In class, we discussed the idea of using science to understand if animals can be gay and the political and social stigma behind that decision. I found this class interesting, not as much because of the animals, but how the science behind determining biological factors. This reminded me of one of the darker sides of science, which is when studies are unethical and use motivated reasoning to benefit political powers. The most famous example would be the eugenics movement in Nazi Germany that created the idea of racial superiority and caused a lot of heartache for the world. This misguided attempt at science could have been avoided  by properly using the lessons we learned in class, like scientific scrutiny, realising the difference between correlations and causation, the necessity of replacing experiments, the list goes on.

What interests, and disgusts me, is a similar circumstance where science is perverted in sick ways during the Apartheid era in South America concerning their military’s attempts to understand and “correct” homosexual behaviour. The details were gathered in this report called The Aversion Project. It contains details about research methods, goals, study design, and enough details to convince anyone that they performed with proper scientific discovery as a priority. The study outlines ridiculous tests and treatments like creating exclusively homosexual battalions to observe how they fight, electro shock treatment while looking at pornographic images. Even worse, about 900 subjects were forced to reserve sex change operations or chemical castration.

This soldier recounts his experiences of being forced into the project as humiliating, traumatizing, and described the doctors as confused. His experiences are consistent with the report, meaning his experiences were probably not unique to the soldiers in the studies.

These experiments demonstrates ideology masquerading as science. It is true that the doctors followed the scientific method in their minds, and were through in collecting data, but they knowingly ignored proper ethics. Any perceived breakthroughs found were either quickly thrown out, or made no sence  Cancer treatment at the time had a better record. Not only did this restrict proper peer review and the cumulative elements of science by hiding their work, they remove the human element that recognises what knowledge actually benefits mankind.

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http://revcom.us/i/324/ForFreedom76AP739947911229HiRez.jpg

Coming from Massachusetts this election did not only elect the controversial Donald Trump to office, but it also legalized the ever controversial plant: Marijuana. This is a topic that deeply divides people and I believe that it divides people because there are a distinct lack of facts. This blog explores whether there are any lasting effects of Marijuana use from a factual scientific position.

To explore this topic I used two meta-analyses that researched the physiological effects of marijuana on young people as well as one that researched whether Cannabis use can lead to psychotic or affective symptoms that last beyond initial intoxication.

The first study, conducted by Dr. John Macleod, gathered data collected by 16 other previous studies. Macleod set out with the hypothesis that drug use creates psychological health problems, use of other illegal drugs, reduced educational attainment, and antisocial behaviour. Along with the hypothesis, the study recognized that findings could be directly linked to reverse causation, where drug use is a consequence of the behaviors, as well as the possibility of a null hypothesis that neither of these hypotheses could be true.

The study found a mixture of results due to the large amount of confounding data.  The study was able to find consistent associations between marijuana use and lower educational attainment as well as an increase in reported use of other drugs. The study also found that while there is evidence between young people and psychological harm the extent of this connection is not as strong as previously believed, but a possibility that there is a connection can not be expelled. They also found that there is no strong evidence that marijuana has consequences on social health.

The second study, published by The Lancet, had conflicting data from Dr Macleod. The second study was a meta-analysis of 35 longitudinal population based studies. The hypothesis of this study was that marijuana use can lead to psychotic or affective symptoms.  Unlike in Macleod’s study, it was found that marijuana use led to an increased risk of psychotic outcomes.

After reading the results of these two meta-analyses, I came to the hypothesis that marijuana use, much like alcohol, creates personal effects for different people and therefore may not directly lead to physiological effect, but potentially exacerbates pre-existing conditions. My hypothesis is supported by Macleod’s study when it suggests that rather than marijuana use causing the problems, it is reverse causation and psychosocial problems might be more a cause than a consequence of marijuana use.

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Macleod, John, PhD. “Psychological and Social Sequelae of Cannabis and Other Illicit Drug Use by Young People: A Systematic Review of Longitudinal, General Population Studies.” ScienceDirect. The Lancet, 15 May 2004. Web. 2 Dec. 2016.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673604162004

Moore, Theresa HM. “Cannabis Use and Risk of Psychotic or Affective Mental Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review.” Cannabis Use and Risk of Psychotic or Affective Mental Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review. The Lancet, Aug. 2007. Web. 2 Dec. 2016.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673607611623

I’m sure the majority of college girls – and most girls, in all honesty – can agree with me when I say high heels are absolutely horrible to wear. They may look pretty, but they can definitely hurt your feet. However, recently I began noticing that not just my feet were hurting when I would wear heels – I wear a decent size, around 5 in, and now I start to feel my knees hurting with each step and calves feel tighter than usual. So now Im wondering – can high heels affect the rest of your body (other than just your feet)?

Null Hypothesis: high heels do not affect the rest of your body

Alternative Hypothesis: high heels do affect the rest of your body

First off: what about high heels causes that foot pain that we all know and love?

The majority has to do with how much pressure you’re putting on your feet. According to The Spine Institute, wearing high heels actually throws off the usually even amount of pressure on your feet, and focuses on the balls of your feet and toes instead – similar to the pressure you feel in your feet when walking uphill. The taller the heel, the higher the elevation, and the more the pressure.

Wearing a narrow pointed high heel or an ill fitting high heel (whether it’s too big or small) will also cause foot pain as this is why causes ingrown toenails and blisters.

And now how they can affect the rest of the body

Knee pain:

Similar to how it works with feet, The Spine Institute stated that wearing heels also puts a lot of pressure on your knees because its similar to walking in an uphill motion. It also puts stress on the inside of your knees which in time (if you wear heels daily) can possibly lead to joint and muscle damage.

Calves and Ankle pain:

According to Women’s Health, wearing heels (especially ones that contain straps) can cut off the circulation near your ankle since it forces the ankle to move forward – with enough time, this could cause veins to occur on the lower part of your legs. Walking in high heels (as I have noticed) causes your calves to get really tight as you’re trying to maintain balance – this is why it takes your feet some adjusting to walk normally after wearing heels for a prolonged period of time (the calf muscle needs to loosen itself). If you wear heels constantly for a long period of time, this can result in your calves being consistently tight, causing pain while walking no matter what shoes are being worn.

Back Pain:

When standing with no heels, your back is usually just straight, so there are no points of pressure or strain. According to The Spine Institute, wearing heels causes your back to arch forward, to compensate for the balance being lost. Walking for hours in heels can put a lot of stress on your lower back, resulting in soreness and pain.

Long term effects:

Chronic high heel wearing can not only change the anatomy of your body (as shown with the calf muscles) but can also lead to a chronic nerve pain. This nerve condition causes tingling, sharp pains, and muscle cramps that radiate from the lower back all the way down to the legs.

Remedies

The Spine Institute shows a variety of ways to help alleviate pain from wearing high heels. Some ways include stretching, buying insoles to place in your shoe (Dr. Scholls, for example), avoiding certain types of high heels and limiting the amount of time you wear heels per day.

Conclusion:

We have enough evidence to prove that wearing high heels does in fact affect more than just feet, so therefore we can reject the null hypothesis. 

