the spread of false information, as Wakefield’s article has seen been retracted from the journal it was originally published in.

Another argument I found on the anti-vaccine blog was that there are dangerous chemicals found in vaccines that could be harmful, such as carcinogens. This post argued that the government and the media claims these substances are harmless, but that we can’t trust them to be telling the truth about the matter. To me, this sounds a bit too much like a conspiracy theory to be credible. In addition, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention published a pretty thorough article on the ingredients in vaccines and why some that may seem dangerous are actually in small enough doses that it doesn’t harm us. Instead, they enhance the effectiveness. However, this is a government website that supports the use of vaccines, so there is also bias in this report. In the end, though, the government information comes across as more credible than a random blog.

So, anti-vaccination arguments don’t hold up in the face of evidence. As it turns out, neither does the actual practice of not vaccinating your children. In 2014 and early 2015, the United States experienced an outbreak of measles. According to this article, it was a disease thought to be eradicated in the US around the year 2000. However, 2014 saw the most cases of measles since 2000, and according to the same fact sheet, most of the people who get measles are unvaccinated. This outbreak certainly seems to shed a ton of doubt on the legitimacy of the anti-vaccination movement.

What I found in my research points to one conclusion: an anti-vaccination stance is not a smart one. While believers in the movement may try to prove certain arguments like vaccines cause autism or that they have dangerous chemicals, these ideas are not upheld by the scientific community. In addition, not vaccinating children led to an outbreak of a disease that vaccines helped to minimize entirely. Unfortunately, many of the people in this movement seem to be deniers; no matter how much evidence tears down their arguments, they will still believe what they believe. Taking an optimistic view, hopefully these people can learn to change their mindset, if only for the health of their children.

Image Sources:

http://media.mercola.com/Assets/images/topics/ogimage/vaccines-fb.jpg

https://autisticalex.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/autism_awareness_ribbon1.png

When reading through a lot of the blogs on our class website, I tend to see a lot of posts regarding the beneficial effects of smoking marijuana.  While I can’t say I read every argument defending the positive aspects of it and disproving all the negatives, there is one question that always pops up in my head: How is it so beneficial event though you’re still inhaling smoke?  I took to Google to find out and quickly found a meta-analysis published in Nature Partner Journals entitled Effect of Cannabis Smoking on Lung Function and Respiratory Symptoms: A Structured Literature Review that took a look into how marijuana smoking affected the respiratory system and pulmonary diseases.

Initially, the meta-analysis took 256 studies but narrowed it down to 19 studies based on specific criteria.  For all of these studies, it can be assumed that the null hypothesis was that smoking marijuana doesn’t affect the human respiratory system, and that the alternative hypothesis was that smoking marijuana does affect the human respiratory system.  While the ways in which each study conducted their experiment were not written in the article, the results did somewhat surprise me.  Out of the 19 studies, only 8 reported no change, 6 found a decrease in respiratory health, and the rest deemed the method in which they found their answers incompetent.  I looked at the studies Table 1, where all the results were listed, and again found a wide array of answers.  While these mixed revues were a good starting point, I was unsatisfied that I was unable to see the process in which they did their study, so I kept researching.

I found several other studies, which I will list below, that all had varying results as well leaving me unhappy with my findings.  It seems that the science world is split when it comes combining the information of multiple studies into one answer.  Some studies published results stating no change, but when I looked at the site for the American Lung Association, they claimed that the toxins made from burning just about anything can affect the lungs.  The ALA also brought up the point that often, marijuana is inhaled and held in the body for longer amounts of time than cigarettes therefore the affect of tar is greater.

While the answers I found on the ALA site best matched the alternative hypothesis and my own prediction, I don’t want to only believe the information that follows my assumptions when other studies disagreed.  In my opinion, I believe that the marijuana debate will end up much like the debate on smoking in the 60s.  Since the issue of marijuana is a hot topic, and since some people may want the studies to result in certain ways, I believe that a lot of studies must be suffering from the file-drawer problem.  Not only that, I feel that it’d take a medical concern like another increase in lung cancer to occur in order for heavy research to be funded on this topic.  As of right now, a lesser functioning respiratory system is not enough especially since nothing worse has been found.

Maybe in a few decades, when chronic marijuana smokers are older and may have certain health issues related to smoking, larger scale studies may be run in order to find a mechanism.  Since so many small ones have been run that all vary in their methods, finding consistent results is difficult.  Until then, it can be assumed that while smoking marijuana is not as bad as smoking cigarettes, they probably do have a minor affect your lung health.

Initial study: http://www.nature.com/articles/npjpcrm201671

Other articles I looked into:

–http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1164/arrd.1987.135.1.209#.WAmXOZMrIY0

– http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1513/AnnalsATS.201212-127FR?src=recsys#.WAmafZMrIY0

American Lung Association on marijuana: http://www.lung.org/stop-smoking/smoking-facts/marijuana-and-lung-health.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/

Photo: https://goo.gl/images/V5vu42

Photo source

Many things I do throughout my day, I do with music. I listen to music when I’m just laying around my room, walking to class, or working out at the gym. One thing I sometimes do without music however is school work. I find it hard for me to concentrate on my school work with loud music on in the background. I will sometimes however listen to softer music, or sometimes even sports talk radio while I work. Conversely, my roommate can do homework while listening to louder music, even rap and faster music. Because of this contrast in styles I wanted to look into listening to music while studying, and if it is detrimental, or beneficial, or if it just depends on the person.

