My mom and I were just talking about the flu shot and whether or not it’s a good idea to get one or not. I always get my routine vaccinations, but i’ve only ever gotten a flu shot once in my life. I remember it very clearly because the day after I got it, I felt horrible. I had a fever, headache, achy muscles, and a sore throat. I had gotten a shot to prevent myself from getting the flu, so why did I feel so sick? It seems almost necessary to get a flu shot now that I am in college, but is it worth it if I might feel really sick afterwards? With our busy schedules it seems like there is never a right time to get this shot because we are risking getting sick as a side effect. I wanted to find if the null hypothesis is true: the flu vaccination does not work in preventing the flu or if the alternative hypothesis is true: the flu vaccination does work in preventing the flu.

The influenza vaccination has been around for several years so it obviously does more good than harm. The CDC had reported that over 200,000 hospitalizations and 36,000 deaths were caused by either type A or B influenza every year in the United States. This is substantial, making the flu vaccine seem almost necessary. However the complete effectiveness of the shot remains questionable. U.S. public health officials found in a group of studies between 2012 and 2013 that the effectiveness of the shot worked very slowly on patients. It is also much less effective in patients over 65 years old which is unfortunate because they are more likely to die from influenza than younger people. Since the shot has been around for several years, doctors and officials have been able to study the results from year to year on the effectiveness of the vaccination. They found that in 2004 and 2005 that the shot failed to work 90% of the time. Luckily the effectiveness has grown since then. It was publicly announced in January 2016 by the U.S. government officials that the flu shots are 50-60% effective when trying to prevent people from getting the influenza virus. The following graph shows the rates of vaccination in the U.S. each year.

Altogether, it has been found that the vaccination benefits society’s health when the shot matches the flu virus that is circulating in the population. Children who got vaccinated in a 2014 study were less likely to go to an intensive care unit related to the flu by 74% from 2010-2012. Children can easily contract the flu so being able to provide a vaccination to help prevent it is important. The following article from the CDC gives reasons why one should get the flu vaccination and this table shows how effective the shot has been from 2005-2016.

A large randomized clinical trial started in December 2010 sought to find the effectiveness of the flu vaccination in children. The trial took place in several different tropical and subtropical countries with 5,220 children all ranging from 3-8 years of age. This was a randomized control experiment in which children were divided evenly into groups to either get the FluLaval Quadrivalent or a hepatitis A vaccination. The hepatitis A vaccination group acted as a control placebo group. The experiment was definitely a single-blind study because the patients did not know which vaccine they would get, but it is unknown if the doctors knew what they were giving. This study lasted until October 2011 in which the observation lasted 6 months. In conclusion they found that in the flu vaccination group, 563 children had an illness like the flu, and the control group had 657 children who had a flu like illnesses. Once the study was reviewed more thoroughly, the experimental group contained 58 children with the flu and 128 children with the flu in the control group. This showed that the influenza vaccination did prove to work on the children. They concluded that the four-strain flu vaccine was about 55% effective in protecting children 3-8 years of age. They accepted the alternative hypothesis in which they were either correct or had a false positive. This trial did not suffer from the file-drawer problem because it was published for the public to read and for others to criticize.

In conclusion with the information I found, the benefits of getting a flu vaccination this season outweigh the negatives. The CDC recommends that everyone should get the vaccine once a year in order to prevent the nasty flu. The side effects predicted for this winter include soreness of the injection spot for a small amount of time, nausea, aches in muscles, fever, and headaches. While I really do not want to have any of these side effects, I REALLY do not want to get the flu here while i’m trudging through snow in the winter. The complete effectiveness of the vaccination continues to remain questionable but it still will not harm you.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/vaccineeffect.htm

http://www.nvic.org/nvic-vaccine-news/april-2016/cdc-admits-flu-shots-fail-half-the-time.aspx

http://www.medicaldaily.com/flu-shot-side-effects-2016-potential-reactions-influenza-vaccine-399104

https://www.graphiq.com/vlp/lc0KToAf1rf

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2013/12/large-trial-finds-55-efficacy-4-strain-flu-vaccine-kids