I was unaware how much damage a pair of shoes could cause, so a word of the wise would be to wear shoes like this in moderation to avoid injury.

Web Sources: here. here

Photo Source: here

A small percentage of the world’s population suffer from Celiac Disease, also known as an allergy to gluten/autoimmune disorder.  Some people may not realize they have this disease until later in life, and eliminating gluten completely from their diet may feel like an epiphany, and solve many issues. However it has become a common diet and trend amongst people who do not have Celiac disease to go “gluten free”. Since gluten is found in wheat, barley, and rye, cutting it out of your diet almost seems like a guaranteed method to loosing weight. Is that really accurate though?

Even people with Celiac Disease that go on gluten free diets are not guaranteed to lose weight. In fact, a study conducted over 2 years on 371 people with Celiac disease showed that 82% of people that were already overweight, gained even more weight once going gluten free. Of course, if you have a gluten allergy, you have no choice but to cut it out completely, but this supports the claim that people without the disease should keep it in their diet.

A study was conducted, in which 139 peoples recorded a food diary of their gluten-free lives in order to analyze levels of nutrients that were ingested. It was found that levels of magnesium, zinc, and iron were lower than what is recommended. Energy intake was also lower.(Robins) There are potential problems with this experiment though, because the sample size is not too big and there could be errors in people’s self reports.

Gluten free diets may be suggested to people with gastrointestinal problems such as IBS or even Autism Spectrum disorders. However, there is a lack of evidence supporting the claim that going gluten free will help these problems. Our body benefits from stomach bacteria that gluten provides.  Oligofructose is an important starch found in wheat that improves or metabolism of lipids and and absorption of minerals. When we cut gluten out of our diet completely, we are missing out on these benefits. (Gaesser)

One experimental study was done on a group of 10 subjects, in which they followed a gluten free diet for an entire month.  At the end of the month, researchers took fecal samples and found that were lacking beneficial bacteria. (Gaesser)

In another double-blind, randomized experiment, women were given 48g of wheat for breakfast for a 3 week period. Fecal samples were collected before and after the experiment, and after the diet, it was evident that one bacteria called Bifidobacterium increased 10%.  (Gaesser)

As it might seem like a desirable thing to cut out gluten from your diet, it is probably not a good idea if you do not suffer from Celiac disease.  There is no evidence that can prove weight loss benefits, and you will miss out on healthy bacteria for your body. Gluten free diets are also hard to abide by, and a lot of bread substitution products still contain carbs and  sugar, defeating the purpose of weight loss. It is not determined how detrimental these bacterias are to one’s life, however it is important to provide your body with nutrients in order to maintain health.

Sources:

http://www.andjrnl.org/article/S2212-2672(12)00743-5/fulltext?mbid=synd_msnhealth

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2036.2010.04386.x/full

Pictures:

http://blog.pharmacymix.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/gluten-free.jpg

http://yourpathpersonaltraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Gluten1.jpg

Waking up is hard to do. Eyes are heavy, the air is cold, and the body longs to retreat back to the warm embrace of a blanket. For many the only way to combat the curse of the morning is a good cup of coffee. As students, many of us rely on coffee, or more specifically caffeine, for a mild, relatively harmless jumpstart. Many of us even start to develop certain preference on how the beverage is made. Those who prefer flavour may order a cappuccino, others who need an immediate jolt of energy will order an espresso. The thing is, the former of this group has subjective taste and is not relevant to this blog, and the latter is wrong… kind of.

According to this study, the typical 8 oz cup of regular coffee will contain about 92.5 mg of caffeine on average, and an expression will contain about 40 mg. Simple numbers clearly demonstrates that the average cup of coffee can contain more than half the caffeine than an espresso (not accounting for variables like temperature, milk content, brew style, etc.) The thing is human intuition is lousy, even when the numbers are in front of us.

The way a person drinks their coffee makes all the difference, more specifically the size of their cup  is what changes things. You see, most people take their espressos in 2 oz shots. Per oz, regular coffee divides its caffeine content relatively evenly to about 8-15 mg/oz according to the same study. An espresso, on the other hand, contains 30-50 mg/oz due to the concentration of caffeine (again, not considering other variables.)

The question is, why do people believe espressos contain more caffeine? A possibility explanation is that the name sounds a little like “express.” A more likely explanation again comes from the way people drink their coffee. Espressos are consumed quickly in shots, and coffee is usually consumed slower. We assume the immediate feeling of energy must come from a high amount of caffeine, but that is only half correct. It is a correlation that does not match its causation.

The main lesson here reinforces what might as well be the class motto, our intuition is lousy, but straight numbers are not the cure. In terms of purpose, espressos do their jobs by giving people quick energy, and although caffeine content does not support that idea, caffeine concentration does.

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• https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nobrowcoffee.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F04%2Fcoffee-wallpaper-1306-1433-hd-wallpapers.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nobrowcoffee.com%2F&docid=n-nxrQnMQeInaM&tbnid=gY9N7c3ErDisnM%3A&vet=1&w=1920&h=1080&bih=950&biw=1920&ved=0ahUKEwiX4cGa7NXQAhXG1IMKHdvgBK4QMwiLASgPMA8&iact=mrc&uact=8

Today 1 in every 5 teens in the US has some form of hearing loss. This is 30% higher than it was twenty years ago. This is due to the increased use of headphones and other variables. The latest research shows using headphones that go inside the ear canal is incredibly hazardous to your hearing.

According to otologist Dr. Foy music players make sounds that reach up to 120 decibels. This sound level is the same as the sound level at a rock concert. You can start losing your hearing listening to sounds at that decibal after about an hour and 15 minutes.

The cochlea is the auditory inner ear chamber where hearing occurs. The cochlea is lined with hair cells that vibrate at different sound frequencies. Those vibrations get translated into nerve signals hence; sound. But loud noise can damage them. And unlike the hair on your head, once damaged those hairs don’t grow back.

Researchers at the U.S. CDC The CDC reported that 12.5 percent showed signs of hearing loss. A credible scientist doesn’t support the thesis of earphones increasingly causing hearing loss. William Clark an audiologist, conducted research collected data between 1970 and 1985 that showed no hearing loss has elevated during that period. A similar study looked at young workers with Alcoa between 1985 and 2004. Again, Clark says, there was no evidence of a decline in hearing. He said as quoted “But these findings do not mean that Walkmans or iPods or other personal stereos are not hazardous,”. So we should still be cautious with how loud our music is.

According to hearing experts, you can reduce the risk of hearing loss by listening to music at no more than 60% of the highest volume for no more than an hour a day. Also using headphones instead of earbuds can help prevent damage to your ears. Hearing loss is irreversible so take note! Feel free to comment. Thanks for reading.