There are many conflicting reports out there in many articles that I browsed through. Many articles state how listening to music while studying or learning can be beneficial to the student. One article that I found described the benefits of classical music on students test scores. The University of research in France found that students who took a math quiz after sitting in a lecture with classical music in the background scored higher than those who sat in the lecture without music. Their hypothesis behind their findings is that the classical music causes the students to be at a more emotional state where they retain information at a better rate (USC).

On the other hand there are articles and studies that claim that listening to music decreases your performance in school. A 1977 study conducted by Smith and Morris compared the cognitive skills of students while either listening to their favorite genre of music, or not listening to music at all. The individuals were asked to repeat a set of numbers backwards. The results showed that those who were not listening to music at all performed far better than those who were listening to their favorite genre of music (Inquires). Another study I found was conducted by the University of Wales. In the study there were five different test groups that ranged from complete silence while completing a test to heavy metal music to completing a test with no music at all. Total there were four groups that had music or some sound during the test, and one with complete silence. “Steady state speech” in which a single number was repeated for the entirety of the test. “Changing state speech” in which different numbers were played throughout the test. “Liked music” in which a song of the subjects favorite genre choice was played throughout the test. And “Disliked music” in which a song of the students distaste ex. heavy metal was played throughout the test. The test was a series recall test in which the students were asked to repeat a series of number in the same sequence that they were first introduced to them. The study concluded that there was no difference in performance between the two music and changing state groups, however the group that completed the test in complete silence, and steady state groups performed better (Mind). These two test results show that there could possibly be a link to decreased test performance due to music.

Overall the conflicting test results, and articles lead to the conclusion that it just depends. It depends on the situation, what you are completing, and the mental make up of the person doing the work.

Throughout my whole life, my mom has been trying to keep up with the new healthiest things to make up her daily diet. As she is most definitely addicted to coffee, she is always back and forth between how to sweeten it. One day regular sugar will be the healthy option and the next day she will switch to an artificial sweetener. As I am in my freshman year of college and coffee has become a necessity, I began to question which of these is better for you.

I thought this was a pretty straightforward question that would have a straightforward answer, but after researching, I understand why my mom has rapidly changing opinions on whether artificial sweetener is better than sugar. For the most part, it seems as if the majority of concrete evidence shows that artificial sweetener is a better choice for weight loss and diabetes, which is explained in this article. However, there is a theory that the artificial sugar creates a confusion within your body that can result counteractively towards losing weight. After my research, I am going to use artificial sweeteners because there is more legitimate results that back the notion that it will cause less weight gain than sugar, which I believe to be the correct assumption for anyone who knows the facts.

Many of the people who believe that artificial sweeteners are bad for you developed this opinion from a warning that was let out in the 80s regarding the sweetener called saccharin. It is explained in this article that there was a study performed on rats that found evidence that this artificial sweetener causes bladder cancer. This immediately forms opinions in people’s minds against all artificial sweeteners. The issue here is that later, it was discovered that the experiment done on the rats does not correlate with the human body, and therefore does not and could not apply to any of these people who believe this substance causes cancer. This study is an example of the faults of performing experiments on animals when trying to figure out truths about humans.

In class we have proven time and time again that as humans our intuition is generally very lousy.  Take the Monty Hall problem for example.  When first confronted with the situation of the three doors and a car behind one of those two doors while goats stood on the other side your automatic instinct is to want to keep which door you have picked after the host opens one of the doors.  In our minds we think that the likelihood of the car being behind the two remaining doors is even so why what harm could sticking to your original decision do?  However, due to our intuition clouding ourjudgement we are unable to see the fact that probability of the car being behind the one remaining door that we did not originally select is in fact double the probability of it being behind the door we initially picked.  The same mentality is applied to gambling.  There is a belief that the harder you throw dice the larger the number you will get.  No scientific evidence has ever proven that but in our minds we think the harder the throw the higher the reward must be.  Our brains are programmed to make these assumptions with no data to support them, and in most cases these conclusions are in fact not accurate.  The real question is that if it has been scientifically proven that we have lousy intuition, why do we still follow it?

The American Psychology Association believes that while very flawed in its reasoning and conclusion drawing skills, intuition is in fact integral in our everyday thinking.  We look to make connections too eagerly and in most cases some are created when in fact no connection exists.  One theory is that our intuition is there to help one make sense of the chaos in the world, in a sense find patterns to help us interpret the chaotic world. Our brain is not able to accept that fact that the majority of what happens in our world is in fact random.  Logic within one’s decision making is often overshadowed by our intuition.  An experimenter by the name of Seymour Epstein from the University of Massachusetts Amherst testing this theory with a simple jelly bean experiment.  They asked participants to draw a jelly bean out of a pile with the goal of grabbing a red one.  Each was given the option of two different piles.  One contained 100 total jelly beans with 7 red ones and the other contained 10 total jelly beans with 1 red one.  Despite the probability of picking a red jelly bean was higher in the pile of ten, more people choose to select from the pile of 100 jelly beans.  In this case their gut intuition overpowered their most basic ability to solve a probability problem.  When confronted about their decisions made during the experiment after they had run through it, participants were aware of the higher probability, but their gut intuition was making them believe that just because they saw more jelly beans in the larger pile the probability of selecting one was higher despite the actual lower ratio.  It is as if the brain is in a constant battle within itself.

