I believe you have noticed, good looks are placed on a greater value nowadays. There are more and more people using different ways to lose weight for a beautiful shape. The fat on many of them is not evenly distributed on their bodies. I was thinking before, how wonderful it would be if I can transfer the fat on my legs and butt to the thin area on my body.
However, it’s hard to fight nature.
Body shapes with fruit symbolization source: kenko.do
People mainly have five different characteristics of body shape which are given the nicknames of fruits. Different shapes represent different fat storage tendency.
I found that no matter how do I control diet or do exercises, fat on my hip and legs seems never change while other areas on my body become smaller. In fact, strict dieting and physical exercising can help shape our bodies differently, but it is impossible to turn you fat naturally distributed in a different way. Why is this happening?
Hormones play a huge role in storing fat and metabolizing energy. Hormones started to be released to your body when you eat something. Base on the type of calories intake such as carbohydrates or protein, your body will determine to release different hormones. For instance, hormone insulin is released when you eat high sugar food to balance blood sugar levels. Insulin is a type of fat storing hormone which reduces blood sugar levels and have strongly effects how you store body fat.
source: youtube
As a conclusion, let’s back up to the very first topic —— losing weight. The only way to be more closer to this goal is keeping exercising as well as having a well balance diet. Although it is unfortunately that we do not have the magic to change the influence of hormones and transfer the fat distribution, but there are still great benefits if you have a healthy life style.
Wild fire is known as a disaster that will ruin people’s life. The wild fire in U.S. burns more than 20,000 acres. However, according to University of Queensland’s research, proper fire regimes is very important for the survival of certain bird in Austrilia.
An emu runs to escape an approaching wildfire as it burns near Potrero, California, U.S. June 20, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Eastern bristlebird, a bird is native to Australia, and it is known as melodic songbirds. However, these cute birds are about to extinct. The smallest population had declined to fewer than 40 birds. Like other species, changes of habits are the most important reasons for the rapid decline. What kind of habits do they need?
Source: Google Images
For terrestrial birds like eastern bristlebird, shelter and food are two very crucial things for survival and any changes of habits affecting their shelter and food will cause considerable decline of their populations. For eastern bristlebird, grassy wet forest gives they a perfect place for shelter and food. However, the overgrows of weeds destroys the perfect habit for eastern bristlebird. Then, the fire is what we consider.
I have attached a video of the same topic and the bird keeper in this video introduce the eastern bristlebird and gave the thought that wild fire is a reason of decline of birds’ populations. However, the researcher from the University of Queensland, Zoe Stone, said “For a largely ground-dwelling species, the presence of tall, thick grasses provides important shelter for foraging and nesting activities. Use of appropriate fire regimens is absolutely critical for the continued persistence and successful reintroduction of this extremely rare bird.” I think most of us have the same thought with the bird keeper, but what Zoe Stone talking about is managed fire.
Source: Youtube
It is well known that it is very hard to pull weeds, because it is so many of them. Wild fire could destroy weeds easily and rapidly, and managed fires could stay away from good patches within grassy wet forest. To ease some of the misgivings, there are some successful examples of using managed fire. For example, managed fire promote the rare savanna species. ” According to the article of University of New York:” Varied fire types in wet savannas create a wider range of conditions within the savanna habitat – altering the availability of nutrients, terrain, shelter and predators – allowing a greater number of species to find a “niche” in which to survive and reproduce.”
Credit: Dr. Colin Beale, University of York
Sometimes, we have no way to deal with natural hazard, but cleverly using natural power might works wonders. We are unwilling to see any harmless species going extinct. Hopefully, scientists could save eastern bristlebirds, and all the wild fire could be well-managed.
Have you ever felt lonely? Have you ever felt the need to talk to someone? Has the company of someone else ever brighten a day of yours that was not going so well?
Source: Youtube/Whats Up Dude
We have all experienced this feeling at some point in our lives. We constantly need to interact and share our feelings with other people. It is extremely common for people to feel helpless and closed-up if they have not been exposed to human interaction for a long period of time.
