Writing #2: February 2012 Archives

One would think that all people see and perceive time the same way, but there have been some studies suggesting that people who live closer to the equator view time a little differently. Since all of the seasons are pretty much the same the closer you get to the equator, time doesn't really look like its passing all that fast. This is why psychologists theorize that people closer to the equator aren't as future-oriented as us Northerners.

There are also thought to be time perception differences between people of different religions. Some religions teach people to think that they need to work extremely hard to prove their worth to their deity. This changes how those people perceive time and how much time they have to do as much as they can.

So this just makes me wonder, how does my time perception as an atheist and someone who lives in a place where all the seasons are very distinct differ from other people?

There are also some places that don't have any words for the future tense. How crazy would it be to go to those places and live there?

Note: All information is from this video, its pretty interesting if you have 10 minutes to spare.

In chapter 5 the book talks about hypnosis and common myths about it. I have always been intrigued by this concept, though I’ve never witnessed it in person. Hypnosis is something I’ve only seen on TV but I had no reason to doubt it. It made sense that somebody could convince me that I am a duck and make me act like one just by waving a watch back and forth and snapping their fingers. I obviously hadn’t put too much thought into it. What it says in the book makes even more sense, that many of these assumptions and images media has put in my head is all made up to amuse me. This just made me think about all the other things that I may “know are real” just because that’s all I’ve known previously.

Alzheimer's disease is a devastating form of dementia that hinders brain functioning. There are several risk factors that are correlated with Alzheimer's disease. The first risk factor is that you are older; an interesting myth is that AD is not part of normal aging which many people believe. A second risk factor is if you have a close blood relative that has AD. The third major factor is if you have the gene (APOE). This allele is connected to AD. Some factors that increase your risk but have not been proven are, if you are female, have high blood pressure and have had head trauma.

There are absolutely no cures for AD which is terrible. The goal is to slow progression of AD. The only medications and therapies that are being used right now are to treat the symptoms. Such as Aricept that is used to increase hippocampus functioning so that the patient can have a better chance at remembering information. An interesting fact about Aricept (donepezil) is that it is in the running to start becoming one of the major drugs being used by college students just like Ritalin or Adderall. Aricept can increase "normal" people's memory which can be a clear advantage for taking tests. Before you go run and look for some make sure you look at the side effects. Neuroenhancements can be very dangerous if not taken properly.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001767/

While watching TV it can be easy to get sucked into advertisements, especially when it is one that you can relate to. Proactive targets people who suffer from bad acne, which in most cases, consists of teenagers. They claim that you will have "noticeably different skin within a few weeks", however, what is Proactive's view on "noticeably different". As you may have seen, Proactive uses celebrities in their commercials to help sell and promote their product. They star celebrities well known by teenagers like Katy Perry and Justin Bieber to help draw their attention to the commercial and therefore the product. The celebrities talk about their success with Proactive while looking absolutely flawless and zit free. Seeing a star with radiant skin after using Proactive, would make it easy for one to assume that "if I use Proactive, I will have perfect skin like a celebrity!". Acne tends to be a personal sensitivity for some people causing the celebrities to seem very relatable and believable. However, the catch here is that in real life, those celebrities do not always look as flawless as they do in the commercial. This is due to airbrush, professional makeup artists and complementing lighting when shooting the commercials. While staring at the TV becoming greatly influenced by the celebrity and commercial, a teenager would not think this way. Therefore, Proactive does a great job of getting teenagers' attention and interest to buy their product based off the influence of popular celebrities and their looks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVIg7Vu0NeM

I decided to research an advertisement on the new Gatorade G Series. These advertisements usually portray professional athletes in their intense workout situations, which generally would make viewers feel more inferior than anything. But this new commercial showed a very average, yet athletic young male in his daily workout routine. It starts out showing him waking up very early, and then starting his day out with 2 protein bars and the first part of the 3-pronged drink, Prime. After this, he jogs to the gym and grabs a Perform, the second step in the series, which is crafted to keep one hydrated and performing at their best. It shows the man working out using a treadmill, free weights, and a medicine ball. It also shows him continuing to drink Perform throughout his entire workout. When he finishes, he grabs the final step in the series, Recover. He walks back to his house and stretches out while drinking Recover, and hears his neighbor's alarm go off and smiles, looking as though he feels accomplished.
This advertisement tugs at an emotion that many Americans struggle with every day, the desire to get up and work out. In the ad, this normal guy gets through his workout using the G series to get him "pumped up," get him through his routine, and recover properly. The biggest shock is how he is still able to get back in time to hear his lazy neighbors alarm go off, giving him a personal sense of accomplishment.