I have not always been a big snacker and would usually just eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner and nothing in between. However, when I came to college it became a different story. I felt myself constantly being hungry and needing a snack to fuel my energy when doing homework. Being that I would be doing much of my studying in the evening, I ate more snacks then. I wanted to know, does eating at night make you gain weight? Maybe this could account for the “freshman 15.” The null hypothesis is that eating at night DOES NOT make you gain weight; the alternative hypothesis is that eating at night DOES make you gain weight. I found several experiments that showed differing results.

A six-month study done by Israel researches searched to find if weight gain was influenced by eating more at night. In order to do this, two groups of people were compared: one group who ate the biggest meal at breakfast and one group who ate the biggest meal at an 8 p.m. or later dinner. Oddly, the study found that the people who ate later at night lost more fat and were more full for the six months of the trial. There were also more changes noticed in their fat loss hormones and they lost 11 % more weight than the group who consumed more calories at breakfast. This was a controlled experiment because the researchers chose which group would eat most at either breakfast or dinner. Another study done in 2012 with 78 obese police officers during a six-month trial period found similar results as the previous study. It found that the officers who ate more carbs at dinner lost more weight than the ones who ate more carbs before dinner. The researchers in both studies would have likely accepted the null hypothesis and either have been correct or had a false negative. Both showed that eating at night does not make you gain weight, but it actually makes you lose weight.

Other studies were done that showed an opposite conclusion and that eating late at night did cause weight gain. In 2013, a study was conducted for 12 weeks with 74 obese and overweight women, all who had a metabolic condition. There were two randomized groups of women: a dinner and a breakfast group. Both groups ate the same amount of calories, just at different times of the day either at dinner or breakfast. At the end of the 12 weeks, the women who lost more weight were the ones who consumed all of the calories at breakfast. When looking at this study, I noticed how there could be some factors that led to this conclusion. If people eat most of their calories at breakfast, they are more likely to burn off calories throughout their day, whereas the dinner eaters would not. Also even though the calorie count for each group was the same, the kind of foods each person was eating could have differed greatly. Therefore, I do not believe that this trial shows that one should or should not eat at night when it comes to weight loss or gain. Another trial done by Northwestern University used mice and found that when the creatures ate at night, they gained more weight. Since this trial was done on animals and not humans, the evidence is not trustworthy enough and is only anecdotal.

Even though all of these studies were conducted successfully with randomized control groups, there is still not enough evidence that one should change their eating patterns. Alan Aragon, a nutritionist says that a person’s body does not hold fat more easily at night than at any other time of the day. Time does not have a clear impact on weight gain. There are many confounding variables when trying to figure out if eating at night causes weight gain such as how much food is being consumed, what is being eaten (quality), if one is exercising daily, and if eating at night is keeping someone awake at night. Eating at night is not necessarily bad to do when the food has nutrition, is consumed in small portions, and the food is low in energy. It can be a problem if someone is eating large portions of food at night on a daily basis and is staying awake at night because of his or her eating habits.

In conclusion, I found that late-night eating does not significantly impact your weight, good or bad. However, each person has different cravings on the type of food they might eat at night which could cause different weight gains. This will continue to be a difficult question to answer, but as long as you’re eating healthy and doing daily exercise, you will not necessarily gain weight if you eat at night. Each person has to look out for what might cause him or her to gain weight. Just be careful how much you’re eating and what you’re eating at night when studying for those mid-terms!

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/diet-truth-myth-eating-night-causes-weight-gain#1

https://examine.com/nutrition/does-eating-at-night-make-it-more-likely-to-gain-weight/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4425165/

Throughout high school we had seen how people feel the need to fit in and seek approvable from others; we may have even been one of them. Some may change their actions, behaviors, beliefs, interests, and opinions based on their peers and group pressure. In high school, I always noticed how certain cliques of friends all dressed the same or even acted the same. I think teenagers in particular conform a lot because they still don’t know who they are, so they think they should just be more like whoever they admire most. Conformity isn’t always a bad thing; almost everyone today conforms to society in some way. There are definitely social norms and things that are acceptable to do in public that everyone conforms to. I wanted to know, why as humans do we feel the need to conform? Do we have a natural tendency to conform?