Despite all of this talk of poor intuition, there are a couple circumstances in which listening to your gut decision is in fact beneficial.  The sensation of something feeling wrong in your body is one of the situations when it will do good to listen to those subtle signals.  Your body is its own line of defense and when something is not right, the first thing is attempts to do is communicate that with the rest of the body.  Another key situation is when you feel that you are in danger.  A process known as thin-slicingallows a person to make decisions about someone within the first ten seconds of interaction.  Now however while most of the time this can prove to be helpful, it may also go wrong in the case of inaccurate snap judgments.  When in doubt however it will always provide benefits to compare one’s gut feelings in those situations with rational thought.

I bet there is a good bit of you who have that one overly religious family member that has spit the fear of hell into your soul from a young age. If that is the case, there’s a good chance you’ve heard the story of Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit and the serpent and all that good stuff. I am most definitely one of those kids and what I have always questioned was the depiction of the serpent. Most videos or pictures I had seen had shown the serpent as a snake with a long creeping body however, in a few of the different picture books or CCD worksheets I had used, the serpent appears to walk on legs, a very unexpected mode of transportation for a “snake.” Although many of those stories vary slightly in material as do many biblical stories, I always questioned that very vague difference between the serpents in all the varying versions of Adam and Eve.

There are a few different evolutional ideas as to why the critters who once walked on all fours now slithers on the ground. Science Mag’s Elizabeth Pennisi’s idea is that the mutation in a gene key concerning limbs and their formation. The study also suggests that even to this day, these snakes who onced walked on all fours, still work with small useless leg bones within them that are not clear to the naked eye.

This gene key mutated in such a way that it forbids the gene that allows limb formation to proceed. In this study, the causal variable, the gene key is directed correlated with the dependent variable, the growth or, in this case, the prohibition of growth. There is the concern that the evolution of the snake and its lack of legs, could be causing a change in the gene whether or not the gene key actually has an effect on the snake’s body make up in general. In this case, this would be reverse causation which is possible. A third variable to consider is the basic need to evolve and adapt to its ever changing world. Therefore its quite possible that the snake adapted in order to simple create itself into a more conducive creature for its circumstances.

The overall realization within this study is that the snake and other creatures are very interesting and the ability for adaptation is crazy.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/10/tiny-dna-tweaks-made-snakes-legless

Last year in my political science class my teacher showed us a documentary on solitary confinement in prisons. I don’t remember why he showed us this, I just remember the video and the impact it left on me. In the documentary, they interviewed a few of the prisoners housed in a prison that was entirely solitary confinement. The impact that being in a prison like this had on these men was staggering. It actually had me tearing up at some points. I felt pity for these men. Many of them didn’t commit crimes that I believed deserved that sort of punishment. I looked for the documentary and I ended up finding where you can watch clips from it here. I highly recommend you watch these if you’re curious on what made me start thinking about this, it’s intriguing.
Constant solitary confinement is truly a horrible thing; humans are social creatures, we actually need to socialize to stay mentally healthy. It used to be, back in the 20th century, that solitary confinement was relatively rare and rather short. It would be used, and still is, either to keep inmates from harming the staff or other inmates, to keep inmates from escaping, or to punish them for misconduct. Solitary confinement used to last only a few days, or even weeks. Now, however, inmates are kept in solitary for years at a time. Some are even kept there for more than twenty years.

While solitary confinement used to be somewhat sparse, there are now super-maximum security facilities in more than forty states. These facilities are also called “supermax” facilities, and were actually designed for the purpose of holding people in isolation for long periods of time.

But what exactly is it about solitary confinement that is so bad? What are the effects that solitary has on people? Well, when inmates are held in solitary, they spend 22-24 hours a day locked in a cell that’s only about 84 square feet. These cells only have a bed, sink, and toilet. Inmates get their food through a slot in the door, and are allowed only an hour of exercise a day. They have extremely limited contact with other humans, and oftentimes the contact that they do get is negative in nature. They get very few personal effects, no contact with family, horrible medical and mental health treatment, and are frequently subjected to physical and emotional torture. This, as anyone could guess, is very detrimental to the physical, and especially mental health of all inmates who go through it.

Dr. Terry Kupers, a professor of psychiatry, has spent over forty years studying the effects of solitary confinement on the mind and body by interviewing thousands of inmates. In this article, Kupers talks about the human need for social interaction and activity. Socialization and creation are two ways that we learn about ourselves and stay self aware. Inmates in solitary are deprived of both of these things; they spend their days alone and inactive. I can only imagine what this means for the people who go through this.