Kitty Genovese was murdered out on the street and 38 people watched from their apartment windows…weird right? In an instance where someone is in eminent danger I think we would all like to believe that we would help the person in trouble, however a study done by John Darley and Bibb Latané suggest that if you are in a group you are likely to do nothing at all. However, we are not completely thoughtless; they also found that it is very likely that if you are alone you will do something whether that be directly or trying to get help. You are probably no think why wouldn’t anyone do anything; well in many social science you are taught that there are barriers of independent behavior. This means that when you are in a group you are likely to conform to what the rest of the group is doing instead of speak up. There are a number of barriers of independent behavior, and in this case it was diffusion of responsibility. No one saw anyone else do anything so they analyzed the situation as normal, possible hoping that someone else would do something. However, the truth is unless one person decides not to conform to the group the whole group will likely not take action. I thought that this was a little crazy to think about at first, but after looking at John Darley and Bibb Latané’s study as well as a meta-analysis it seems to be true.

In Darley’s and Latané’s study the null hypothesis was that being in a group does not affect a person’s reaction; while the alternative hypothesis suggest being in a group does affect a person’s reaction. To test the alternative hypothesis they had smoke coming out of a closed door into a room where people were working. First they would send one person in and watch their response and then they would do the same thing except with multiple people in the room. They later tried an experiment where people had headsets and an actor pretended to have a seizure once again first doing it with one individual and then with a group. In both examples participants that were alone were more likely to do something than those in a group. At the end of the study they decided to reject the null hypothesis.
Through meta-analysis I was able to determine the accuracy of their result better. The studies that made up the meta-analysis were done during the 1960’s to 2010, and over 7,000 people were tested; the likelihood that the results for all these studies were due to chance is very small, so I believe that it is most like being in a group that changes a person’s reaction. I found that reverse causation could not happen in this case because a person’s reaction is not the deciding factor of whether they will be in a group they already are or are not. However, I also found that third confounding variables may play a role in people’s reactions. For example many other studies showed that the perception of how dangerous it was to do something affected the result. People’s behavior changed when the perpetrator was there versus not and whether they could be in any physical harm or not. I realize that it is hard to analysis human behavior because we’re are not all necessarily the same but the studies doe to prove the bystander effect are very convincing.

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Flipping a tire doesn’t seem like it would be all that fun, let alone do it as a work out, but it is one of the most beneficial workouts you will ever perform. For those of you who have never heard of this work out, it’s pretty simple, take a tire 3 times your weight or heavier and while keeping proper body form flip it over onto the other side, as demonstrated in the pic below! Then you simply repeat this exercise until you fatigue or your complete the given exercise.

Pic info

Some Studies show that crossfit workouts are the best workout to burn calories and gain muscle. Conducted in 2010, a tire flipping study suggested that this work out provides a high level of metabolic output as well as physical and mental stressors. All of which are good for the body. Other similar studies shared common theories about the bodies physical output while performing tire flipping. But how does it really work? What makes it so much better than workout?

The National body building association gave some insight as to why this workout is so great. You simply work more muscles at the same time, all while using cardiovascular output.

chart of main muscles used

Studies show the science behind how the workout affects the caloric output. The mathematics behind the flip can be somewhat complicated, but the math has also proven that the body uses more energy flipping than several other workouts. The math takes into account several factors like angles, weights and energy but the results are clear, tire flipping uses more energy in a shorter amount of time. According to Harvard medical school, the average person only burns about 90 calories an hour. The graph below, you can see there are drastic differences between regular strength training and Crossfit workouts.

crossfit image

Another research study found that though crossfit is beneficial, there are dangers associated with the new fitness craze. If not properly done, you could suffer from pulled or sprained joints and ligaments, you could also have cardiovascular related issues if you are not properly trained or overwork your heart. This study focused on people who had already been working out with crossfit so the results only pertain to a fitter population. The hypothesis provided solid evidence to suggest that this crossfit workout burns more calories, but the samples were smaller and not representative of the over population. The study did not mention any confounding variables like level of fitness of the participant, but it did note that it wouldn’t be ideal for a 45 year old attempting it without proper help from a trained fitness coach or trainer. The study may also suffer from the Texas sharp shooter problem since the participants were already prone to be in better shape, there for able to perform the exercise better than someone who had never done crossfit. So more research needs to be done as well as prior research being duplicated.

photo credit

The take home message, tire flipping and other crossfit workouts simply give you the best bang for your buck when it comes to getting into shape, though the science gives you multiple examples how it works in your favor, there is a chance that these workouts might not be the right one for you. More research on how crossfit effects the body needs to be done since there aren’t that many studies on this new workout. Though the correlations and hypothesis seem to be correct, more research couldn’t hurt. In the mean time, why not change up your regular gym routine and give it a shot!

I have girlfriend, who is always smiling and laughing for the most part everyday. By the end of the month she is not her usual self she acts completely different person. She will go from happy to sad to happy to mad and happy again all in a day and let me tell you it sucks.

It was hard to try to understand what was going with her So I decided to do some research and found this out. So when females are going through their menstrual cycle; hormones in their body can influence their mood. When a female starts her menstrual cycle she goes through different phases.

The first phase is called the Follicular Phase and Ovulation; often known to be when females are feeling good which is when their hormone estradiol starts to go up. When Follicle stimulating hormones are released trigger the creation of follicles in the ovaries that hold eggs.

The second phase or the feeling sexy phase is the Ovulatory Phase. When a women is in this phase a matter called Luteinizing hormone rises. The Luteinizing hormone helps set free the eggs from the ovaries and into the fallopian tubes for fertilization. In this phase the woman can exhibit sexual behaviors.

The last phase or the Luteal Phase, which is the phase right before they menstruate after women have ovulated the eggs that were in the follicles emit hormone progesterone; and as the progesterone level goes up women begin to get moodier this is when women become irritable.

Another thing that I found interesting when I was doing research on the topic According to Medicaldaily.com women during their menstrual cycle may see a decrease in their cognitive ability. Menstrual cramps can interfere in their selective attention and in their attention span; meaning that they are likely to lose track of tasks that they are doing.

Wow women go through a lot when their menstrual cycle comes around; their body has a lot of things going on. Now that I know what they go through it helps me better understand why the changes in mood occur their bodies reset every month so that they can be fertile.

Sources:

Medicaldaily.com

http://www.everydayhealth.com/womens-health/how-your-menstrual-cycle-affects-your-behavior.aspx

https://theperiodvitamin.com/wp-content/themes/vitamin/image/Cramping.jpg

Classical conditioning is all about learning behaviors through associations. I want to look at how both Ivan Pavlov and John Watson used classical conditioning to control behavior, and if it is truly possible to shape or control behavior.
In Ivan Pavlov’s experiment he gave a dog food and saw that this was a positive stimulus that would cause the dog to drool. So each time he would feed the dog he would ring the bell and the dog began to drool every time he heard the bell because he associated it with his food. Eventually the dog would drool after hearing the bell without ever receiving any food.

John Watson wanted to see if the same thing could happen for people and so he did an experiment using baby Albert. First he socialized Albert with a number of animals, a coat, and a Santa mask; Albert seemed to like all these things especially the rat. In fact he associated all the other things shown to him with the rat. However, Watson then rang a bell which made a loud noise and scared Albert; he did so whenever Albert would reach for the rat. Albert began to fear not only the rat but everything else he once liked because he associated everything with the rat and the rat with the loud noise that scared him. Watson wanted to see if this same thing would work over a period of time so brought in Albert later on to watch his response and it turned out that Albert still feared the loud noise and the rat he associated it with.