Do you ever wonder, what's the difference between being unconscious/asleep and being conscious/awake? Marcus de Sautoy explores this question in one part of his documentary: The Secret You. Of course, there are some obvious differences between being asleep and being awake, such as when awake we're aware of what we are doing: however when sleeping, we are left alone with our unconscious thoughts and dreams. Sautoy visits a doctor to be tested in an experiment looking for the answer to the question of what happens when we go to sleep? In terms of our brain waves, the study found an obvious difference. When the brain received mild electrical shocks while the person is consciously awake, different parts of the brain communicated with each other and the fMRI visuals showed the different areas of the brain being stimulated at that moment. However, when the subject was asleep, in other words unconscious, the electrical shock was received in only one part of the brain. The brain waves and reactions were seen in a localized area of where the stimulation was received. This shows that although brain remains active while we are asleep, the communication channels are temporarily shut down. Unlike when we are conscious, the brain does not have complete communication throughout its different parts.

In Marcus de Sautoy's video, The Secret you, he volunteers himself for a sleep study based on brain activity and consciousness. For the study he was given mild shocks to his brain while wearing equipment that measured his brain activity. While he was awake and conscious many different locations in his brain were active, even when the shock was distributed to a small area. Unfortunately, he couldn't fall asleep in the lab so they used a different subject's information while they were asleep. The results were that while sleeping, only small locations of the brain were active; whereas awake many were active.

This leads me to think that because we use less of our brains while we are unconscious, that might be why we tend to dream very unrealistic situations and think they are real, when in reality they are only a dream. The same goes for hypnosis, supposedly people become unconscious when hypnotized, therefore using less of their brain. All the hypnosis acts that I've seen, people tend to do extremely embarrassing and crazy things, nothing they would dream of doing while conscious. This, in part, may have to do with fact they are using less of their brain. If we were able to utilize our entire brain while asleep or hypnotized we may be able to realize what is happening and act accordingly; like realize we are dreaming and not be afraid or realize we are being hypnotized and not react to the hypnotist.

Have you ever had a dream that was unrealistic but seemed very real to you?

Advertising/Marketing and Psychology have a strong correlation. Because of this, many companies and marketing firms use the concepts of classical conditioning to make their advertisements successful. They often manipulate the consumers' emotions. Cigarette companies, such as Camel, are a good example of this. During the mid-1900s, Camel endorsed popular athletes to appear on/in their advertisements. One example of this was when they used Roger Maris to sell their product.

By using Maris, a successful professional baseball player, to sell their products, Camel made people think that, although cigarettes aren't good for you, you can still be successful even if you use them. This is an example of how Camel manipulated your previous emotions/views towards cigarettes. Obviously, this was an effective method because cigarettes are now a large part of our economy.

I decided to look up some cool things animals have been trained to do. In doing so I discovered this article that talks about how one dolphin taught other dolphins tricks in the wild. The one dolphin was in captivating for a while and trainers taught it how to perform various stunts. The dolphin was then released back into the wild where now it teachers other dolphins these same tricks. I thought that was very cool that not only can humans train dolphins to do certain tricks, but dolphins can actually teach one another.
When talking about training we usually offer some sort of reward to the animal to make it learn what we want it to. In other words respond in the way we train it to. That leads me to question how the wild dolphins learn how to do the tricks. What reward do they get to encourage them to try the trick again? Without that reward and response pattern they must still learn how to repeat the tricks that the one dolphin is in a way "teaching" them. The article talks about the popular social group idea, that when the other dolphins see such behavior they want to act that way as well. That is my guess on how they learn without the rewards. To make it simple, they see the one dolphin doing tricks and they want to be able to do them too. Overall I thought it was an interesting story.