Kupers describes long-term confinement as being about three months. Studies have shown that nearly all inmates who are kept in solitary for that long begin to experience high anxiety, panic attacks, paranoia, anger, and compulsive tendencies. Inmates often start to pace or repeatedly clean their cells. In addition to these affects, they suffer from dulled cognitive functions; for example, when reading a book they tend to forget what had happened just a few pages before. Actually, in the documentary I mentioned at the beginning of this, I remember watching clips of the prisoners pacing back and forth along their tiny cells for hours. In some cells, the floors were literally worn down from their footsteps. The only thing these prisoners have to do is sleep, pace, work out, and repeat.

One of the effects I find possibly the most horrifying is what happens when inmates who suffered through solitary are finally released from isolation. While in solitary, their brains have been put into a stupor; they’ve been pushed nearly to the edge of insanity. This delirium is something many cannot and will not recover from. So, when inmates are let back into even just the general population, not even the outside world, they become overwhelmed by their surroundings and can’t handle the environment they haven’t experienced in months or years. Their brains waves go all over the place. Inmates have said that it’s a terrible experience, and often will not leave their cell for fear of being around everyone else in the general population.

Another psychiatrist, Stuart Grassian, has conducted studies and interviewed hundreds of prisoners. One of these studies yielded results that showed that about a third of the inmates showed psychotic and suicidal tendencies. Grassian has also concluded that being in solitary confinement can cause a psychiatric syndrome in which inmates experience hallucinations, panic attacks, and many other symptoms consistent with those that Dr. Kupers observed.

Grassian and Kupers are in no way the only people to conduct studies on solitary confinement that came to same conclusions. Hundreds upon hundreds of studies have been done in dozens of prisons. Solitary confinement and mental health issues in inmates clearly share a direct correlation. Solitary is, almost without any doubt, the cause of so many mental health problems within prisons. There is nothing really that could be considered a third variable that may be causing these problems. Solitary confinement is at fault, no question. But the question we can ask ourselves is, do we condone the use of this form of torture in prisons?

Sources:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Picture Source:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/trapped-in-the-hole-america-solitary-problem/

Does rain outside in the morning motivate, excite, and please you all at the same time? If it does, you are a lot like me. For some, rain is a direct association to its common theme of gloom and sadness, but a lot of people are immediately happier and can completely alter their mood for the rest of the day. I wanted to go further into the reasons behind this difference and see how the mind has been discovered alongside the world’s fickle weather patterns.

Image: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/40000/velka/child-and-rain.jpg

In an article by Sarah Knapton for Telegraph UK, the work of Professor Paul Dolan from the London School of Economics is summarized and analyzed. The Professor of Behavioral Science believes weather to have no true and substantial effect on mood, but when we think about the weather and its implications, we can become “miserable” (Source 1). This separation of conscience and emotion is fascinating to me, as the entire concept and role of weather is getting in our heads, and making us think what we don’t need to think. Dolan details this opinion by underlining an experiment done with subjects in California and the North West. The differences in levels of happiness were nonexistent, revealing the previously mentioned issue of dwelling mentally on the weather.

This article and Dolan relate this idea to human life in everyday settings. Dolan himself states that “most of our anxieties come from what might be,” and “things are never as bad as you imagine them being” (Source 1). I enjoyed this approach and its comforting but honest wording, all at once showing how weather patterns concern us more when hypothetical instead of real.

Image: http://weknowyourdreams.com/images/rain/rain-06.jpg

In my opinion, there are too many variables at play. People all over the world are of course going to have different opinions on different kinds of weather. What about people who constantly live in rain? Most would probably enjoy seeing a sunny day, while some might prefer what they are used to. It is really hard to iron out all of these separating variables and influences. But I think one standard can be highlighted: no matter where you are, you have weather. In places with very consistent climates, there are people who would enjoy rainy days.

In general, rain can be connected to one’s memory, mood and behavior with its presence and reputation. It is something that affects your world completely when it’s happening, and when emotions of the human mind are subjected to it nothing can be predicted. I think we should be grateful that such a powerful force of nature is not more commonly destructive. At the end of the day, humans enjoy what distract them. While weather can often get in our way, it helps us to remember the importance of shelter and take our minds off of stressful situations. Water is something that will forever be connected to human beings in ways we can never fully understand.

Sources:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10859560/Rainy-days-make-us-just-as-happy-as-sunshine.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/rainy-weather-does-not-make-you-sad-claims-behavioural-expert-professor-paul-dolan-9447851.html

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/08/29/can-weather-affect-your-mood/

I have never been much of a milk drinker because I unfortunately am lactose intolerant.  Aside from that though, I never really liked the taste anyways.  My cousin on the other hand would always have a glass of milk with every single meal and my Mimi would always say “You’re going to be so big and strong if you keep drinking all this milk!”  It is a commonly held believe among most humans that drinking milk is a good source of calcium and beneficial to your bone growth, and maybe that is true, but what if milk actually is causing you harm and you didn’t even realize it?