The Asch Conformity Experiments done by Solomon Asch in the 1950s were some of the most significant studies that showed how present conformity was. During this experiment, one innocent student was included in a large group of people who were taking a vision test. The large group in the experiment was told by the scientists to say a specific answer for each line segment that was presented to them. The innocent student was not aware of this and just thought he was taking a vision test along with the rest of the group. There was a total of 50 students in the trial and they were all presented with a line. They then had to choose another line that matched the first one they were shown. Out of 12 of the 18 trials, the large group of people who were “in on the experiment” gave wrong responses. This showed how people (the innocent student) would say the wrong answer even when they knew it was wrong. In these conformity experiments, 75% of people agreed with the rest of the group at least once. They were first told to write down their answers on the measurements of the line segment before saying it out loud; this showed people wrote down the right answer 98% of the time. People actually knew the right answer, but they decided to go along with the majority of the group’s answer. In addition, the study included 37 participants in a control condition in which one participant had to give their response with only the scientist in the room and no large group. This experiment showed that people faced a lot of pressure when in a group situation, so they felt like they have to say the same thing that the group did even if it was wrong. They did not want to be judged for saying something different and didn’t think they were as smart as the other people. The experiment also found that when there was more people in the group, the student was more likely to conform. Here is a video of the Ash Conformity Experiments being carried out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDDyT1lDhA%20

Through this monumental experiment, it can be shown that a person will act in a certain way to go along with a group of people in order to be right. I think that “right” is not just defined as having the correct answer, but the accepted answer among all of the peers. This type of conformity is called acceptance. I think that this particular set of experiments done by Asch was very well done because it was a random group of people and included many different trials. It was not a blind study though because the scientist manipulated certain groups on purpose and even some of the people included were given certain instructions. The Independent Variable was the number of actors who gave wrong answers (Asch controlled this) and the Dependent Variable was if the individual being tested conforms or not. It also does not suffer from the file-drawer problem because the results were published and well known to the public. Many other experiments were also done to show the impacts of conformity.

In an experiment done by Peter Reingen the question was whether or not conformity influenced people to agree to donations. People were asked to comply in five different experiments after shown a list of how many other people complied prior to them. It was concluded that with more false donors on the list that participants were shown, the more likely they were to donate.

Stanley Milgram a psychologist from Yale University conducted a conformity experiment as well. When reading about this, I remembered learning about this particular study in my psychology class in high school. It can be slightly had to describe, but here is a video of the experiment being carried out.

Milgram asked a randomized group of people to do what they were told by an authoritarian in the experiment. There were a total of 3 people in the experiment: the experimenter (authoritarian), the person who was obeying the orders, and the person who was receiving what the order was. Even though all of these people were critical, only one of the subject was being tested while the other two were only actors. This however was unknown to the subject being tested. One of the participants was given an electric shock by another participant when trying to learn certain words. The subject being tested was the one who had to administer the shocks. What they did not know though was there were no shocks actually being given and the learner was just acting like they were in pain as the voltage increased. Through this experiment, it was shown that most people would actually obey even if it was causing another person pain. Conformity is greatly shown through this because the subject felt he had to go along with whatever he was instructed to do. This ensured that he would not be wrong and could not be punished for not doing the order. Fortunately, this well-known experiment was not a file-drawer problem because Milgram published his findings in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 