Have you ever had the experience that you have done something before or been to a certain place before? I have had this crazy experience before and i have never been able to explain it. After I read chapter five, i understand this weird experience as deja-vu. But is this feeling real and do you actually relive what you are experiencing at that moment? After reading the section and chapter i have come to the conclusion that a person is in some way reliving or remembering a past experience. As the book says, it can even be an information that is unconsciously processed; so a person could possibly not even remember that memory. This makes a lot more sense compared to what other people want to and have hypothesized. The other hypothesis is that a person is reliving past experiences from another life. Although that is an interesting concept, and there is a slight chance this could be correct, there is no way to prove this so it has to be ruled out. This is a very interesting topic, and one with limited knowledge on, which makes it so fascinating. If someone has other comments or things to add, or other explanations, feel free to comment and share your stories or hypotheses. Thanks!

http://www.comingsoon.net/gallery/12593/dejavuonesheet.jpg

When do we become aware of self?

The short answer to this question is that: We become self aware around 18-24 months. This was concluded from the mirror self recognition test with babies from the "Secrets of You" video. Unfortunately I believe that that alone would not be sufficient to get a good grade on my blog. So I must say more about what I think about this particular topic. But I have to put it out there: 200-250 words is not enough to explain my thoughts about consciousness. I find the idea of a conscious mind compelling and believe it is impossible to define. I believe it is not only a scientific thing but also very spiritual. So in my perspective Descartes had a point to "duel-ism". The mind and the body are two very separate things, the body has a known life span but the mind a soul does not. So how does one know that they are self aware, that they exist? I think therefore I am, meaning you have to be able to understand that you are thinking to know that you exist. But what about the children who are not self aware? In the mind of a non-self aware person, do they believe that they exist? Does that mean that they do not have a consciousness? Haven't you ever wonder what it would be like if you can turn off our consciousness? What would it be like if you were not self aware or not stimulated by the outside world? Why do people, even as adults, have this notion that we must find ourselves? When are we really ever self aware?

When you make decisions, are you consciously aware of them? Most of us would say yes, but have you ever thought that possibly your decisions have already been made for you by your subconscious self?

After watching the video "The Secret You" by BBC Horizon, professor Marcus du Sautoy took part in an experiment to analyze how we truly make our decisions. After taking a fMRI scan of his brain activity while he was making decisions, he was surprised to discover that his brain had already decided upon his actions six seconds before he executed them. Du Sautoy then began to ponder about if our decisions are truly made with our conscious self, or rather with our subconscious self. If an external source monitoring our brain can see our decisions six seconds prior to when we act upon them, who is really in control?

I personally believe that we do make every decision subconsciously, and that the brain goes through a serious of neuronic processes to tell our bodies to convey these decisions. The fMRI analyst said to du Sautoy that "the unconscious mind is in harmony with your beliefs and desires." This brought me to my own belief that we as humans are incredibly subjective to the power of influence, that we are directed in life by a series of external sources in our environments. Thus we already have various preconceived notions/beliefs/values set within our subconscious self based on these experiences. Where do you believe our decisions come from? Is it all subconscious, or are you in control?

References:
(1) Decision Sign. N.d. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. http://www.true-motivation.com/images/decision_sign.jpg
(2) The Secret You. BBC Horizon. 24 Nov. 2009. Youtube. Web. 19 Feb. 2012. http://youtu.be/8Biv_8xjj8E