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Harvard College ran a study to try to find out if a high consumption of milk lead to increases in the likelihood of developing prostate cancer in males.  The null hypothesis would be that drinking milk has no affect on a male’s chances of contracting prostate cancer and the alternative hypothesis would be that an high consumption of milk can lead to an increase in the likelihood of contracting prostate cancer.  This study consisted of more than 20,000 men over a course of eleven years, making the results of this study very unlikely to be due to chance based on the sheer size of the observational study.  They ended up finding a link between the amount of calcium consumed, not just the amount of milk consumed.  Out of the group of male participants, the men who drank no milk were two times less likely to acquire prostate cancer than the men who drank around two or more glasses of milk each day. That surely is a staggering difference.  After what I assume to be a meta-analysis of their findings, Harvard College expanded their argument that the problem lies within the amount of calcium a man consumes.  A more shocking development in their study was that the man who had been reported to be consuming the most milk of all the men in the study which equated to around 2,000 milligrams of calcium daily was not only twice as likely of contracting prostate cancer, but actually was twice as likely to contract fatal prostate cancer rather than male milk-drinkers who were consuming less calcium than that.  Although these statistics are striking, Harvard College even agrees that more research needs to be conducted before reaching a final decision, but it is definitely wise to keep watch on your amount of calcium intake a day if you are a male.  Harvard was not the first institution to look into the idea that drinking too much milk can cause prostate cancer.  The World Cancer Research Fund published an extensive report on prostate cancer which included studies that were done exactly on this topic.  Although I could not understand most of the science talk they used in the journal I was able to pull out the essential information regarding the amount of studies and their results.  There were 15 in total that focused on the link between calcium intake via milk and prostate cancer, of those 15 studies 13 of them came back positive for a link between the two things.  These particular studies broke down the numbers into a chart and deduced that a male’s chances of developing prostate cancer increased per every 400mg of calcium that were consumed a day.  As of right now there is not a known mechanism for why drinking too much calcium can cause an increased chance of developing prostate cancer, but just because there is not a mechanism for something, does not mean it isn’t true.  Surely many more tests need to be done in order to say for certain if this is a concern every man should start thinking about, but this connection could be much like the affects of smoking as discussed in class in which we did not see that excessive tobacco use caused lung cancer until about 40 years down the road.  It could be that we will not see the affects of excessive milk drinking for males until way down the road.

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I am not saying these studies have enough evidence to prove that if you are a male you should go to your mini fridge and throw out every single bottle of milk or dairy product you have in your possession and go completely cold turkey, but I do think the evidence that is there is substantial enough to be able to role out the null hypothesis and conclude something is definitely going on here,  Every study has the possibility of being due to chance and that could very well be the case when it comes to this topic, but as a rational person I would the threat is present enough that I would say that if you are a male, lessening your intake of calcium, could not do any harm.

It is not a secret that a state like California, which rarely gets a drop of rain, is in a major drought. California has been slowly digging its own grave into the dry dirt year after year by continuing to senselessly use their water supply. The intensity of this drought has been record setting and although people did not believe the intensity of it before, they are certainly seeing the consequences of it now.

Being a Californian myself I have seen these effects first hand. California has begun to limit the amount of water per household. Watering the front yard is allowed every other day and your day is assigned to you depending on your house number. If you go over the allowed amount of water for the month or if you water on a day, which is not assigned to your household you risk getting fined. I imagined this was the end of the drought talk and that we would soon figure out a way to transport more water into our sunny and hot state. Then I heard of something called “cloud-seeding”.

“Cloud-seeding” has according to the LA Times , been used in California since the 1950’s. It is an incredible phenomenon that many of us, myself included, did not even know was possible. Basically, the LA Times explain that clouds are injected with silver iodide, which in turn forms ice particles in the clouds. These ice particles then weigh clouds down and help produce rain. The LA Times as well states that a process like this costs approximately $550,000 yearly, therefore this is clearly not a cheap and easy to do process.

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Not only is “cloud-seeding” expensive and difficult to do but it is also affecting our environment. Rain is not being produced in a natural manner. The rain falling from the skies in the middle of summer was a rare situation, which people were not used to seeing. As stated by Reynard Loki, this phenomenon of “cloud seeding” is a very scientific process. It involves the manipulation of chemicals to produce an otherwise natural reaction of rain. This consequently leading us to think of what side effects this process could have, both negative and positive. Positively it brings us much needed water that we need, that’s an obvious statement. Negatively however, people have become very skeptical about what else could be injected into our clouds or our environment as a whole without providing knowledge of it happening to the general public. Much skepticism has been going around about whether the attempt to bring water in a more natural manner rather than through the physical transportation of water could have future negative side effects on the population that is exposed to it. Research of course must be done in a longitudinal and experimental manner. Years from now, researchers can take people who were in the exposed areas of “cloud-seeding” and compare their psychical and mental health to those who were not exposed to such environments. Only then will we be certain of the presence or absence of these effects. We will better be able to understand whether it is a positive thing to invest in or if it, like most things, has negative side effects as well.