Each of these studies, although semi-unethical, are credited with discovering something new about human behavior; however I would like to analysis to what extent they engage in the scientific process.
In both of these studies the null hypothesis would be the behavior is not learned through associations. The alternative hypothesis would be that you do learn behavior through association. The correlations within these studies is that as perceived associations change so does behavior. Both of these experiments are not randomized. Being a though they both only have one subject. They do not have a placebo because there is no way to fake a bell ringing. They are also single blind experiments because while Pavlov and Watson knew what was happening the dog and baby did not. The issue with all of this is that as we have seen in the past, when the only the participants do not know what is happening the results can be affected by the scientist or observers. The scientist what’s the alternative hypothesis to be true and so by him partaking in the experiment he may be unintentionally be push the behavior to change so that he gets the results he wants. The mechanisms in each of these studies are the bells that ring; they provoke the behavior of the subject and their association further shape their behavior. However without the original stimulus the behavior cannot be provoked. Something else to point out is that reverse causation would not be considered in these studies because of time and third confounding variables are unlikely the reason for their behavior changes. In closing, they both rejected the null hypothesis and I agree because there have been studies to follow these two that suggest the same. Not everything they did in their studies convinces me that they are accurate, but what convinces me outweighs what does not.

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Have you ever watched one of those action packed thrillers that revolve around a main character who somehow has been able to access parts of the brain that no one has previously been able to access. For example like in the movie “Lucy” when Scarlett Johansson ends up with chemicals in her system that allow her to use more than 10% of her brain. The movie centers around the superhuman abilities she gain from being able to use more of her brain than anyone else. However, the conflict is that she is in harm’s way if she ever reach using 100% of her brain. I realize that “Lucy” is just a movie and that the details of this movie are highly unlikely but I do wonder if we as human use the full capabilities of our brain or rather just 10%. There has been a long going myth about this topic and I want to find out the truth behind just how much of our brains we actually use.
After some research I found that it is likely true indeed that we use more than 10% of our brain. I found out this information not so much from a formal scientific experiment or observers but through the fundamentals of science. On the first day of class we went over why science was important and we continued to explore this matter throughout the semester. In fact when Dr. Jason Wright, a visiting speaker, came to lecture the class he expressed more specifically what made the scientific process so important. The key to science is that is admits ignorance and because it does so there is a process scientist go through to make sure that what that find as factual is actually true. We discussed a few of these step they go through, in class and I discovered that this process could be used to find out if the 10% myth was likely to be true or not.
The steps that we discussed in class included; confirmation bias, logical fallacy, rhetorical danger sign, motivated reasoning, and multiple independent lines of evidence. In the case of finding out whether we only use 10% of our brain that most important things from this list are logical fallacy and multiple independent lines of evidence. As far and logical fallacies go, we believe in the 10% myth because someone once said it and it was picked up by the media and repeated to us continuously. The movies and tv that we watch suggest that the myth is true and psychics who try and push the paranormal on us say it. It’s not so much who is telling us but the fact that some many are telling us it is true. If you look at the sources independently the may not be so believable but when everyone is telling you something it creates a banned wagon effect. You begin to think that it must be true because why else would so many people say it is. The issue with this is that there is no science behind this reasoning; you are just taking people’s word for it. First of to take the word of someone who uses paranormal reasoning can’t be scientifically accurate because science doesn’t use the paranormal to explain fact. Secondly, there is no experiments or observations behind this reason which means it can’t be science. All of this suggest that the 10% myth is likely to be false, but furthermore there are multiple lines of evidence that prove it is false.

Medical advances in technology has allowed us to see that human defiantly use more that 10% of our brains. For one there are test like; EEG’s MRI’s, and PET scan that show us which parts of our brain are active, and it a whole lot more than 10%. Secondly, we know that a neurosurgeon has to map the brain of his or her’s patient before surgery because if they take out too much of a certain region of the brain a person can become physically impaired, disabled, or even brain dead. So if it were the case that we only used 10% percent of our brains mapping wouldn’t be so important because that would mean the majority of our brains were of no use to use. Third, if we only had 10% percent of our brain it would be like having the brain of a sheep, and as far as I know they don’t have the same mental capabilities as an animal. Finally, we have seen through illnesses and disease that losing much less than 90% of your brain’s functioning ability can affect a person drastically. Patients with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease or effect of a stroke may have more than 10% use of their brains and they are still in horrible condition.

So saying as though my hypothesis would be seeing if we do use only use 10% of our brains logical fallacies and multiple lines of evidence would lean more towards either rejecting the hypothesis or accepting the null hypothesis. Being as though logical fallacies are the main source of proof toward only using 10% of our brains and multiple line of evidence suggests we use more than 10% of our brains I can confidently say that I accept the null hypothesis for the time being. But you never know science is ever changing after all.

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Although obesity can cause medical problems involving heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea and depression, can it affect cognitive functioning as well? According to a research study recently broadcasted in Neuropsychology, that might actually be true. John Gunstad of Kent State Universoty and Kelly M. Stanek of the University of Alabama directed a team of researchers studying the interaction of BMI and cognitive performance throughout the human lifespan. Their conclusions have worrying problems for the present obesity epidemic as well as the alarming rise in dementias cases amongst older adults.

Based on prior studies, obesity has been related to increased danger of Alzheimer’s disease and stroke. Weight gain has also been linked to a continuing decline in cognitive functioning even when dementia is not in play. Neuroimaging studies of morbidly obese people (BMI bigger than 40) propose that they are at a larger risk for brain deterioration- however these outcomes are still debatable for younger individuals. As people get older however, they become more susceptible to brain-related illnesses which may make the consequences of obesity even more essential.

In their latest study, Stanek, Gunstad, and their collaborators studied data collected from the Brain Resource International Database (BRID) as well as data taken from a national study of morbidly obese people having bariatric surgery to aid in weight loss. In total 732 people varying in age from 18 to 88 and with BMI score ranging from 19 to 75 were used in the study. As well as medical history, the researchers also looked at how the people in the study responded on different analyses of cognition, including memory, attention and decision-making.

Like the researchers predicted, age was inversely linked to performance on most of the cognitive tests. Decreased attention, fine motor speed, and processing speed was also a connected consequence to obesity. However, the relationship between BMI and other cognitive capabilities seemed to be more complex. Even though the overall correlation between BMI and executive functioning was not substantial, it did become a factor when age was brought into the picture. According to the results, executive functioning shortages were greater for older adults who were obese than for older adults who had a lower BMI. When factors such as medical history were taken into account, these results were still significant.

Overall, these findings indicate that obesity can increase the risk of different cognitive problem as individuals age. The interaction between age and BMI in reduced executive functioning seem especially important since both aging and obesity have separate effects on brain structure and cognition. As people get older, they become more susceptible to different issues affecting brain functioning than when they were adolescents.

The relationship between cognitive damage and obesity is not necessarily limited to older adults however, since research has found cognitive problems in severely obese younger individuals as well. Since there have been quite few research studies dealing with obesity and brain functioning so far, the definite connection between BMI and cognition is still uncertain.