I watched the last segment of the BBC video clip, and I found what I learned to be very interesting. The question was who is in charge of our decisions? Is it our conscious self? Or our unconscious mass of gray matter that we cannot control? The mathematician Marcus de Sautoy undergoes a quite simple experiment to test this question by randomly deciding and then pushing a left or right button. A scanner will record when you made the decision, and the computer will record when you physically pushed the button itself. What they found was that up to 6 seconds before he made up his mind they could predict which button he was going to decide to pick. We are told there is a pattern of brain activity that emerges before we make a decision, so they could tell whether he was going to click with his left or right hand. What we can conclude from this is that our unconscious self has control of our decisions. This can make us question whether this means our decisions are out of our control or whether we still have control over them. They stated that our unconscious brain activity is in harmony with our wants and beliefs, so we should still decide and do things we want to do. This is where I became confused as to how this is possible, and what would happen if we lost this harmony between the two. When we do things we don't mean to do, those things we wish with all our might we could take back, are they due to the harmony being off between our conscious and unconscious mind? Also, if our minds are made up before we even realize it, how could we make ourselves stop making the wrong decisions and start making the right ones? These were some questions that I resulted with after watching the video clip, but overall I found what I learned to be very fascinating like many others did.

bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/05/11/4380014-being-a-supertaster-is-no-piece-of-cake

The article above is about the 25% of the population that have a dramatically increased number of taste buds on their tongues. These people are known as supertasters. Now, I, personally, am not a supertaster, but I'm pretty glad of that fact. Why? Well, because it seems that being a supertaster isn't really that super. According to the article above, supertasters have a high sensitivity to intense flavors because of the increased number of taste buds they have. It's important to note here that when I say intense flavors I don't mean that really spicy Chinese or Mexican food you had the other day, I mean pretty much anything that isn't considered bland. In fact, if a supertaster had what you considered to be really spicy, they would probably literally feel like their mouth was on fire. The increased number of taste buds on their tongue leads to an increase in the amount of sensory information that they can obtain, which is why they can detect things in food that the other 75% of the population can't. Eating things that most people love like coffee, alcohol, strawberries, and most fatty foods are, to a supertaster, unbearable. The adaptive advantage to being a supertaster would only seem to be relevant if we were having a problem with a very bitter poison being put into our McDonald's hamburgers, but I'm guessing that won't be a problem anytime soon. So, it seems like being a supertaster isn't really all that 'super'.

Ever since one of my high school art teachers showed my class images of sidewalk art, I've been fascinated with the concept. The artists who use the sidewalk rather than a canvas create illusions using depth. The picture below is of a drawing of a dungeon that appears to be three-dimensional. The artist utilized a few pictorial cues in order to make and illusion of a three-dimensional dungeon on a two-dimensional surface, the sidewalk. The artist used light and shadow as well as linear perspective, even though there is no vanishing point for the lines. The lines at the bottom of the dungeon are shorter than those that are supposed to be the top. Even though they are all on the same surface, this makes the lines that appear to be at the floor of the dungeon appear farther away than the lines that bring the dungeon to the surface. Light and shadow are also very important monocular cues that lead to this illusion. The artist used shadows and lighting to create much of the depth we see even though there is no depth to the sidewalk. The pictorial cues in this work of art are what create an illusion in our minds. Because we see depth, our brains are tricked into thinking that this is image three-dimensional rather than a two-dimensional drawing.

http://www.artsmia.org/viewer/detail.php?v=12&id=1670

This painting by Rene Magritte, displays illusions of depth perception. When you first see it you probably think you are just looking out the window and see two pinnacles and some houses. Then you look closer and next either notice the strange wood object or the fact that one of the "pinnacles" is actually a road. The strange wood object turns out to be a frame for a canvas, and you are really seeing a picture in front of the window. The artist used depth perception cues to cause the illusion of it all being out the window. The relative size of the buildings and trees on the canvas and out the window make it look like they are at the same distance, but really the ones on the canvas are much closer. In the painting, the texture gradient changes as it meets the horizon causing fuzzy images in the distance. The vanishing point at the end of the road gives illusion of distance. The light seems to come from the same location in the painting and outside the window giving the shadows in the painting a more realistic look.