Scientific research indicates that social interactions are vital to good health. Good social support from your friends and family help with difficult situations and unexpected changes in life. Scientific research provides support for the idea that lonely people are more likely to suffer from depression and cardiovascular problems. Knowing that we are valued by someone else can help us forget about the negatives and obtain a positive outlook in life.
Social Interaction http://www.apa.org/action/science/social/index.aspx
This concept is particularly evident with seniors that lack human interactions. The health of these seniors is at risk since they experience a higher likelihood of depression, limited motivation to engage in physical activity and experience higher blood pressure. Consequently, these factor could contribute to pre-mature death.
The risk ofAlzheimer’s disease has been shown to decrease with increased social interaction between seniors, this is not yet to be explained but scientists theorize that the brain develops more cell-to-cell connections from social interactions, therefore protecting it from the impacts of Alzheimer related changes.
Source: Youtube/Vidya-mitra
Although there are many benefits to social interactions, there are also negative impacts, this is especially the case if the reference group exhibits anti-social behaviour, including drug and alcohol abuse. This type of toxic relationship can lead to devastating outcomes on a person’s mental and physical health, which could lead to depression, and premature death.
Staying socially active and maintaining your relationships are an important part of healthy aging. Reach out to your loved ones—neighbors, friends, family members—and stay as vibrant, active, and social as you’ve always been.
It’s Friday night, school is over for the weekend and if you are a university student and over the age of 19, you may be planning to meet up with some friends to have a drink or two.
Source: Flickr Commons by Simon Leloup
You may be aware of the term ‘drunk’ and ‘tipsy’ but the science behind why so many young adults turn to alcohol consumption after a long tiring day is that alcohol releases the brains ‘feel good’ chemicals called endorphins that produces the feeling of pleasure in certain areas of the brain. Although its evident that drinking can bring some temporary pleasure, it can have some severe negative consequences, especially when one consumes heavy doses of alcohol for a long period of time.
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse when a person drinks heavily over a long period of time may be susceptible to have damaging effects on the brain such as the ability for the brain to form new long-term memories. Long-term alcohol consumption specifically can lead to significant inhibition of neuronal activity in the hippocampus, which is the area the of the brain that plays an important role in the formation of new memories.
Anatomy of the brain: The Hippocampus. Source: The Brain made Simple Website
Alcohol’s influence on memory appears to have a primary effect during the transfer of information from short-term to long-term memory storage (see figure below). The modal model of memory originally proposed by Alkinson and Shiffrin (1968) state that intoxicated test subjects are able to recall information immediately after it is presented and are able to keep it active for 1 minute. Subjects are also able to recall long-term memories formed before they become intoxicated; however, once alcohol was consumed, test subjects began to show impairments in the ability to transfer information into long-term storage. When consumed for long periods of time even when subjects were sober again, they were unable to recall critical elements of events or the entire event while they were intoxicated.
A general model of memory formation. Source: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse website
Although occasional drinking can release some built up stress and bring temporary happiness; when consumed for long periods of time in heavy doses, it can severely hinder the brain’s ability to store long-term memories. So the next time you plan to binge drink, it may be worth considering the long-term consequences that chronic drinking can have on cognitive function.
For more information on the effects of alcohol on the brain:
Having difficulties cleaning the kitchen? Does the smell of your fridge annoy you everytime you open it? Don’t worry about them anymore because baking soda has your back.
Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), is a non-toxic compound which is safe for daily use. It usually maintains an average pH (a 1-14 scale that measures how strong an acid (< 7) or a base (> 7) is) of 8.1. Since its pH is close to 7, it is considered as a weak base. There are a variety of applications of baking soda due to its reaction with acids.
Chemical Structure of Baking Soda Source: https://www.scienceabc.com/pure-sciences/whats-difference-baking-soda-baking-powder-carbonate-leavening-double-acting.html
One of the reasons why baking soda creates a huge impact on cleaning is that it reacts with weak acids such as vinegar. The reaction between vinegar and baking soda is an example of the acid-base reaction, which produces carbon dioxide gas. The carbon dioxide gas is produced in the form of bubbles. These bubbles are exactly the same bubbles as those appear in the dishwashing detergents.