Why do people need to conform? All of these experiments show how people conform because of social pressures and the need to fit in. Everyone can be guilty of wanting to feel accepted into society or a certain group of friends or peers.  As Cook (2011) states, compliance is a type of “normative social influence” in which a person wants to be accepted so he or she will agree with a group’s beliefs even though he or she may not share them. Another type of conformity is internalization which is when someone agrees with someone else because he or she trusts and values the other person’s opinions. These types of conformity can not only be shown through these experiments, but can be witnessed on a daily basis. When working with a partner in class on a worksheet, we might agree with their answer just because we are not confident enough in our own.  Through this research, I learned that it is important to stand up for your own ideas and not just agree with others because you are not confident enough in your own answers. Do not conform to others because you think you are wrong or you will get judged for being different. Being unique is important and one should not conform just to feel that he or she is good enough.

https://www.verywell.com/the-asch-conformity-experiments-2794996

https://www3.nd.edu/~rwilliam/xsoc530/conformity.html

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1982-09823-001

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

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

I have suffered from migraines for several years now, but luckily I only get them about once a year unlike some people who have them daily. The first time I got a migraine was in elementary school while I was having a flute lesson. It became increasingly difficult for me to play; I couldn’t feel my fingers that were supposed to be playing the notes, and I felt like I was in a dream-like state. This is an especially scary experience for someone in the fifth grade. Since then, I get migraines along with the terrible symptoms that go with them at least once a year. I have always wondered, why me? Why am I more likely to get migraines and why do I get them? Can these migraines be treated? A friend of mine’s mother suffers from chronic migraines every day and she has yet to find a solution to prevent them. I cannot imagine having to deal with the extreme pains of migraines on a daily basis. I decided to look into the science behind migraines.

According to the statistics found on this website, migraines are actually more prevalent in women than they are in men. Not all people who get migraines suffer from chronic ones, but it is found that there are at least 37 million people in the U.S. alone who suffer from migraines. So why does one get a migraine? Many people live without knowing a true reason why they get migraines, but those who have a family history of migraines are more likely to get them. I can relate to this because my brother experiences migraines occasionally and my dad suffers from bad headaches every day. Some common triggers for people who get migraines are: different atmospheres with scents such as strong perfume or unsteady lights, certain kinds of foods, menstruation for women, and stress. Stress is the most common trigger for migraines. Those who live with chronic migraines may lose the ability to function in daily activities, cannot go to work, or cannot go to school. I know that when I get a migraine at school, I need to go home because I cannot function in a school environment. Some of the most common symptoms of migraines are vomiting and nausea, change in vision with blurriness, an aura, pains on different sides of the body, sensitivity to light and sound, and a large amount of head pain.

Scientists have recently found a new experimental drug called TEV-48125 that may help people who suffer from chronic migraines. These new medications contain antibodies which block CBRP; this chemical causes blood vessels to expand and inflammation to occur in the brain during migraines. This is the first drug created to prevent migraines and it working could be monumental. Many other drugs have been used to treat migraines, but the only other one that can actually prevent them from occurring is Botox. A study was done with 261 randomly assigned patients who suffered from severe migraines. One group took injections of TEV-48125 monthly at a high or low dose, and the other group took a placebo for three months. The effects of this study appeared within the group who took the higher dose of the drug after three days, and those who took the lower dose took seven days.  The conclusion of this study showed that within a week of taking the drug injection, patients saw a substantial improvements in their migraine pains. A similar study had been done prior to this new one in which the number of hours the patients had headaches each month significantly dropped after taking the drug. No serious side effects have yet to surface, however this new drug may be too expensive for patients to afford.  If this study was done properly, it would be a blind study because the patients did not know if they were getting the drug or the placebo. However, it was not stated if the scientists knew who got what; it is unknown if it was a double-blind study. From the given information, this was a blind randomized control placebo trial that was also experimental because the scientists manipulated the variables.