What is the carrying capacity of Earth?  With 7 billion people already living on it how many more people can the earth sustain?  Elon Musk, the founder of pay pal and tesla, thinks the solution to this problem is to colonize Mars.  I think this is a very cool idea and it would be major scientific breakthrough.  Elon Musk is the founder and CEO of the company SpaceX; which is an American company located in the Silicon Valley and is currently working on traveling to Mars.  The company was founded in 2002 for the purpose of colonizing Mars.  SpaceX is like a private version of NASA that is not a government agency; however, SpaceX is funded through government subsides.  According to SpaceX’s website the main problem with traveling to mars is reusing launch materials and refueling while in space.  Here is a video simulation of the proposed launch.  This video was made just to show the public the main idea of the launch and what SpaceX is currently working towards.

Elon Musk said it is possible to have humans on Mars by 2026.  This is incredible to have the technology to travel to another planet only 10 years from now.  This is however only an estimate that assumes all goes well and there are no major setbacks.  Elon musk does not just want to go to Mars; he wants to colonize it and have people living their long term.  The trip to Mars will take about 200 days; besides the long trip passengers face other problems as well.  According to a study on cosmic radiation a long trip to Mars can have effects on decision making .  This could be a problem because the people living on Mars are likely to face problems there and will need to be able to function rationally.  According to President Obama the first trip to Mars will just be to test the trip and not for the astronauts to live there long term.  This trip will be able to give us a lot of information on the health risks of a trip to Mars.  Traveling to Mars will be full of a lot of challenges that will need to be overcome in the time leading up to the initial launch.

When I was reading article about this it reminded me a lot of the first colonization of the United States.  During that time the colonist did not know what they were getting into either and it was view as travelling to a whole new world.  When colonizing North America, it would take months for them to communicate with Europe.  To communicate with Mars it could take up to 22 minutes.  This may not seem like a long time but we are not used to having to wait for a response here on earth.  You can talk to someone on the other side of the world with no delay.  Another similarity is that the colonist of North America had to become self-sufficient due to the time it took for supplies to reach them.  If the trip to Mars takes 200 days, the colonist there will need to become self-sufficient because it would take supplies almost 7 months to get there.  The Mars journey can be compared in a lot of ways to colonizing America; communication takes a long time compared to current standards, the mars colonist must become self-sufficient, and finally like the European colonist we don’t really know what we are getting ourselves into and the dangers that lie on Mars.  I think this is a great opportunity that will come with a lot of challenges in the years leading up to take off and many more challenges on Mars itself.

Picture Citations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX

http://www.spacex.com/

Throughout my lifetime I have heard activists protest against animal testing and I have heard others advocate for it. Today, I decided that I wanted to get some facts and based on the science aspect of it see if animal testing is necessary or if it in fact is a form of socially accepted animal cruelty.

According to the Humane Society International; a campaigning website against animal testing; defined animal testing as being a process in which live animals are tested upon in order to determine the effects that certain products will have on humans or for scientific purposes. They also stated that animals are tested upon for a variety of different research studies. These studies range from cosmetic testing to pharmaceutical product testing. These animals are tested upon and once the experiment is over they can either be transferred onto another study or they can be killed. I am assuming that the route scientist choose to take for the animals at this point is relevant to the effects each animal has been exposed to and whether or not those will interfere with the new study.

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As I tried to find research as to how animal testing would be justified, I could not seem to find any articles, studies, or websites advocating for it. Perhaps this is because in the more recent years, organizations like PETA , have made it their goal to bring awareness to how cruelly we treat animals as a society, under the excuse that it is justified through science.

According once again to Humane Society International, they stated that we do not benefit much from research experiments done on animals therefore there is really no excuse as to why it should continue. Which in part, does make sense to me. We live in a world that is so advanced. We have been able to develop working mobile prosthetics and have sent men to the moon yet we still test what effects things will have on humans on animals. Animal testing has been a helping factor in a multitude of studies, however as stated in this video by the Humane Society International, there are alternatives for animal testing. We should be looking more into alternatives to testing out our pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and household objects. We already have so many regulations as to what can and can not be used in products therefore I feel as though any further testing can be done alternatively. There are laws protecting animals against abuse yet none protecting them against abuse in the field of science. When animals are used as experiments they are put through distress and physical pain in order to gain information on a product. As we relevantly discussed in class about cancer research patient and treatments, if it is not morally acceptable to withhold a product that will knowingly cure someone then why is it morally acceptable to harm an animal in hopes of discovering a cure or effect of something else?

I sometimes find it hard to fall asleep at night. My mind can race thinking about the events of the day, an upcoming test or a blog that needs to be written.  It doesn’t help matters when I stay up late and have had a cup or two of coffee and have eaten whatever sugary snack that was within reach. Not being able to settle your mind can lead to sleepless nights, tossing and turning in search of rest.  Some people believe white noise can help. Others use sleep aids such as eye masks and body pillows, melatonin or the more extreme sleep aids like Unisom or ZzzQuil.  A friend of mine told me about a breathing technique called the 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise or The Relaxing Breath when I complained about not being able to fall asleep. I was skeptical and wanted to know, is it proven that you can fall asleep by just following this breathing routine?