A video of cleaning the oven using vinegar and baking soda/ Youtube
Another application of baking soda is due to its ability to deodorize. In a certain environment, bad smells are usually caused by strong acids or bases. Baking soda will neutralize the smell by reacting with these chemicals. If the smell is caused by a base, baking soda can even act as an acid and react with the base. This is why many households put baking soda in their fridges to avoid unpleasant odors.
Photo of placing baking soda in a fridge Source: http://www.youngauthors.info/baking-soda-for-refrigerator/
Baking soda has become more and more widespread throughout the world. Although I have only introduced two applications, baking soda can even be used in many other situations including cooking and medical purposes. In addition, it is not only easy to use and non-toxic, but also very cheap. Thus, baking soda is no doubt the best helper in our daily life.
In many aspects of the personal and professional world, visual impressions matter. Appearing to own expensive clothes, cars, or cellphones may seem shallow, but we are hardwired to express ourselves to signal status, group membership, individuality, or style. The expressions and responses to the way we showcase ourselves in public determine the two-fold relationship between our internal selves and our relationships with others.
Source: diylol.com via Pinterest
Barney Stinson was right to feel powerful when following the mantra to always wear a suit. Just as the show, How I Met Your Mother, displays Stinson’s personality shift from confident and ambitious while “suited up” to childish and insecure when dressed casually, real world situations are surprisingly similar. Researchers from Columbia University in New York and California State University have extensively proved that wearing formal clothing enhances abstract cognitive processing. All five studies within the paper show evidence that people feel more positive about themselves when wearing a suit or dress.
As we become more confident in how we look, we are able to transition more easily into roles that are unfamiliar by first dressing the part. Power roles known as powerful or wealthy in our modern society are perceived to be represented with people wearing suits or formal clothing. When we wear the clothes of people seen in power roles, we fit the mindset of what we see in them when in public. The theory here, known as Symbolic Interactionism, works on a subconscious level that matches our expectations of reality and success in the personal world we live in.
Source: AMC Opensource for Mad Men
Just as we judge ourselves, judging others aligns with our attention to expectations. When we are wearing formal clothing, we are more attentive to being in a cognitive position of power. Just as business people focus on connections and network value, we are more critical of the positions that other people fill when dressed in public. We are more open towards associating with people who are on a perceived equal level by the way they dress, regardless of the surroundings or occasion.
Source: Shutterstock Image Library
So is the solution for all of us to start wearing suits every time we leave the house to make ourselves feel better? The answer is not that simple. Psychology Today defines confidence as a belief in one’s ability to succeed. However, invoking confidence through symbolic measures, such as wearing a suit, can be an act of insecurity that masks the reality of incompetence.
Source: Getty Images
Especially when unsure of the ability to perform a role, appearing to be wealthy results in overcompensation that penalizes you in social situations. For instance, a trendsetting poor individual would feel the need to spend more money buying expensive accessories, where a self-confident wealthy individual would not focus on appearances and wear clothes that are more comfortable.
All in all, the clothes may make the person, but it’s the person wearing the clothes. Though there are benefits beyond how others see you, the truth of dressing to impress is that working toward your ideal role is equally important to how you appear to others. A suit and tie cannot solve all of your problems, but being honest with yourself just might.
Award winning mathematician and UBC professors, Dr. Stephanie van Willigenburg. The Ubyssey/Koby Michaels
Actua, a Canadian STEM education non-profit, recently released a study about coding education in secondary school. Unsurprisingly and disappointingly, young women were less likely to be interested in computer science. As Actua CEO Jennifer Flanagan explained in an interview with Toronto Star columnist Shree Paradkar, young women were less likely to be interested in computer science not because they were less skilled, but because they were less confident in their abilities. This unfortunate trend is seen across basically all STEM fields and is even more disappointing for women of colour.