Many students who recently graduated high school would have heard the "Teen Buzz" ringtone sometime throughout high school. As cell phones have become more popular, adults have tried to get their kids off of phones and schools have banned them from class. This obviously hasn't stopped us "kids" from using our phones during school; we have just found a sneakier way to use them! The Teen Buzz is a high frequency tone that many people have been using as a text message alert because older adults cannot hear it. As we age we lose the tiny hair cells in our ears which cause us to lose some of our hearing abilities, including hearing high frequency noises.
The "Teen Buzz" being used as a ringtone is a creative idea but for those that can hear it... OUCH. If you hear that high frequency noise for loud enough it can really start to get under your skin. Some kids from my high school even claimed to have gotten headaches after hearing the noise for more than a minute or two. I have noticed this phenomenon in my house on unintentional occasions such as when the television is on. Normally, I can tell from the other room that the T.V. is on even if it is on mute because it produces a high frequency noise that my parents never notice but it drives me crazy. Whoever created "Teen Buzz" sure was sneaky but can also successfully annoy many people!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrewnzQYrPI

http://www.deafnessresearch.org.uk/1618/about-deafness/agerelated-hearing-loss.html



Last week in discussion, we talked about inattention blindness and not seeing things right in front of our faces. We were shown an example of some people passing a basketball back and forth, while a bear moonwalked across the screen.
While on Facebook this week, a post came up with an article about a musician. He played six Bach pieces on the violin for about 45 minutes in a metro station during rush hour. Roughly 1100 people were in the station during that time. A few people stopped and listened for a few minutes, and children were pulled away from listening by their parents to keep walking. In his 45 minutes of playing, he made $32 and received no applause or recognition after he finished.
The violinist was none other than Joshua Bell. He is one of the most talented musicians in the world, and was playing one of the most intricate pieces ever written on a 3.5 million dollar violin. Two days earlier, Bell sold out at a theater in boston where the seats averaged $100.
If one of the top musicians in the wold can play one of the best pieces of music on an instrument that expensive and not be noticed for who he really is, what else is happening in the world that we are simply passing by without a second glance?

While reading chapter 5, I came across a sleeping disorder which particularly struck me. It is referred to as, Narcolepsy. People who have this disorder experience an overwhelming urge to sleep at any given point during their day. Due to this urge, they participate in unexpected and rapid sleep episodes. These episodes can range anywhere from a few seconds to an hour.
Anything and everything can trigger these urges. It has been noted that people with this disorder have fell asleep while in the shower, driving, watching their favorite movies, working, laughing, having sex, etc etc. During the moment of these urges, people with narcolepsy are involved with cataplexy, meaning all their muscles become completely limp. Cataplexy occurs when everyone sleeps, but with narcolepsy people, they are fully alert but just can't move. In addition, normal sleepers do not fall into REM sleep ("stage of sleep during which the brain is most active and during which vivid dreaming most often occurs") till about an hour after dozing off, where as a narcolepsy person falls directly into REM sleep. This often times causes the person to have vivid hypnagogic hallucinations.
In addition to the hormone orexin contributing highly to this disorder, narcolepsy often times occurs after brain damage is done in an accident. Today there is not a specific medication out that will cure these sudden sleep urges, but narcolepsy patients are often times proscribed a medication called modafinil, which pushes wakefulness throughout their day.

An example of a man with narcolepsy, he falls asleep during the duration of a work meeting.

While having the ability to fly or being able to lift an elephant with just your pinky finger may be a desire many of us have (well, perhaps the second one is irrelephant to you), unfortunately we will probably never obtain these skills. Although humans don't have superpowers, there are a few people who have super powered traits that nearly compare to those of a superhero. Such is the case with a young Chinese boy by the name of Nong Yousui.

He was born with blue eyes, which is very uncommon in the region he lives in. While doctors at first thought it was simply a change in color from the usual brown eyes of Chinese people, instead it turns out that he was blessed, or perhaps cursed, with cat eyes. His blue eyes may not be exactly like a cat, but they have the incredible ability of enabling Nong the ability to see in the dark. He is able to go outside and catch crickets in the middle of the night, and even read words on paper in pitch black lighting. Unfortunately for this young boy, it comes at a price. During the day he suffers from how intense the sunlight is on his very sensitive night vision eyes.