I first set out to understand exactly how to conduct this breathing exercise.  The 4-7-8 technique was created by Harvard trained medical doctor, Dr. Andrew Weil. He believes that the routine allows your body to relax and create a state of calm, naturally.  He has referenced it as a form of Yoga and has created a video to demonstrate the use of the technique as shown here Dr Weil 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise.

This method of breathing has been compared to pranayama, which is a yoga technique for meditative breathing. A researcher at Brown University, Aaron Berard, was asked to opine on the breathing method as a means to induce sleep. His conclusion was that the method was clearly a form of meditation but that there was no direct link to an absolute means to sleep. Aaron Berard commentary. Dr. Weil has referenced a research paper entitled: Effect of short-term practice of breathing exercises on autonomic functions in normal human volunteers  http://icmr.nic.in/ijmr/2004/0807.pdf. This study concluded that autonomic functions, such as respiratory rate and heart rate, were improved in slow breathing exercises.

As said earlier, the 4-7-8 breathing technique relaxes the whole nervous system in a way of extreme relaxation. Being relaxed before you go to sleep is very important because you will most likely find it easier to fall asleep. This technique is able to be used every day multiple times a day.  Now, keep in mind that in order for this exercise to work, you must train your lungs over time. Practice makes perfect, but then again it just might not be for you. There have been numerous studies outlining how mediation can affect your sleeping patterns and bodily functions. Overall, these studies have concluded numerous things except that mediation will put you to sleep, but have stated that mediation is directly correlated to activating brain stimulation by allowing more oxygen to the brain which in turn effects the mental and physical state in a positive way at which we sleep.

Conclusion

There is no scientific proof that the 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise will make you fall asleep.  For me, I find that it works to calm me down and relax while I focus on the breathing technique.  By counting in my head and focusing on my breath, other thoughts are allowed to escape.  While the technique might not be a scientifically proven method for sleep, it is simple, quick, doesn’t cost anything and it works for me – why not give it a try!

Sources: http://www.drweil.com/health-wellness/body-mind-spirit/stress-anxiety/breathing-three-exercises/

http://www.medicaldaily.com/life-hack-sleep-4-7-8-breathing-exercise-will-supposedly-put-you-sleep-just-60-332122

Images: http://brightmags.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/zzquil.jpg

http://www.mojopromotions.co.uk/images/products/eye_sleep_mask/large.jpg

http://rxfitnesslady.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/unisom.jpg

http://lifeholistically.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Breathing-to-relax.jpg

Late night cravings. Why does everything taste better at night? Why do we munch of random snacks when we aren’t even particularly hungry? I constantly find myself rummaging through my snack drawers at night trying to think of yummy concoctions in order to satisfy my cravings. But why?

Sometimes this late night hunger derives from boredom. Other times it could be from nutritional imbalance in which case your body will send hunger signals at night. More specifically, our bodies release certain hormones that influence the beginning of the late night munching. The hormone cortisol tells the liver to release sugar and when we stay awake we tend to eat in order to make up for the blood sugar drop. Another example is the hormone gherkin, otherwise known as the “hunger hormone”. This hormone is produced more at night when our body stops releasing leptin. When ghrelin is released our minds automatically turn to calories for help and satisfaction.

When it comes to the unhealthy vs healthy snacks, our minds in their sleepy states lose the decision making skills we possess during the day therefore resulting in choosing unhealthier choices. To stay away from these late night cravings try to drink more water at night, or simply try to fall asleep.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/the-science-of-the-midnight-snack/380510/

https://experiencelife.com/article/the-hidden-causes-of-late-night-snacking/

Women joined the work force in the United States roughly forty-six years ago. From that day on it has been a controversial topic. The reason it has been controversial is because of the assumption that women are nurturers. Many people saw women as creatures that were brought on this earth to keep a household running, nurture and nurse the children, and to be the left hand of their husband. In today’s day and age however, women are branching out of that stereotype that they fed into for so long. We, as women are beginning to become heads of households and are beginning to provide for our children not only emotionally but also financially. The question being raised now is: If mothers are now actively participating in the work force and having to return to work shortly after bringing a child into this world, how is the child in turn affected?

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In contrast to many other countries, the United States does not guarantee a woman paid maternity leave. According to Wikipedia, countries like Mexico, the United Kingdom, Canada, and China all offer a range between 12 and 40 weeks of paid maternity leave. In the United States however, it is up to a woman’s employer to decide if they want to give a woman the privilege of bonding with her child and still making an income once he/she is born. Many women who are not offered this privilege are forced to return to work shortly after giving birth in order to continue providing for their family adequately.

Infants have some basic needs when they are brought into this world. According to Avery Aiken’s article in The Daily Toreador, one of these needs is having a primary caregiver whom they can form a bond with and attach to. She also states that at a young age infants do not understand object permanence. When a parent is gone for work, a child who is not cognitively developed is not capable of the complex thought that someone who is out of sight is not gone forever. Therefore, infants do not feel the security of having a primary caregiver. If while the parents are at work a babysitter is serving as the caregiver, a child will not know who to attach him or herself to. Aiken states that because of this, in the long run, a child suffers in terms of their social development. They cannot resolve conflicts as easily nor can they function under stressful environments as well as those infants who had positive attachment relationships. These children end up developing problems that stemmed from their initial attachment issues. This being said, other ways in which children may be affected as a consequence of the lack of parent attachment have not yet been studied. So in turn is it more worthwhile for the United States to mandate a paid maternity leave or is it more worthwhile to have to deal with children who will grow up with developmental issues? I personally believe that a paid maternity leave, for however long will be more beneficial to society as a whole than having none at all.