It is difficult to find the exact sources and treatments for migraines. Hopefully with the increase in new technology and medicine, we will be able to prevent migraines more easily. People will no longer have to miss work and be in great amounts of pain throughout their lives because of migraines. If you are not sure what it’s like to experience migraine pain and symptoms, this video can show you what people go through who do.

https://consumer.healthday.com/head-and-neck-information-17/migraine-news-477/experimental-drug-acts-fast-against-chronic-migraine-711766.html

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20306955,00.html#your-environment-0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/migraine-virtual-reality-video_us_57075b60e4b0c4e26a225176

The second week I arrived on campus, I got sick along with the entire State College population. I was sick for about 3 weeks, wondering how can anyone ever be healthy when we’re around so many sick people 24/7? While we may all be passing around this sickness, could we also be getting sick because of the change in weather? I couldn’t help but wonder, does the weather situations and change in weather affect our health? When we first got here, it was extremely hot but now the weather has drastically changed and is fairly cold. People have always said that if you’re out in the rain and cold weather you can in fact catch a cold or going from freezing cold temperatures to extremely heated classrooms is not good for you. I wanted to find out if weather does can affect one’s health (alternative hypothesis) or if weather does not affect your health (null hypothesis).

While i found weather itself cannot make us sick, it can affect our body in different ways. Blood-pressure is said to drop when atmospheric pressure goes up, meaning in the summer, blood-pressure is the lowest. Also, as barometric pressure changes, some people experience more pressure in their sinuses. Warmer weather and the change in seasons increase allergy symptoms in some people. This explains why so many people get have bad allergies in the fall and spring. People who suffer from asthma may also be greatly affected by cold weather in particular because the air that they are breathing in takes longer to become warm. Thunderstorms also allow pollen to be carried with help from the wind, making people with asthma get attacks. Migraines can also be triggered from a quick drop in the temperature, quick humidity increase, and the barometric pressure falling. I am someone who suffers from migraines, but I have never thought that they could be due to the change in seasons. Richard a Director at a health care center in New York noticed that when his patient moved from NY to Arizona, she did not get migraines nearly as much. A survey showed that for 53% of respondents, weather was a trigger for their migraines. Some of these weather changes  can trigger migraines.

The graph above shows how as greenhouse gas concentrations increase, it will lead to more extreme temperatures and as this happens, there is an expectance of more deaths and illnesses. Children, and the elderly are the most vulnerable to these changes. The body has a harder time regulating its temperature which leads to more health complications. Whether this prediction is true or not is unknown. It is only a hypothesis: The more extreme temperatures get, the more deaths and illnesses there will be. In this example, the null hypothesis is that extreme temperatures do not affect death and illness and the alternative hypothesis is that extreme temperatures do lead to more deaths and illnesses.

While weather does not evidently make an individual sick, it can affect the human body and health in different ways. You’re not going to catch a cold from going out in cold and rainy weather, and you’re not going to automatically get sick just because the seasons are changing. Even though this may seem the case especially at State College, there are many other confounding variables that play into the reasons why we get sick. It is not proven that weather makes us sick even though it affects all of our bodies in different ways.

https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/impacts/health.html

http://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/the-weather-wreaking-havoc-on-health

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/migraine-headache/expert-answers/migraine-headache/faq-20058505)

https://health2016.globalchange.gov

I have always been strong in my faith and have always questioned, how does one believe in both creationism and evolution? Some say that you must choose between the two and believe in science or religion and not both, but that is not true.

Bible literalists say that the earth is less than 10,000 years old and was created in 6 days. They also reject evolution because they insist man was created by God on the 6^th day (rested on the 7^th). Many religions though see science and religion as compatible. In fact, there are scientists who are Christians and find that with more they discover, the more they are in awe of their creator. Some of these famous scientists in history even considered themselves Christians. It is crazy to consider why an all-powerful God would allow these same men to unlock the secrets of the universe and permit them to make astounding discoveries in their fields. However unlike scientists, religions do not need proof or specific explanations because they have their faith, which is all they need. In the 15^th century, Copernicium found that the earth revolved around the sun, which was not the conventional belief at the time. His finding went in direct conflict with the Roman Catholic church which supported the idea that the earth was the center with everything revolving around it. Religions based these beliefs of those of the Bible. Psalm 104:5 reads “The Lord set the earth on its foundation; it can never be moved.” And Ecclesiastes 1:5, “And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place.” Both of these Bible verses supported the Roman Catholic church’s beliefs. The church eventually changed the stance championed by the science community.

