Category Archives: Issues in Science

LASIK Surgery: No More Glasses on You

Posted on October 14, 2013 by sungbin93 | 4 comments

According to Statistics Netherlands, more than 60% of population wear glasses or contact lenses due to their poor vision, and the rate of people wearing glasses or lenses is keep rising. The vision changes are often caused by presbyopia, cataracts, and glaucoma, and people may have a blurred eyesight as a result of these problems. They wear glasses or contact lenses to adjust their vision, but it is uncomfortable in many ways because it costs money, takes time to wear, and slides down a lot. Therefore, theses days, high number of populations get LASIK surgery to fix their vision and to get free from wearing glasses or contact lenses.

Image from: Flickr

LASIK stands for laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis, and it is commonly known as laser eye surgery or laser vision correction. For a better understanding of LASIK surgery, knowing how our eyes work is important; the cornea of the eye refracts the light rays entering so that the light rays can pass through the pupil, and then retina receives the image. The cornea plays an essential role in this process because it initially refracts the light rays and focuses the image to retina of our eyes. Thus, if the cornea is unable to function properly, it is said that one has a poor, blurred vision.

Image from: Cornea Research Foundation of America

LASIK surgery is a great way to fix this problem because it is a surgery that reshapes the cornea when the cornea cannot focus the image accurately anymore. Generally, laser and microkeratome are used to perform the surgery, and the procedure is very simple:

1. a thin, circular flap is created in the cornea with the use of microkeratome

2. the hinged flap is folded back for an access to the underlying cornea

3. some of the tissue of cornea are removed with a highly-specialized laser to reshape the cornea.

4. cover the cornea with the flap again

Likewise, LASIK surgery is a very simple process that takes less than 10 minutes, but it lasts forever. After the LASIK surgery, there is no need to worry about having blurred vision anymore. Also, it is a safe surgery, therefore the risk of side effects is almost negligible. Would you like to spend 10 minutes of your life for a clear new vision that will lasts forever?

References:

All about vision: The LASIK Procedure

CBS: Statistics Netherlands

National Keratoconus Foundations: How the eye works?

by Sungbin Choi

4 Comments

Posted in Issues in Science

Tagged contact lenses, eye, eyesight, glasses, lasik, vision

Losing Weight in Virtual Reality?

Posted on September 23, 2013 by seraphinush | 2 comments

It is needless to say that innovation, new technology, and refined techniques can affect one’s physique, be it the running machine, exercise routines, or dietary pills. However, can something on a virtual level truly contribute to weight loss?

Figure 1. Plugin Image from the movie “The Matrix”
http://couldthishappen.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/brain-plug-in-300×199.jpg

First, Merrian-Websters Dictionary defines virtual reality as “an artificial world that consists of images and sounds created by a computer and that is affected by the actions of a person who is experiencing it.” In other words, it is computerized representation of our world, or an imaginary one. Thinking that something virtual can change something in the real world seems contradictory. For simplification, when we say virtual reality, the first thing that may come to mind is the movie The Matrix, where Neo the main character is plugged into the virtual world “Matrix” and fight for humanity. With this in mind, there is doubt that lying down on a table can truly make us lose weight. Nevertheless, the of process losing weight extends further away from simply being able to transfer one’s mind to another realm.

Figure 2. Screenshot of Second Life
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WTHgNE4HV38/UInvSQaXLzI/AAAAAAAAAC0/Z
B6ct1BmnFM/s320/Second+Life.jpg

According to investigators from The University of Kansas Medical Center, weight maintenance was significantly more effective using a virtual environment than face-to-face sessions in real life. What makes this possible is the mental attachment to the character in control. Using the web-based virtual reality environment called Second Life, participants were able to create “avatars” that are self-representations of themselves in the environment. Being able to interact in the virtual environment more freely, participants were able to “practice meal planning, grocery shopping, and dietary control when eating at restaurants and holiday parties to a much greater extent with Second Life compared with the time-limited clinic meeting”. By having continuous imagery that the avatar is him or herself, it is thought that participants will then be able to take the practiced routine out of the virtual environment and utilize it in real life.

Here is a 10 minute first-look gameplay video for Second Life by MMOHut with commentary. Viewer discretion is advised.