The roots of this lack of confidence in STEM has a complex and tangled history. However, opportunities and role models for young women who have an interest in STEM are severely lacking. Although women make up half of the US college-educated workforce, they are vastly underrepresented in STEM fields. Women are consistently not given opportunities to rise in the racks of scientific academia and industry even though they equally qualified for these positions. As you look at the gender breakdown of people enrolled in undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. degrees, you can see a steady falloff of the number of women. When you get to the level of tenured professors, the numbers are depressingly low.
Former UBC Faculty of Applied Science Associate Dean,
Dr. Elizabeth Croft, invites everyone to be an engineer and
recounts one of her toughest days as a female engineer.
Engineering Stories/YouTube.
These problems aren’t just an American problem, or a few bad-apples problem — they are everywhere and UBC is no exception. UBC’s Faculty of Applied Science is trying to increase the number of women enrolled in engineering program to 50 per cent by the 2020. Today, around 25 per cent of engineering students are female. Only 20 per cent of the faculty’s tenured professors are women.
How can these problems be overcome? Let’s start with a little exercise. Grab a blank piece of paper and a pen. Write down the name of a scientist.
Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Let me guess: you wrote down Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton or Charles Darwin. Or, if you were feeling a little more daring, Alan Turing.
Now write down a female scientists. I’ll wait.
Still waiting.
Yup, still waiting…
How did Dr. Stephanie van Willigenburg overcome prejudice as a
female mathematician? She did it by becoming one of the world's
best. Engineering Stories/YouTube
I bet it, if you could think of even one, it was Marie Curie. Congratulations. And herein lies a problem.
There are many ways to bridge the gender discrepancy in STEM, but having better representation would go a long way. As a kid fascinated in biology, I imagined myself as Charles Darwin, sailing through the Galapagos, searching for new and undiscovered sequences. I saw myself exploring the cosmos as Carl Sagan and chasing after dinosaur fossils as Dr. Alan Grant. If I had been a young girl, who would I have looked up to?
Giving aspiring scientists someone they can look up to, see themselves as, and reach out to for support would be invaluable in encouraging more women to become scientists.
So, next time you’re telling a story about science, make sure to include a fantastic scientists who just happens to a woman.
UBC professor, BCCDC senior scientist and CBC host Dr. Jennifer
Gardy discusses how she became interested in science and how her
creativity makes her a better scientist. Engineering
Stories/YouTube
Own an old pair of runners that sit around and collect dust? Science suggests – you may want to put them to use again.
Emerging studies shown that aerobic exercise can slow down the aging of the brain. It was also found that aerobic exercise can have positive effects on cognitive abilities such as memory retention. Several studies shown that individuals who regularly exercise occupy larger volumes of the brain involved in memory compared to individuals that do not exercise.
What exactly is it about physical exercise that has such an impact you might ask? Upon light to intense levels of aerobic exercise, the body produces a spectrum of signalling chemicals. One of the chemicals that gets released yields the production of a very important protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which gets secreted in the brain and muscles. When produced in the body, BDNF maintains existing brain cells, promotes the growth of new blood vessels in the brain and encourages growth of the hippocampus, a region of the brain that is associated with memory.
Figure 1. Anatomy of brain. Source: Anatomy & Physiology, Connexions Web site
Why this should concern you. The size of the hippocampus decreases with age which often leads to memory decline and decrease in mental efficiency. In many older adults, cognitive deficits are commonly associated with old age. Researchers estimate that by 2050, there will be more than 115 million people that will suffer dementia globally. However, evidence shows that with regular exercise, memory decline and aging of the hippocampus can be reduced and ultimately lower the chances of dementia.
Source: Harvard Health Publications/YouTube
Is one form of exercise more beneficial than the other? As of now, researchers have not yet found an answer. The reason being is that most of the studies conducted only experimented with walking and/or running. However, it is suggested from the studies available that any type of exercise that would be able to elevate the heart rate to a certain level would produce these cognitive benefits.
As someone who enjoys being physically active and mainly weight trains, I was astonished about the benefits of aerobic exercise – all of this was new information to me. Ever since I learned further about these benefits of aerobic exercise, I have incorporated running to achieve a healthier, more cognitively efficient brain.