Sources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-spotlight/201306/obesity-and-the-brain

Picture from: http://andconsulting.org/blog/brain-obesity/

Time and time again we always hear about the negative consequences of playing video games. Every time a school-shooting occurs, violent video games are always to blame. Video games are attributed to laziness, bad grades, lack of a social life, and much more. The negative stigma of video games has always been omnipresent in our culture ever since its appearance, but why is that? According to Jospeh Olin from CNN, journalists report and emphasize super violent and mature games and use those games as representatives of all games in general. Journalists attempt to make juicy and interesting headlines; in order for them to do so, they take very rare cases of violent video games negatively affecting children and emphasize that story to generalize all of video game culture.

When I was growing up, video games had a monumental impact on my life. My family moved almost every two years while I was young, so I would always lose friends that I have made, but my video game system always moved with me. Video games were the only thing keeping me from going insane of loneliness; I would spend hours and hours immersed in a fantasy world that would take my real world problems aside, even for a little bit. In my opinion, Video games basically molded me into the person I am now. Sure, I can see how video games distract kids from doing their homework, but in the long run, I see video games as being extremely positive for some kids who can’t find a place in their social atmosphere.

This being said, why is it that ever since the introduction of video games in 1980 to mass consumers, critics have been slamming video games for the negative consequences and violent behavior. According to Scott Speinberg, it’s actually a simple explanation. Video games are very generational products. Critics and journalists do not engage in the behavior of playing video games, so they do not experience the positive and or negative effects of the games. Even scientists have attempted to research on the negatives of video games. Christopher Ferguson, a Psychology Professor at Florida Stetson University quoted, ” Studies that aim to find negative effects get funded and promoted, while those with more benign findings are unpublished and forgotten.” This is very similar to the File Drawer Problem that we learned in class. Andrew talked about how many studies do not publish findings that may contradict the hypothesis of the study. In numerous studies conducted on video games, there were huge problems of the File Drawer Problem where the researchers only conducted and published studies that had to do with negative consequences of video games.

The File Drawer Problem also brings up another problem that occurs within society. In class, Jason Wright explained how people should not fall for false claims from scientists based on their credibility. Most scientists are attempting to find the next “big” discovery in order to attain fame and status. They will attempt to announce major claims based on little to no evidence. This problem is the Appeal to Authority. With multitudinous amounts of Researchers claiming that there are numerous negative consequences with playing too much video games, it would be very easy to accept that claim, however, it is always best to analyze their studies and their data. Also, question these researchers and find holes in their research.

With so many studies claiming the negative side of video games, there have been new studies that show that video games actually positively impact the brain making kids smarter. According to an article on Forbes, an observational study was conducted to see whether video games was good for you. The null hypothesis is that video games are not good for kids, while the alternative hypothesis states that video games positively effect the brain, and they are good for you. The experimental group consisted of 30 expert video game players while the control group consisted of 27 amateur video game players. Using an MRI to track the insular cortex, researchers found that the pro video game players had more grey matter which promotes cognitive development. In the study, the grey matter acts as the mechanism. Through the study, we can be somewhat sure that video games make you smarter and are good for you, based on the study. We still need to take into account for chance, confounding variables, and reverse causation. 

There are two take home messages I want to conclude with. First, I just want to say that if you do something that gets your mind off of the troubles of harsh reality, than you should definitely do so. For me, video games helped me get through so much in life, and it honestly has made me a better person. If you are in the same boat as I am, please do not let studies tell you that video games are ruining you, if they do not have any concrete evidence or data. Second, I want to emphasize the importance of not falling prey to appeal to authority. Please check on the evidence of the data rather than the credibility of the auditor!

Sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2015/05/06/new-scientific-study-shows-that-playing-action-video-games-is-good-for-you/#fcf720d84a5e

http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/ct-video-games-good-for-you-met-20150126-story.html

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/07/28/debate.kids.games/

So I was sitting in the library the other day trying to think of topics for my blogs, and I just couldn’t think of anything. I had no idea what would make a good topic but then I thought about something funny that I encountered last year. I was hanging out with my friend at her grandmother’s house and all her cousins were there, mind you they are all very young. We had to watch them while they played outside. Two of her cousins were maybe a few months old and we had them stay with us on the porch. Anyway these two little girls started having this whole conversation, and normally that wouldn’t be anything to laugh about, except for the fact that they didn’t really know how to speak. So me and my friend are just sitting there staring in astoundment at the fact that these two girls are having a whole conversation without actually ever saying a coherent word. As I sat in the library thinking about this experience I wondered if it were possible that babies could really even speak to one another? I wondered was it possible that they had their own language that only they could understand and so I decide to do some research and make this one of my blog topics.

From my research I found that to a certain extent babies can communicate with one another. The only catch is that when they are babbling to one another it not actually secret baby words they understand but each other’s emotions or moods. In the Psychology journal Infancy, Mariana Vaillant-Molina, Lorraine E. Bahrick, and Ross Flom wrote an article on how babies use facial expression and vocal inflection of other babies to understand each other’s moods. Flom and his co-writers expressed how it is common knowledge that babies can perceive the emotions of adults however they further researched whether the same was such for infant to infant communications. At the end of the study they found that babies four months of age could in fact match certain vocal inflections (positive and negative) with their adjacent facial expressions. Furthermore the amount of emotions they could perceive increased greatly as they grew older; up to about the age of 7 month when which they can perceive a vast variety of moods or emotions. Also babies four months old cloud pick up on emotion through video, but not a still image and recording separate from one another.

In the study there were 59 participants 19 of them were excluded from the result due to various reasons and the rest were equal divide between three and a half months and five months old babies. These baby viewed the facial expression and listen to the voice of infants seven and a half months old and eight months old. The images and audio used for the study was from thirty different infant however what was used was the eight best representation of positive and negative emotions (two for each emotion). This result in different vocalization and facial expression for each mood simulation. All infant on the screen wore the same thing with the same background allowing only their face to be seen and each video was roughly ten seconds. The controls in place for the participants included seating them all the same distant from the monitor. A video feed placed above the monitor allowed an observer to record the time frame in which the baby’s face was fixed on the monitor. The infants on the on the monitors were randomly selected so that each baby watch saw one out of the two video for each emotion. The audio would play and two photos would appear this was done in twelve trial which were divided into two blocks. Observers saw how long it took the babies to fixate on the image that correlated with the correct recording.

So flom found something really interesting, but I wonder did he use good siente to find his answer. I would like to review the steps of his study order to find this information. One thing that would make his study more convincing is if there were a meta-analysis; it is concerning that he only used 59 participant, 19 of which he did not use, it makes me wonder if the result would have been different if the study was larger or if there were just more of them. I will however motion that Flom’s study was a randomized single blind study; I believe the babies were randomly distributed and the observers that timed them could not see the screen. With these controls in place it is less Ike to have bias results. The observers not seeing the monitor stop them from reacting when they match the video to the voices versus when the babies do. I am concerned that while the babies were randomized they took 19 of them out of the study. This puts into question if the Texas sharpshooter problem is an issue in this study. You can not select which babies to keep in the study and which not to. They said they were taken out of the study because of excessive fussiness, but what if their fussiness affected the results of the study; perhaps they were outliers excluded because of their responses. There were controls put in place for this study but I really have to wonder if Flom suffered from a bit of confirmation bias. The last thing I would like to make a remark on is is the fact that the babies watching the video and those in the video were different ages and I wonder still if babies have to see older babies to understand their moods or if the can understand those emotions of their peers.