Further research is required to gain confidence in a virtual alternative to lose weight. Most importantly, creating another self in virtual reality may alter not only one’s physical imagery but also one’s actual perceptions on the surroundings. These avatars can be modified to one’s preferences and such modification can affect one’s concept on racism, prejudice, and even values. All these questions are debatable.

By: Junki (Seraphinus) Hong

References:

2 Comments

Posted in Issues in Science, Science in the News

Your Sleep Patterns: Are They Natural?

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Jina | 3 comments

Sleepy Face.
Image from the Flickr Commons. https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3083/2381417367_b731167
105_o.jpg

Have you ever felt tired after waking up from a good 8 hours of sleep?

It turns out that sleeping the recommended 8 hours straight may not be how people slept in the past. By past, I mean hundreds of years ago.

Sleep is a state where brain wave activity, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature and other physiological functions change to enter a period of reduced activity. In more practical terms, people sleep at night to rest and function during daytime. Without sleep, we know what happens—grumpiness, grogginess, and forgetfulness. In the long-run, lack of sleep also impacts mental and physical health. That is why most people recommend getting enough sleep at night.

But, what if it is more natural for people to sleep in two blocks of time at night?

Roger Ekirch, a historian at the Virginia Polytechnic, published a seminal paper in 2001, after 16 years of research, suggesting that people had first and second sleeps. In his book called At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, more than 500 historical records show people going to sleep few hours after dusk and waking up around midnight for 1-2 hours of relaxing activities. Then, they would sleep again until sunrise. In between the two sleeps, people would read, write, pray, or even visit their neighbours. Just as trying to sleep straight from night to morning is normal for us, segmented sleeps were normal for our ancestors.

An experiment in the 1990s by a psychiatrist Thomas Wehr, also observes a similar sleeping pattern to that of our ancestors. A group of people was put into darkness for 14 hours everyday for a month. By the last week, people clearly slept in two segments of approximately 4 hours, waking up in the middle for an hour or two. Jessa Gamble refers to this experiment in her TED talk about natural sleep cycles:

If bimodal sleep is natural, why have people shifted to unimodal sleep?

Improvements in artificial lighting allowed people to engage in activities at night as well. As a result, people became more conscious of being efficient with work. In other words, “workaholics” may have been born. Also, exposure to artificial lights makes it worse to fall asleep. By the 1920s, the notion of bimodal sleep completely perished in people’s minds.

However, some experts believe that many insomnia problems today are from our segmented sleeping habits and excessive lighting we have around. Sleep psychologist Gregg Jacobs and Oxford’s neuroscience professor Russell Foster are two of the many who think waking up in the middle of the night is not abnormal.

Tired in most mornings myself, I was stunned by the concept of two sleeps. However, it seems a bit hard to try it out because I get different hours of sleep each night depending on my timetable. Nonetheless, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I will not worry for the lost sleep anymore, but relax and think that this may be more natural.

By: Jina Choi

References: Sleep, why they used to do it twice a night, The myth of the eight-hour sleep, The characteristics of sleep, The science of sleep

3 Comments

Posted in Issues in Science, Public Engagement, Science Communication, Science in the News

Tagged insomnia, Midnight Awake, Natural Sleep, Segmented Sleep, Sleep, Thomas Wehr

Emotional Eating: Is It More Than Just Psychological?

Posted on September 23, 2013 by angelicareyes | 1 comment

Image source: Blogspot

The beginning of October is fast approaching and with that we welcome the first round of midterms and an increase in our stress levels. As a self-diagnosed emotional eater, I always find myself craving unhealthy foods at this time. Which makes me wonder, is it all psychological or is there a more scientific reason behind this?

It is known that taste and pleasant memories associated with junk food play a role in our tendency to gravitate towards fatty or sugary food in times of stress. But a new study suggests that there is more to it than that. According to the study by Lukas Van Oudenhove and his colleagues, our stomach may be influencing our brain through the release of hormones. This occurs independently of any feelings we have toward a particular food. Suggesting that emotional eating not only operates on a psychological level, but a biological level as well.

M&M’s
Image source: Stuffpoint

In this study, Van Oudenhove and his team infused one of two meals through unmarked feeding tubes into the stomach of twelve healthy, normal weight volunteers. They were either fed a saline control solution or a solution of saturated fatty acids. By tube feeding them, the researchers eliminated the subjective and overall experience of eating, such as: tastes, smells, and textures.