There will always be debate surrounding religion and science, however it is pointless to argue. People can choose what they believe in and can easily believe in both. Many scientists even express belief in a God or Supernatural force. As a believer, one can always go back to the creator who started the whole process from some beginning point. I believe that there had to be a beginning and my faith tells me that God was there before anything was. I think that it is very possible to believe in both evolution and creationism.

http://humanorigins.si.edu/about/broader-social-impacts-committee/science-religion-evolution-and-creationism-primer

Who doesn’t love vacation? There’s something about going somewhere away from home that  has such an appeal to it. By going on vacation or just taking a small trip, we get to escape the monotonous routine of our everyday lives. We get to go have an adventure, have some relaxation, have a change, and just take some time for ourselves. In addition to these benefits, vacation is actually good for one’s health.

One of the major benefits of vacation is it relieves stress and anxiety. If you are a complete adventurist and your vacations consist of intense and risky activities, then maybe anxiety won’t be relieved. However, if you’re like me and appreciate a nice and relaxing vacation, it will help reduce your levels of stress you’ve been facing throughout your week. Taking vacations can also be good for your heart and decrease your likelihood of getting heart disease. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood institute lead a study that showed how men who took vacation time from work were 32 less likely to develop a heart condition or disease. During time off of work, people are more likely to catch up on sleep which improves health greatly and will alleviate stress. When employees take more vacation time, they are also more productive. It was shown that employees who take at least 10 hours of vacation improved their ratings at the end of the year by at least 8 percent (Daskal). People are also happier and more content at their job after taking some vacation, so they are less likely to leave their firm.

Relationships can also be affected by going on vacations.  By going on vacation with your significant other, you are able to focus on each other without the daily distractions of work, and other obligations at home. Maybe this could contribute to why couples go on honeymoons after they get married. It’s a time when they can spend time and be intimate with each other early in their marriage before they have to continue with their daily routines. I think that when we are on vacation, we are the happiest versions of ourselves and who wouldn’t want that? Going away with family also can improve your relationship with them and can allow you to have a meaningful time with them. Think about your most memorable trips to the beach with extended family you haven’t seen all year, or that time you went to Disney World with your parents and siblings and had the time of your life. Parents take joy in being able to give their children an amazing, once in a life time experience while they too are having a great time. Even if “going on vacation” is just taking time off at work as an adult, it can still be just as beneficial. Personally, when my mom gets to take her week vacation over the summer she is so happy and cheerful because she gets to cook for her family, spend time with us more, and have her work stress go away. Whether it’s going to the beach for a week, traveling across the country for the first time, or just taking some days off work to relax at home, vacation is something everyone needs in their life. Coming back isn’t always the easiest, but it’s important to look out for ourselves and our personal health.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jill-l-ferguson/health-benefits-of-taking-a-vacation_b_9384466.html

https://www.alamo.com/en_US/car-rental/scenic-route/travel-tips/health-benefits-taking-vacation.html

http://www.inc.com/lolly-daskal/4-scientific-reasons-why-vacation-is-awesome-for-you.html

Every year before Christmas break, my high school had an annual talent show. My two friends, Emma and Hannah, and I sang in the show together for 3 years. The rush we got from being on stage in front of our entire school, getting to do something we love together felt more than amazing. Each year we became more and more comfortable with singing together on stage. Our last year meant the most to us being that it was our senior year and we wanted it to be memorable. We practiced constantly and were more than ready to get up on stage for the last time, or so we thought. We had been successfully singing our song, getting a great reaction from the audience; however, as we finished the song no one was clapping. We were so confused, everyone looked stunned. In that moment I went to stand up, and I realized my friend Hannah looked terrified: she was starting to get a seizure. My friend who happened to be sitting in the front row of the auditorium jumped on stage and caught her in the air before she hit the ground. As she seized, Emma and I were speechless. We did not know what to do and before I knew it, someone had taken my hand and was leading me off the stage as they abruptly ended the talent show and sent everyone back to their classrooms. Everything happened so fast that day, from making sure Hannah was alright, to receiving multiple hugs from both friends and teachers, to leaving school early still in shock.