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One thing I dread ever having to experience is carpal tunnel syndrome. But considering how much us millennials use our hands everyday to type, text, and play video games, I’m concerned the risk for carpal tunnel may be higher than what it has been for previous generations.

Carpal Tunnel syndrome is a medical condition in which the median nerve in your forearm and hand gets pressured at the wrist. This causes hand numbness, dull pain and tingling, loss of grip strength, poor fine motor skills. All of those things would make life as we millennials know it very difficult, because we are so reliant on our hands to function in or day to day lives.

Risk factors for carpal tunnel syndrome include sex (females are more prone to it), workplace conditions, age, fitness, and hand posture. People repetitively use their hands in a way that flexes the wrist and uses poor hand posture are at a higher risk. That means poor typing posture, and holding a cell phone could easily be risk factors that lead to onset of the syndrome. Although carpal tunnel is treatable, it can require physical therapy, anti-inflammatory and pain medications, or even surgery. 

As it stands today, only 3% of women and 2% of men actually develop carpal tunnel throughout the course of their lifetime. Carpal tunnel is also a disease more often associated with older adults as opposed to younger adults. However, as millennials age their risk factor for developing the syndrome increases.

Lack of fitness and obesity lead to a higher level of risk in developing the disease. Considering that obesity rates have risen steadily over the past several decades, based on the risk factor of just obesity alone we as a generation have cause to concern over a higher percentage of people developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

Although no data on the frequency of carpal tunnel among millennials has been collected yet due to carpal tunnel being a syndrome that is usually onset later in life, I think its a safe bet to expect the rates to rise from the respective rates of 3% among women and 2% among men over the next couple decades. Unfortunately, we live in a world reliant on internet connectivity via devies we need to se our hands for. That coupled with unhealthy lifestyle choices will lead to inevitable consequences down the road.

Sources:

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/carpal_tunnel/detail_carpal_tunnel.htm

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/carpal-tunnel-syndrome/basics/risk-factors/con-20030332

http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/carpal-tunnel/carpal-tunnel-syndrome-treatment-overview

http://umm.edu/health/medical/reports/articles/carpal-tunnel-syndrome

http://stateofobesity.org/obesity-rates-trends-overview/

I’m not the only person to admit to selfishly wanting more and more money. Higher pay is a huge incentive for anyone that starts working. Unfortunately, everyone has to start somewhere, this somewhere being a job likely paying around minimum wage. Navigating through life at minimum wage is a highly difficult task, and we as humans desire something more lustful than that. Minimum wage careers are no fun, so how can I advance into a better position? I’d be surprised if everyone didn’t hear their parent’s say “have a more positive attitude” when they were pursuing a task in life. After frequently hearing my mother say this when my soccer coach didn’t start me, it made me wonder, is having a more positive attitude the answer to achieving my goals? The null hypothesis would be that a more positive attitude doesn’t have any real effect on achieving goals while the alternative hypothesis would be that it in some way a positive attitude helps you reach your goals. After researching what a more optimistic attitude can do for a person, I have come to the conclusion that having a positive attitude is the beginning of success.

Apparently, it isn’t hard to find out what having a more positive attitude can do. The more positive you are/less negative you determine the type of attitude you have. If a person is never negative, they have developed a perfectly positive attitude. It simply depends on how you tweak your framework of thoughts and reactions. There are many tips on what to work on when changing your attitude. It starts with a change in perspective. This change can happen when you accept things for what they are and begin being happy with where you are at. After you have happily accepted your place in the world, you have to be optimistic about you being in control of your life. You CAN develop and improve. You CAN invent and succeed. This change in belief will be the beginning of a noticeably more fulfilling life. I wanted to see evidence that supported this development of thought.

This type of thinking suggests that a more positive attitude directly relates to more success, but is there concrete data to prove this? I found that in a study done by UC Riverside, the most happy people are more helpful and perform better in the work place than their less happy peers. Furthermore, the study also used research from cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental studies to determine that installing positivity to the workplace will result in better workplace results. Since positivity was a variable observed, it can be considered to be partially responsible for improved results within the work place. Since there are no looming confounding variables, these finds can be considered valid in which happiness and success in the workplace go hand in hand

This study is telling about positive thinkers and their success in achieving their goals. The evidence given is enough to reject the null hypothesis that a more positive attitude does not lead to an increase in success. A person is likely to achieve more success in life if they adjust their framework to be more positive!

If you ever find yourself stuck trying to achieve something, think about that old saying your mother told you, and your chances at success are sure to increase!

Pics–

http://animal-dream.com/money.html

http://yogascapes.com/get-positive-clear-head-negative-self-talk

http://katielendel.com/the-3cs-of-success/

That’s right, I said it and lets talk about it…

     According to a British National Probability Survey it is shown that people who reported on masturbation tend to have a higher social and education class. When you are masturbating dopamine is released in your brain which gives you the “feels good” sensation, According to an article off of Pub Med. When and after you are masturbating your stress levels goes down and endorphins are released which and can decrease your tolerance for pain, according to Hawai’i Medical Journal.

Turns out we are not the only ones who masturbate, According to IFL Science. There is a full list of animals who do it such as Penguins, Porcupine, Horses, Dolphins and so on… But the reason why they masturbate is because it helps them to have a better chance at having children and improve the quality of sperm.

But back to humans masturbating can actually help your pelvic muscles especially in women as we age. It is also said to switch up your “technique” as it could also lead to a decrease in sexual arousal and experience According to an article on sexual function and pelvic disorders.

No matter what anyone tells you Masturbation is a normal thing to do, now go have fun…

You see athletes in all sports walking around with their headphones on getting ready for their game or match or event or whatever they were going to compete in. And I’m sure they all have different songs and genres of music that get them psyched and in the mood and ready to play. I always wondered though if listening to music before sports actually would help your performance.

Dr Costas Karageorghis, the leading researcher in music’s effects on performance, often refers to music as a performance enhancing drug, that you can’t be penalized for using obviously. His research has shown that music enhances athletic performance and can help with visualizing how you’re going to perform and ultimately what the end result will be after your competition.

Music in general has been shown to help in disassociating your mind. This basically means that the music can help athletes by distracting their mind in a way, from feelings of fatigue during performance The disassociation is really shown in endurance sport, such as running, swimming and cycling. An interesting fact, researchers in the UK have found that music can benefit athletes by improving their levels of effort up to 12% and their endurance up to 15%.

Flow is an alternate state of mind, most athletes will refer to it as being in the zone. Some athletes use their music to help them get into this zone and get ready to go and compete. The music has also shown benefits of aiding in visualization while the athletes are in the zone. The music helps in visualizing how they’re going to compete and what the result will be after their competition. Music help the athletes reach that top level of focus and concentration while putting all else aside in their life and just focusing on their competition visualizations.