After the volunteers were fed, the researchers tried to invoke a feeling of sadness in them. They had them listen to gloomy classical music and were shown pictures of people with depressed facial expressions. The volunteers were then administered a mood survey. The results revealed that those who were fed the fatty acid solution were more upbeat and happy after being exposed to the depressing environment, compared to those who were fed the saline solution.

MRI Machine
Image source: Wikipedia

In addition, functional MRI brains scan were taken during the study to further exemplify these results. The researchers compared the scans of those who were fed the saline solution to those who were fed the fatty acid solution. Surprisingly, they found that the fatty acid solution had actually dampened activity in parts of the brain that are involved in sadness.

This study successfully demonstrates that food can have a comforting effect on a biological level. Unfortunately, this makes it even harder to resist the urge to emotionally eat in times of stress. Although there is nothing wrong with occasionally eating unhealthy comfort food, we must still find ways to comfort ourselves without the extra calories. This is crucial in the long run if we want to lead a healthy lifestyle.

Below is a video explaining the chemical effect on stress on our eating habits, the consequences, and a possible solution.

Reference:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/25/study.clues.emotional.eating/index.html

-Angelica Reyes

1 Comment

Posted in Biological Sciences, Issues in Science, Science in the News

Tagged emotional eating, health, stress

Aging Is Evitable?

Posted on September 22, 2013 by connie17 | 1 comment

Dramatic amount of aging. Credit to Mary Jo Fohey (http://www.godsebook.org/political_leaders.html)

What popped into your mind when you first saw the picture to the left? Besides the amusement, I’m sure many of you thought about the horrors aging can do to people. But why exactly in terms of molecular cell biology are we all in the process of developing those depressing lines on our foreheads?

Normally, when a unicellular organism undergoes cell division, it divides in such a way that one of its two daughter cells receives mostly the old and damaged cellular material such as DNA, while the other daughter cell gets the majority of the newly synthesized cellular content.

Because of this uneven distribution of old and new cellular material, one of the daughter cells is always older than the other. According to previous studies, the cells that acquire the majority of old cellular material become slower in proliferating and carrying out metabolic activities, resulting in the phenomena of aging seen in research models such as E. coli bacteria. Because essentially all of the cells for most organisms divide in such way, aging is inevitable in our lives despite all the “anti-aging” products that we use!

Cell division of a single cell with replicated cell material. Credit to Roberto Piras from Shutterstock. (http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-141329944/stock-photo-two-cells-divide-by-osmosis-in-the-background-other-cells.html?src=tofjyodeYvtJcAapke2fzA-1-0)

However, one microbe seems to have managed to evade this depressing fate of aging. A recent study of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Germany has identified a simple unicellular microbe, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, a yeast species, to be able to avoid aging. The researchers discovered that when growing under favorable conditions, S. pombe divides in a different way from other organisms. When S. pombe divides, both of its two daughter cells receive equal amount of the old and new cellular content. Thanks to this even distribution of damaged and newly synthesized cellular material, both of the two daughter cells are “younger than before,” as Iva Tolic-Norrelykke, one of the researchers of the new study said. In the study, the researchers found that since the daughter cells were younger than before cell division, S. pombe cells did not slow down in its proliferation and metabolic activities after dividing.

The new study did not, however, argue that S. pombe cells are immortal. Instead, it stated that if a S. pombe cell is followed for a long enough time, the cell will ultimately die, although “the probability of this death will [remain] constant” rather than increasing over time. The study also stated that if being put under stressful conditions, S. pombe cells tend to divide faster and consequently distribute old cellular material unevenly. And the daughter cells with more old material will ultimately die in the same way other types of cells age.

Aging is certainly an issue that is constantly on our mind. But instead of stressing about aging and perhaps therefore making our cells divide the old material even more unevenly, it is best that we be content with the way of life.

-By Connie (Kang Chi) Lee

References:

Why one microbe seemingly doesn’t age at all.

1 Comment

Posted in Biological Sciences, Issues in Science, Science in the News

Tagged aging, cell division, molecular cell biology, S.pombe

FDA-Approved Artificial Sweeteners: Negative Effects and Health Benefits

Posted on September 21, 2013 by zphil | 1 comment

image source: farm4.staticflickr.com/

Human consumption of artificial sweeteners has increased over the years. This is apparent in the increased emergence of “sugar- free” or “diet” food and beverages at grocery stores. Furthermore, sugar substitutes come in packets, liquid form, and/or incorporated into our favourite food and drinks. Their abundance and easy accessibility increases our exposure, and consequently, our consumption of the said products. In turn, we need to assess the potential negative effects of artificial sweeteners on the health, as well as the health benefits.