Being able to see in the dark and move swiftly about, while others fumble around and stub their toes, sure would be handy. Yet he may almost have to live a life much like a vampire, hiding from the sun, and going out only in the night. Having the ability to see in the dark is indeed impressive, but is it worth it? Would you prefer to be like Nong, and have cat eyes, or stick with your good ol' fashioned day time eyes?

A link to the video: http://www.wimp.com/cateyes/

I thought this video was very interesting. People are self-aware, but where in the body does "i" live? Thats a question that people have been wondering for thousands of years. Marcus' s study covered a lot of different topics involving this question. He started by going to a doctor from Oxford who ran tests on his brain when he is under going sedation from anesthetics. He was told to imagine playing tennis while he is being injected with these imperative drugs. The doctor wanted to find the point where Marcus is still self-aware and he would b focusing on the area's of the brain that are still functioning under this heavy sedation. This, theoretically, should point us in the direction of which area of the brain our soul resides. They found that there is a "resonant loop" between the Thalamus and Basil Ganglia that is required to maintain consciousness. The doctor didn't say that this is where the consciousness resides, but it is one of the main components in being self-aware.

Until recently, a child living in Great Britain lived without the constrictions, stereotypes, or regulations of gender. Raised as "gender-neutral", Sasha Laxton's parents kept Sasha's gender a secret. As he is now five years old, and beginning school, they have revealed that he is a male. Having lived an early childhood free of gender stereotypes, Sasha has preferences that are not necessarily specific to that of a young boy. He plays with dolls, as well as trucks. He enjoys playing dress-up, and laughs at the idea that pink is a girl's color, and blue is a boy's color. When asked if he thinks boys and girls are different, he said "No." Sasha shows that without a gender identity, a child's perspective on the differences between male and female are significantly affected. Although at such a young age, a child's understanding of gender and sexuality are quite minimal and mostly developed due to appearances and personality differences.
Sasha's story demonstrates the strength of the effect that nurture has on a person. Children are more prone to have the perspectives, stereotypes, and overall view on their society shaped. Sasha's parents actively influenced his views on gender roles, by omitting the issue of gender from his personal identity completely. By nature, Sasha is male. However, when nurtured to be gender-neutral, he made no more personal effort to act as a male than to act as a female. This example proves that, in children, nurture is more important than nature in instances of gender.

Free will vs. Determinism has been one of Psychology's greatest debates. The question is whether you made the choice on your own to bring up this blog post, or whether there is some pre-determined notion that lead you to it. The debate still goes on because there is an insufficient amount of evidence to prove one way or the other, but many people have chosen their side.

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Revision:Psychology_model_answers_-_free_will_vs_determinism

The article alludes to the point that most of psychology is based off of determinism. It says, that most scientific theories are based off of the notion that one thing directly causes another. This supports determinism, which is why I was confused about how the debate is still alive today if psychologists generally agree that their theories are based off of determinism. Then I found the point, that many people want to believe that they have some say in the matter, that they have their own free will to choose what they want.

Likely, the most plausible explanation is that there is some sort of combination between free will and determinism. Our genes and subconscious behavior has already "decided" how to react in certain situations but we likely have some amount of choice when we have time to sit down and think things through before we act on them.

The article also posses an interesting phenomena that might be worth looking into, the butterfly effect.

One thing I found truly compelling from the textbook was from Chapter 2, when prefrontal lobotomies were discussed. A lobotomy was long considered the solution for many severe mental disorders. Before this class, I had been exposed to lobotomies (or at least their effects) through television and movies. In both the movie 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' and in an episode of 'The Simpsons', the patients that had a lobotomy performed on them appeared extremely incapacitated, almost as though entire brain had been removed. After actually reading the effects of a lobotomy, I discovered that it had been a tragic case of confirmation bias for far too long.

Lobotomies nearly always ended in the patient being rendered in a catatonic state, not curing the mental illness so much as disabling the brain as a whole. But since researchers could prove that the mental illness was no longer visible in the patients behavior, they credited themselves. The developer of the prefrontal lobotomy was even awarded a Nobel Prize! I can only wonder if the victims of lobotomies and their families ever pursued lawful action against those doctors that administered them, since it created more problems than it helped. Lobotomies have long been portrayed as a slight form of torture or punishment in mass media.