All in all, I think music definitely has benefits in performance and endurance throughout competition. One thing I think though with music, especially in sports, is when athletes listen to certain songs they get into the zone and are excited to compete and are more relaxed which can help them perform better. Me personally I compete better when I am relaxed, having fun and just competing. I think the music can help some athletes relax and escape everything in their life just to focus on the one task at hand and perform to the best of their abilities and worry about all the rest later. It is also very interesting to me just to see how powerful your mind can be. For me at least it seems as if this is all mental that then translates to your physical performance. You’re thinking about competing and visualizing what you want to happen and to see how much it improves your performance is very intriguing.

https://thehealthsciencesacademy.org/health-tips/music-can-enhance-athletic-performance/ 

Image found here

Back in 2014, the film Lucy starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman was released.  It is about a woman  Along with being released, Lucy brought back the popular saying, “The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity”. This can be seen in the Lucy movie poster below.  Back when advertisements of the movie were being shown on TV nonstop, Morgan Freeman’s wise voice could be heard on the TV saying we only use 10% of our brain.  If Morgan Freeman is telling you something, no matter what, with that voice, you’ll believe whatever it is.  I mean, Morgan Freeman has played God before, after all.  So let’s see if we actually use only 10% of our brains.

http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/592887-scarlett-johansson-looks-little-pale-lucy-poster

Over the past 100 years, technology has advanced immensely in what we can learn about how the human brain functions.  With instruments like EEG (Electroencephalography), the PET scanner, MRI machines, and other brain scanners, researchers have been able to pinpoint specific psychological functions to specific parts of the brain.  Throughout all this research, not once, was a “quiet” or unused part of the brain was discovered according to Eric Chudler, director of the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering at the University of Washington.  With that being said, if there are no unused parts of the brain, then that means we use 100% of our brains.  A little bit larger than the original 10% claim.  Now before you think there is a global conspiracy, where scientists are lying about how we use 100% of our brains. Wouldn’t we know if someone discovered a certain part of our brain that wasn’t actually used?

Using the logic that humans use only 10% of their brains, then hypothetically, what would happen if we took away 90% of the brain?  As you unfortunately know, a stroke can cause severe and terrible disabilities.  With that being said, when a human suffers from a stroke, only a small part of the brain is damaged.  As well, neurological disorders, like Parkinson’s disease, affect only a small part of the brain.  If we only used 10% of our brains, wouldn’t these past two examples I presented not have as much of a devastating impact on the brain?  Larry Squire, a research neuroscientist, puts it into a simpler way, “Any place the brain is damaged there is a consequence.”

So after seeing the evidence proving that we do not use anywhere near 10% of our brains, how did this myth arise?  As well, how has it continued to being accepted by the general public?  There are many theories of how this myth first arose.  One is that there was a misquote of Albert Einstein.  People at the Albert Einstein archive could not find anything involving this claim.  I guess when someone sees Einstein’s name behind a statement, it’s a 100% believable. Another theory was in 1908 when William James, an American psychologist, stated, “We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources”.  Back in this time, James was also an author of popular articles that offered advise to people.  In these articles he does say humans do not use their brains to their fullest potential.  Though that is very different than saying we only use 10% of our brains.  Lastly, a reason why the myth has continued is us humans like to know there is room to improve

Sources:

https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-really-use-only-10/

http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-much-of-our-brains-do-we-use

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/myth-busted-you-only-use-10-percent-brain-1C9386687

Growing up playing sports, especially a sport like wrestling that is just known for having a bunch of bacteria and disease associated with it, I’ve heard the saying oh just sweat it out quite a lot. I never really understood this though because when I was sick during the season when I was playing sports I usually did not feel good, or feel like I had the energy to even walk around my house let alone go and workout or practice. So I always wondered if it were possible to actually sweat out a cold or a sickness that you had incurred.

Saunas are recommended to many patients with asthma and arthritis and things of this sort. Scientists do have some evidence that shows that saunas do benefit in recovery from colds and also reducing the amount of sickness a person contracts. At temperatures of upwards of 180+ degrees fahrenheit saunas are definitely a place where a lot of sweating and exfoliation takes place. Now some scientists believe that the saunas show these benefits because when you’re in the sauna you’re sweating and all your pores are open and exfoliating and other think it is due to the fact that the high temperatures in the sauna weaken the viruses.

In a study, Austrian researchers set up 2 groups of 50 adults, on group was to sure the saunas regularly and the other was to not use them. The researchers tracked the 100 subjects for 6 months. After the conclusion of the 6 months, the scientist research showed that the subject who used the sauna regularly contracted less colds as opposed to the group who did not use the sauna.

Overall, I think that saunas have definitely showed positive results and are leading scientists to say that using the saunas are good in fighting colds, but I don’t think there is enough proof to say that they definitely do. In my opinion I feel like all peoples bodies are different and they may react to the sauna in different ways, so I feel as if the sauna could benefit one person in this scenario and not the other just due to the fact at how their body reacts to this. I also do not think that this will make me want to go sit in a sauna when I am sick seeing as this does not seem to have that many benefits, it’s more so saying there are benefits to not getting colds, not necessarily if you have a cold and are trying to get rid of it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/health/03real.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2248758?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Image found here

A hot debate in the United States is gun control. Owning a gun has been a right in America ever since the government passed the second amendment. However, crimes and shootings have caused many Americans to believe that we need to create stricter laws to prevent this. Some believe that this will reduce the crime rate, but how does increased gun control laws actually affect the crime rate?

http://cdn.thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Glock-Constitution-998×666.jpg

Most murders in America usually involve a gun, but how does an increase in gun control affect this? In a study, the statistics show that states with higher gun violence do not have many laws regarding purchasing, owning, or registering a gun. The states with lower crime rates have stricter guidelines for purchasing and registering their guns. There was a study that graded states based on how strong their gun laws were and almost every state that had a high gun crime rate got a very poor grade. This however was considered a correlation due to the inability to find a pattern. Another factor on the gun crime rate was education. Less educated areas seemed to have a higher gun crime rate.

In the end, there is always going to be an argument when it comes to gun control and both people for and against have valid arguments about the matter. Increasing gun control laws seem like a logical way to decrease the crime rate, but there hasn’t been enough supportive evidence to prove this claim.

Gun Laws, Deaths and Crimes

Everybody gets jealous one time in their life or another. Jealousy is a natural reaction to something we feel uncomfortable with, usually if another person has something you want. We can’t help it. Is there a root cause of jealousy we don’t really understand? Why do we get jealous so often?

I wanted to do research to find the root cause of jealousy and how it affects the people around us. According to this study by the American Psychological Association, a professor at Penn State University named Jeffery G. Parker Ph.D. did a study that found a correlation between jealousy and aggression and low self-esteem. He found that it affects many adolescents as young as children in the 5th grade. Dr. Parker and a team did an observational study that involved 500 subjects aged from 5th -9th-grade students by sending out a questionnaire about hypothetical scenarios regarding jealousy in their friendships. The study found that the kids with a low self-esteem revealed they are more prone to have jealousy. Girls seem to experience jealousy more than boys do. The research showed that girls are more prone to jealousy is because girl are more emotional being naturally, and they have high expectations for relationships. If anything disturbs that expectation it’ll come out as aggression and jealousy. Yet this study only shows a certain age group, jealous can affect the relationships with your significant other.