Artificial sweeteners are consumed mainly for weight control and for prevention of diabetes. Diabetic people, however, use artificial sweeteners because they generally do not raise blood sugar levels, as they are not made of carbohydrates – according to a health-oriented website article. In addition, the same source stated that artificial sweeteners practically do not have calories and hence they’re dubbed “non-nutritive sugars”. These are the factors that drive for the consumption of artificial sweeteners. In contrast, what are the possible side effects?

A recent post made by a former editor of Harvard Health exclaims that artificial sugars are much sweeter than their natural counterparts; therefore, consumption of these sugars can overstimulate the taste receptors which could result in less tolerance for more complex taste – characteristic of fruits and vegetables. More importantly, I found this article to be alarming. It only talks about a couple of artificial sweeteners – sucralose and aspartame; however it suggests that they are carcinogens and can potentially promote the development of certain diseases.

In my opinion the negative effects outweigh the health benefits of these artificial sweeteners. Weight gain and the onset of diabetes can be prevented by consuming healthy alternatives, exercise, and adequate rest. On the contrary, sometimes we can’t control what is contained within the processed food and beverages we purchase at the store.

I stumbled upon a report of the toxicity effects of Aspartame published by the US Food and Drug Administration. Despite all of this, why are artificial sweeteners FDA-approved? I believe that the governments around the world should fund more intensive safety studies for the safety and well-being of the consumers.

References:

Sweeteners, Artificial sweeteners and other sugar substitutes, Artificial sweeteners: sugar-free, but at what cost?, The health dangers of artificial sweetners, Reported asparatame toxicity effects

by: Ziharrphil Magnaye

1 Comment

Posted in Biological Sciences, Issues in Science

Tagged artificial sweeteners, aspartame, diabetes, non-nutritive sugars, obesity, sucralose

Savant Syndrome: differently abled, not disabled

Posted on September 20, 2013 by sungbin93 | Leave a comment

image source: from Flickr www.123rf.co

Have you ever heard of savant syndrome before? Savant syndrome is a condition wherein a person with mental disabilities such as autistic disorder has immense gifts of intelligence or talents in a specific area. According to Gale Encyclopedia of Public Health, about 10% of autistic children have savant syndrome. Perhaps, savant syndrome is one of the most unbelievable phenomena in the study of human cognitive system.

“He has a remarkable musical ear and an uncanny ability to hear pretty much every detail in a piece of music”

image source: from Flickr http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/5398303/Human-iPod-Derek-Paravicini-to-give-first-full-concert.html

The exact cause of savant syndrome is still unknown, however, there are some hypothesis that explain how an autistic people can become savants. For example, some researchers think that the savant skills are entirely based on the ability to memorize; they memorize every single piece of what they need to perform their skills. Meanwhile, there is another hypothesis, which states that the intelligence is separated from mental ability and they are not related to each other.With this hypothesis, it is possible to explain how an autistic person can have such gifted abilities.

Their talents can appear in many areas including arts, music, and mathematics. There are many people who became popular with their gifted skills. An English autistic savant writer, Daniel Tammet is a representative example of autistic savant. He was diagnosed with asperger syndrome at his age of twenty-five, but he has incredible abilities of calculating numbers and learning languages. Actually, Daniel is the holder European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits. He has also written a book called, Thinking in Numbers, which has been selected as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in the United Kingdom, and he now works as writer and educator.

People with savant syndrome are accurate as computers, fast as calculators, and they also pictures like cameras. Should we call them disabled? or are they genius who are differently abled than us?

References:

Daniel Tammet, Autistic Genius, Savant – Causes of Savant Syndrome

by Sungbin Choi

Category Archives: Issues in Science

LASIK Surgery: No More Glasses on You

Losing Weight in Virtual Reality?

Your Sleep Patterns: Are They Natural?

Emotional Eating: Is It More Than Just Psychological?

Aging Is Evitable?

FDA-Approved Artificial Sweeteners: Negative Effects and Health Benefits

Savant Syndrome: differently abled, not disabled

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