Figure 2. Man running. Source: Kyle Cassidy
If you are physically able to exercise and do not currently do so, I hope this post encourages you to reach for your pair of runners, go out, and “jog your memory”.
AUD is a professional term in Biology to describe a pattern of drinking alcohol that involves problems in controlling amount. AUD can cause a lot of serious problems on health, social relationships and so on. An estimate made by a recent research shows 16 million people in the United States have AUD. This great number gives us a glimpse that the population of AUD is really huge.
What causes AUD?
Youtube: Designed to Drink? The Genetics of Alcoholism
Environmental factors such as cultural background, social relationships, and parental behaviors can all largely contribute to AUD. However, the inheritance of alcoholism has been found to be the main factor of AUD, which stands more than 50% of the reasons. A researcher called Schuckit conducted a study and concluded that the adult who inherits alcoholic genes from their parents are more likely to have alcohol dependency than the one without the biological background, suggesting the significant role of genetic factors. Other studies show that the people with alcohol gene are 6 times likely to have drinking problems.
How does gene cause AUD?
Youtube: Effects of Alcohol on the Brain, Animation, Professional version.
The effects of alcohol on the brain is dropping down the brain activities by restricting GABA. In the human brain, a neurotransmitter called GABA is responsible for the movement of brain chemicals. As GABA is significantly related to alcohol effects, researchers started to identify which gene in GABA is associated with alcoholism. GABA is affected by several genes in a part of a region in chromosome 15. Among these genes, there is a special version called GABRG3. This type of gene is very likely linked with AUD. However, the scientists still have no clues of the genetic basis of alcoholism. In other words, how the change of GABA gene related to the risk of alcoholism is not known yet.
Even though I discussed the main reason for AUD is the genetic factor, you should not regard alcoholism is a thing that you cannot get rid of. Alcoholism, indeed, is terrible in every aspect. So drink less and live longer.
Our eyes are one of the most important organs for perception, it would be a shame if we lost our vision from double tapping that instagram post or snapchatting a selfie. Human vision is only capable of seeing a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, approximately 390 to 700 nanometers. How can our vision of shorter wavelengths have such an impact on our health, particularly sleep? This is referring to artificial blue light, found mostly in electronics such as computers and cell phones.
Studies have found that shorter wavelengths such as visible blue light emit more energy than longer wavelengths. The human eye is not very effective at blocking these high energy lights. Ultraviolet light sources such as the sun or lighting is easily blocked and unable to reach the retina. However, blue light which is only has a slightly longer wavelength than some ultraviolet light passes through the whole eye and reaches the retina.
Figure 2: Anatomy of a typical eye. Source: Wikimedia Commons
What blue light does and how it affects you.
Although exposure to blue light has some benefits such as an elevated mood and wakefulness, the main issue tends to be sleep issues. The average human being tends to use electronic devices before they go to sleep. It was found that blue light at night suppresses the discharge of melatonin, the hormone acting as your internal clock. A more specific studying the effects of reading paper versus a light-emitting device before bed found that those reading on an electronic device had less REM sleep (dream sleep) and a greater discomfort in the morning.
How we can save our sleep?
A healthy diet, high in leafy green vegetables may potentially increase the protective pigments in the retina and mitigate some of the damage in vision. To put it simply, the easiest solution to this would be to avoid technology 2-3 hours before bed which tells the body it is time to sleep. On the other hand, many find it difficult to resist this urge and researchers have yet to find a solution. They do suggest using the new modern technological settings like optimizing the screen for night time use so we can all have a good nights sleep and have a nice productive day! Personally, at this particular time of schooling, I use technological devices for most studies because I have a higher productivity rate. Also, I give up some my sleep to maintain some of the fun in my life, sometimes watching tv or playing video games. We do our best to balance our lifestyle between work and leisure, and like a relationship, there is give and take. With the uprise in technology, it will be difficult to avoid artificial blue light, but instead, we should find methods to lessen the effects.