Earlier this month I wrote a blog about cloud seeding in California. Climate change is a topic that is truly intriguing. Just like with many scientific topics, this one is very controversial. There are people who believe climate change is manmade and others who believe it is just the Earth continuing on in its course. In an article by Real Clear Science  they spoke of a poll that was taken in 2010. This poll that they referred to stated that out of the entire population that they sampled, 50% stated that in their opinion, climate change was manmade. 46% on the other hand stated that the climate change we see today is happening through natural causes. Therefore proving that through this survey, results are nearly split half ways on the topic. It is a controversial topic that even our presidential candidate’s have spoken about.

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What is baffling, however is how nearly half of those people who part took in the pole did not seem to think climate change is manmade. Research has been done to analyze why we have seen such drastic changes and it all proves that we are affecting our climate.

The Real Clear Science article went as far as to state that the rise in temperatures that we have seen over the past few years is proof enough to show that the climate change is due to human activity on this planet. This however is not proof enough in and of itself. Human activity may be a correlating factor between two other variables but not a leading causing factor.

According to NASA  ,97% of climate scientists who have published peer reviewed journals truly believe that human activity is to blame for the drastic change in climate that we have seen in the past century. If scientists, being people who base their lives around studies and findings like this about our world believe that we as humans are causing this change, then why does it continue to worsen? By altering some aspects of our climate, like cloud-seeding, in order to provide rain in California, we must be harming another part of our self sustaining world.

We as humans affect the world around us just as the world around us affects each and every one of us. Climate change can be in part due to human activity but it can also be due to other correlating factors. We are very influential on the world around us. It is all linked in some way or another. For example according to the National Geographic article the ozone layer depletion is causing the earth to heat up more but the ozone layer is depleting because of the human activity and the harmful chemicals we are putting into our atmosphere.

All in all I would say that despite this being a controversial topic that some people choose not to believe in, the science speaks for itself and it seems very probable that we as a society are partly responsible for climate change.

Growing up, my family cooked; and we cooked a lot. Making meals and such from scratch was not something reserved for special occasions, holidays, or to impress company; in my household, it was just our way of life. However, once I was old enough, and I started going over to my friends’ houses, I soon realized this was not the norm.  A study done by CBS News found that only 43% of Americans reported having home cooked meals six to seven days a week. In fact, roughly half of the money Americans spend on food, is spent on food eaten when eating out.  But it did not used to be this way, in 1984, roughly 75% of the meals eaten at home in the US were also prepared at home. And a graph produced by the Washington Post depicts the decline of home cooked meals in the US since then. So what is causing this decline in preparing meals oneself?supermarkethttp://www.institutefornaturalhealing.com/2011/04/the-economics-of-obesity-why-are-poor-people-fat/

A major factor influencing this decline is time. On average, Americans over fifteen years of age, spend an hour eating per day. Typically, this time is not solely spent eating either; we are multitasking. It is a rare occasion for an American to be eating for the sake of doing so. We are too busy to relish in meal time, so instead dining becomes a chore which we do while simultaneously doing other things, work, watch television, drive, etc. Making a home cooked meal takes time. One has to select a recipe, go out and buy groceries, do the meal prep, cook the meal, and then eat it. The OECD’s conducted survey conclude that the average amount of time spent on meal prep and cleanup in the surveyed countries other than the United States is two hours and eight minutes per day. Whereas in the United States, the average is thirty minutes. While time dedicated to meal prep is a major factor in the decline of home cooked meals in the U.S., it is not the only factor.

Another influential variable in the decline of home cooked meals in the United States is an economic one. In 2015, less than half of the U.S. population were middle income; 49.9% to be specific. In that same year, 29% of Americans were considered to be of low income, and 21.1% were considered to be of upper income status. This effects the number of meals prepared at home because it is more expensive to be doing so. When shopping in a supermarket , it is less expensive to buy the prepackaged, premade, and processed foods, than it is to buy ingredients to make a meal yourself. A dollar spent on the processed foods, will buy you more calories, than spending it on the ingredients needed to make a meal. Then, from a financial standpoint, it makes far more sense to be buying the premade food rather than the ingredients to make meals yourself, because you can get more bang for your buck. And people do just that. The average American consumes 72 frozen meals annually, and spends $57.10 on said meals per year.

Based on this information, it can be concluded that we are in a shift away from traditional, home cooking, to these new manufactured, ready made meals.

Picture Links:

https://madewithlovecookingschool.com/2016/01/12/can-they-handle-that-kitchen-task-yes-they-can/

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/1190-anuko-world-clock.html

http://clipartmonk.com/stack-of-money-clipart