A concept from biological psychology that I found particularly interesting was the case of London taxi-drivers and the size of their hippocampi versus non taxi-drivers. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that plays a role in consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory, spatial memory and spatial navigation. When you have a mental map of the area you live, you have your hippocampus to thank. I found it fascinating how scientists could measure the size of taxi-drivers hippocampi in comparison to non taxi-drivers and that there was a significant difference in size. Even though it is unknown whether the hippocampus grows in result of memorizing streets and other duties taxi drivers take on, or if people with large hippocampi just seem to be drawn to this career.

This study particularly interested me because I know someone who had brain damage and I didn't know a lot about the location of the damage to his brain. However, I know one of his major struggles is remembering simple locations and putting together a simple route from A to B, even if it was just around his block. From learning more about the brain and what certain parts do, I am starting to assume some of his brain damage must have occurred in his hippocampus. Although I cannot be sure, it seems to me that it is a reasonable guess.

http://news.discovery.com/human/power-balance-maker-admits-bands-are-worthless.html

Ive had way too many people slap their sweaty power balance bracelets on me and prove to me how much more flexible i am. The idea of hologram energy enhancement is fun and all, but it doesn't take a scientist to see through the smoke on that claim. There was absolutely no scientific evidence supporting anything this product was reported to offer. This is a prime example of the placebo effect in marketing action. To have so many people utterly convinced that they were faster and stronger is impressive in itself. Are people really this gullible? Or is the larger problem the decline in critical thinking? But im sure that theres something i can buy that will fix that..

Many people have started eating six smaller meals throughout the day rather than three, hoping to boost their metabolism. Health professionals have differing opinions, making this a subject of much debate.

According to an article from 101weightloss.com, eating 5 to 6 smaller meals daily will "definitely boost your metabolism." This is a very confident claim for a subject that hasn't been heavily studied. I noticed many magazine articles also claimed mini-meals as their secret to a faster metabolism. While they backed up their claims with some general science, they did not go into detail. Other sources had different opinions. Writer, Krisha McCoy, from Everyday Health concluded that your metabolism will be maintained no matter how many meals as long as you don't go too many hours without food and enter in starvation mode. An article on Medicinenet.com says that while there is not enough evidence to determine if there's a difference, one thing we do know is that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Both of these sources said at the top that they were reviewed by health professionals.

So, while there may not be a clear answer, it seems that we can rely more on the last couple sources that say multiple smaller meals throughout the day do not boost your metabolism as some sources claim. Whether you're eating 3 meals or 6, what's important is the total number of calories consumed and making sure to start your day off with a healthy breakfast.

Sources
http://www.101weightloss.com/articles/eat-six-meals-a-day-2.htm
http://www.everydayhealth.com/weight/boosting-metabolism-with-mini-meals.aspx
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=56254

In chapter 3, one key topic that struck me was learning about acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that plays a role in arousal, selective attention, sleep, and memory. When someone has Alzheimer's disease, these transmitters are getting destroyed. They have had medication that can alleviate some of the symptoms, but can that lead to a pathway of treatment, or at least, prevention?

This struck me because my grandma has Alzheimer's. Although it is still the early stages of the disease, I am really interested in anything that can help. But so many questions still remain; if they could find a cure, would it reverse the effects? Or would the patient still have some memory loss? Is there specific activities that can boost acetylcholine production in the brain? And are we moving towards a cure, or just prevention?

Nature vs. nurture; is it logical to choose one over the other?

It's been proven that your genetic makeup (nature) can carry genes that put you at a greater risk for developing certain diseases like Alzheimer's, cancer, and diabetes. Inevitably those are genes we inherit but they are also linked to our environment (nurture). In other words the decisions you or the people around you make such as where you live, how much you exercise, if you smoke, or what your occupation you have all play a role in developing or avoiding certain diseases.

But what about developing our personality or behavior?