Hannah had only had one other seizure before in her life and she had a mild case of epilepsy. She took medication every day for it and the day of the talent show, she had forgotten to take it that morning. Even though this was most likely the reason for her seizure that day, I still wanted to know more about her condition and if anything else could have contributed to it that day.

Epilepsy is a condition of the brain that causes seizures and affects the nervous system. Hannah had only experienced one other seizure in her life which doesn’t technically make her epileptic because one is usually diagnosed after experiencing two or more seizures spaced out by at least 24 hours. A common trigger for having a seizure can be missing doses of medicine, however missing a single does usually does not affect the person; this was not the case for my friend. The seizure could have also been triggered by dehydration and the exposure to the bright and flashing lights on the stage. When Hannah’s seizure started, Emma and I had not noticed since we were beside her. However, when I watched the video of us singing for the first time, I had noticed that she had stopped snapping her fingers along with me and Emma. Before someone has a seizure, she may have difficulty talking and have a lack of movement. This explains why Hannah stopped singing and snapping at the end of the song. Her seizure was followed by convulsions and twitching movements, and luckily my friend who jumped on stage got her to her side immediately. After the incident, Hannah was confused and had a loss of memory; she barely remembered even singing the song and was wondering if we got to finish it. During epileptic seizures, loss of consciousness and awareness is very common.

Unfortunately, epilepsy affects about 150,000 Americans. The seriousness of the epilepsy ranges from person to person. My friend did not have one thing that actually caused her epileptic seizures, however some people get seizures because of previous head injury, infection, tumors, or through genetics. People who are diagnosed with epilepsy face many changes in their lives. Like my friend Hannah, after one has a seizure he or she loses his or her driver’s license and cannot drive for at least six months without having another seizure. This can be quite an adjustment especially if transportation is key to getting to school or a job.

Learning more about epilepsy has made me realize how serious of a disease it is and how much it can affect people. Even though I had to witness a very scary experience with my friend, it opened my eyes to how symptoms of certain diseases can come and go at any point in time.

https://www.epilepsysociety.org.uk/living-epilepsy#.V9TDOZMrJsO

http://www.healthline.com/health/epilepsy/facts-statistics-infographic

http://www.epilepsy.com/learn/epilepsy-101/what-causes-epilepsy-and-seizures

Hey everyone, my name is Alyssa Frey and I’m from a village (not even big enough to be a town) in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I am undecided right now, but I am considering a major in marketing. All throughout high school, science was my worst subject. I dreaded going every day to science class whether it was Earth and Space Science, Biology, Chemistry, or Physics. Every year I had a new science class, I thought if I just study and do my work I’ll do well. I couldn’t be more wrong. It seemed that every single year I had a horrible teacher who made science even worse for me. I am clearly not majoring in science because I never understand it and find it incredibly boring.

When I was planning my schedule at NSO, I was told that since I will most likely be on a business path, I never have to take my most hated science classes. I found this course as a gen. ed and it automatically looked interesting to me. I think what really stuck out was “this is a class for non-scientists.” As much as I’d love to be good at science and really enjoy it, I just don’t and this class seemed like the right one for me. My older brother is also always watching the discovery network and loves learning about science related things that are going on in our world and outside of it. When I read this class description, I automatically thought of him and how he would have loved to be able to take a class like this. I can’t wait to share with him all the interesting things we learn and talk about in this class.

Music is a huge passion of mine. I play guitar, love to sing, and am constantly listening to music when I’m studying or going somewhere. I found this interesting article about what music does to our brains.