According to one of the biggest studies by Chapman University discovered that men and women have contrasting experiences with jealousy. Their experimental study poll found that heterosexual males are more prone to jealousy with cheating regarding their significant other. Agreeing with the first study done on children and friendships, this study’s results discovered that women are in fact more likely to be hurt by emotional cheating than the physical cheating.
According to Dr. Frederick, jealousy in adults can expose aggressive and violent acts.

According to these studies, it seems that jealousy can cause low-self esteem and aggression. It can also be reverse causation where low self-esteem can cause jealousy. Both of them are interchangeable. Although the second study from Chapman University, they polled over 64,000 adults which seem like a decent amount of data to have a better understanding of jealousy it’ll be interesting and more supporting if there were more studies on jealousy. There can be many other underlying factors of jealousy, like trust issues etc.

In conclusion, be confident with yourself! The right one will make you feel special where you don’t need to be jealous.
Here’s a cute little video of how to deal with jealousy.

Sources: http://illuminessencemag.com/jealousy-an-aphrodisiac/

Growing up I never really listened to music, it never really even crossed my mind to listen to it. Still to this day I never listen to classical music. Throughout middle school and high school though teachers would give us work to do or during an exam they would put on classical music in the background and I never really understood why. I always wondered if classical music actually had a benefit in your performance, whether that be on a test or just on the work you were given?

A University in France did some research and found that the students who were in a one hour lecture where there was classical music playing softly in the background perform much better than those who sit in the lecture not containing the music. Following both of the lectures, the students were given a quiz that pertained to the information in the previous lecture and the students in the lecture with the music performed substantially better on the quiz then those not in the lecture. The music was thought to motivate the students to focus and changed their emotional state. Thus reflected upon their better results on the quiz.

There was also research done by Duke University’s cancer institute that showed that classical music can have benefits in decreasing anxiety. In this study subjects who were undergoing a stressful biopsy were given headphones that were playing classical music. Following the biopsy, the subjects showed significant levels of pain throughout and also had no spikes in blood pressure throughout the procedure.

Classical music also has benefits for relaxation. A study published in Human Physiology showed that classical music  helps you relax, even if you’re not paying too much attention to the actual music. In this study they had children listen to classical music for 1 hour every day for 6 months. Over the course of the 6 months the children’s brains showed greater levels of relaxation. An interesting fact is the students were not even told to pay attention to the music in some cases, it was just in the background during something they were doing.

Overall, there are a lot more benefits to classical music then I had previously thought. Its interesting to see that maybe this music playing in the background may have indirectly helped my performance during the classes when it was playing, even though I did not give it much attention or care for it too much. In the future i will definitely try putting classical music on in the background and seeing if it will benefit me personally.

https://news.usc.edu/71969/studying-for-finals-let-classical-music-help/

Image found here

Washing your hands is just a common thing that everyone does multiple times throughout the course of a day. You wash them after you use the bathroom or after you get something onto your hands, it happens many times in a lifetime. I was always told growing up to wash my hands in hot water and I always wondered why. I also wondered if there was significant benefits to washing your hands in hot or cold water, what the big difference was.

The FDA talks about how hot water that is comfortable enough to wash your hands in is not nearly hot enough to to kill bacteria that may be on your hands. Although it is more beneficial than cold water because the hot water will remove oils that are on your hands that can carry bacteria. But, there was a meta analysis published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, says otherwise. In this report the scientists referenced the studies that were done starting with the subjects hands being contaminated, and then proceeded to wash their hands with soap and water for 25 seconds with water temperatures that ranged from 40 to 120 degrees fahrenheit, that the water temperatures had no significant effect on reducing bacteria from the subjects hands. So this meta analysis shows there is no significant difference when washing your hands with either hot or cold water.

I looked into the guidelines for the Center for Disease and Control Prevention and the World Health Organization and in both of their guidelines, neither of them talk about the temperature of the water that is used when washing your hands. They both just reference using soap and water and washing your hands vigorously for at least 20 seconds.

Another interesting article that I read talks about that the energy side of washing your hands. This example talks about how hot water isn’t really that important more so the soap and friction. This article though suggests that you should use cold water or cooler water because it save a great deal of energy. Changing to the cold water can benefit the earth and save some money at the same time, meanwhile still getting to job done with cleaning your hands.

I think the big take away from this is just to make sure that you use soap. I think that is important to wash your hands vigorously and as often as you can to prevent as many germs getting on your hands as you can. As long as you use antibacterial soap when you wash your hands you will be killing around the same amount of bacteria, it doesn’t matter what temperature water you choose to wash your hands in.

  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/12/131213-washing-hands-hot-water-wastes-energy-health/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/health/13real.html

Image found at http://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/ 

Everyone is fully convinced that their dog is by far the smartest creature to ever roam the earth. But how smart is your dog? The answer just may leave you thinking that babies are dumb.

In a study by researchers at the university of Columbia (as reported by LiveScience), a dogs intelligence is very similar to a two-year-old human’s. Based on a “language development test” in which certain verbal cues were used to instruct or prompt a response. The data showed that a dog’s language development is similar to a two-year-old child’s. The study states that, just like children of that age, dogs are capable of retaining and comprehending 165 words. The smartest dogs can learn up to 250 words, putting them in contention with children two and a half years old.

Socially, dogs were proven to be more developed than children. The social complexities that can sometimes befuddle a child are better handled by dogs according to the researchers in the study. They suggest that a dog has better social skills than humans until children reach their teenage years.

But the dog v.s human comparisons do not stop there. Through altered math tests created by researchers in which treats are used as basic arithmetic exemplifies (the details are further explained in the article), it was shown that a dog’s aptitude for math is similar to a three to four-year-old human.

Before you gaze at amazement at the genius that is your pup, let us consider some possible issues with the study. First off, dogs were not given the exact same tests as the humans. In order to account for the fact that dogs cannot speak, write, or can be held accountable for having their elbows on the table during dinner, the scientists had to alter the way they compared a human’s social interaction, mathematical aptitude, and language comprehension. For example, included in the researcher’s definition of a dog’s language are symbols, adding many communicative pathways to interact with the dog. However, a baby is not taught certain symbol as they are developing their communicative skills like dogs are, limiting their language to primarily vocal cues.

Even though the researcher is extremely qualified, the information regarding the social skills of a dog compared to a human are purely observational.

In regards to the mathematical test, different tools were used. The dogs were given treats as a method of solving math problems. The children were given toys. This makes the dogs more motivated to complete the presented challenge because the reward was food. If you have a dog, you know that all they really care about is food. The children were minimally motivated to complete the challenge because their reward was just a toy.

Even though I am poking holes in this study, the findings still tell us a lot about how dogs match up to infants and toddlers. However, making broad statements and assumptions that dogs truly compete with humans in intelligence can be very misleading.