According to Kevin Davies of PBS's NOVA, it is likely the root of our psyche is an "inextricable combination of both". I personally believe that while our genes can predict the physical aspects of our lives, nurture plays a larger role. I've come to this conclusion because of my own personal experience being adopted. I didn't know my biological parents very well considering the young age I was adopted. My adoptive parents have certain personality traits that we do not share in common like my dad's short temper and my mother's slight neuroticism. However there are some traits I feel I've adopted (pun intended) as my own because of their influence on me. Some examples would be my sense of sarcasm, empathy, compulsiveness, and extraversion. I believe I would have been a different person if I had never been adopted, but in reality it's hard to prove that.

What do you think?

One weekend, I got a call to hang out with some friends. I got to the house, and one of my friends was clutching a bottle of red wine.
"Hey", I asked, "is that all for you?"
"Heck yeah, it's good for me, I read an article on it", she replied.

I was skeptical... if there's anything I've learned from health classes, it's that alcohol pretty much destroys you from the inside out. So, which is it?

The first pro-red wine article I found pretty much already disproves my friend's notion that an entire bottle would be good for her.
(link: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21478144/ns/today-today_health/t/wine-good-you/#.TywkQ-NWp9k)
The article stresses that, in moderation, red wine can indeed help your health, though it fails to cite any numbers or actual statistics, making me skeptical that the differences are anything more than minor, especially when I read this phrase:
"Although some studies which have focused on the health benefits of resveratrol use much greater dosages than you'll find in an average glass of wine, resveratrol has been shown to prevent blood clotting and plaque formation in arteries by altering lipid profiles and plasma viscosity".
The article seems to be just tossing around big words, and it says right there that resveratrol "has been shown" (I.e. a study showed it but did not necessarily conclude anything) to prevent clotting in "much greater doses" than in wine. That's not very convincing.
This second article (link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-514234/A-second-glass-red-wine-bad-heart.html) says that one glass is good, two is downright bad for you. I find this article shoddier than the first, because A. it makes claims that there is a drastic difference between 1 and 2 glasses without getting specific about what constitutes a "glass", and B. the first sentence says that this data is based off of "a study". That's only one study, and it's not specific at all, and we don't know anything about that study. I didn't pay much attention to what this article was trying to say, though it does agree with the first one that a small amount of red wine is good for your heart.
And this third article (link: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/red-wine/HB00089) I found to be the most useful, because it comes from a reliable source (our very own Mayo Clinic), and it does not jump to conclusions. The article is very neutral, and essentially states what I'd gathered from the last two being poorly reported: it's unclear as to whether or not red wine is really all that good for you. It also notes that the aforementioned chemical resveratrol that's in red wine has never really been tested on people, which makes the other article lose more credibility.
Because this last article comes from a respected source and covers all of what the other articles talked about while remaining neutral and refusing to conclude anything, I choose to believe it more than the others, and conclude that there is no real conclusion on this issue.

Sorry guys, "it's good for me" isn't quite a valid excuse in my book.

I found the section about adrenaline fascinating. Something exciting happens outside of our body and our body reacts. First, the sympathetic nervous system ramps up and the parasympathetic system shuts down. Then, the sympathetic nervous system activates the adrenal glands and the fight or flight response is under way. These glands send armies of hormones into the bloodstream. One of these hormones, adrenaline, causes a terrific transformation in the body functions. Energy production in muscles skyrockets as fats are broken into fatty acids and glycogen into glucose. The heart muscle contracts, blood vessels constrict, and the bronchioles open up, all which help pump more oxygenated blood to the larger muscles in the body. In addition, the pupils open up and any sense of appetite disappears. This is amazing because our bodies are ready to run or fight for our lives.
I experienced this reaction when someone scares me. Blood seems to rush to my heart and I can feel it pounding away. Everything instantly comes into focus and all weariness is gone. My entire body becomes alert and I could easily run a mile if I had to.
One thing that I am curious about is the way that increased sympathetic nervous system activation affects a person. Does this mean the same as being stressed out all of the time? Could it contribute to high blood pressure and other problems? Is there a disease that causes people to have no adrenaline?
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