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The Effects of Soft Drinks

Posted on March 26, 2018 by | Leave a comment

Recently, there has been increasing interest in the effect of soft drink on the life quality. By the research, the consumption of  has become a obvious and controversial health issue. Many people regard soft drinks as a major contributor to obesity , especially in children. So the aim of this blog were to review the available literature to determine whether soft drink consumption is related to increase in body weight, destruction of nutrients, and increase Prevalence of  diseases.

Soft-drinks

In 1942, the American Medical Association mentioned soft drinks specifically in a strong recommendation to limit intake of added sugar. Until 2000, the annual US production of carbonated soft drinks was increased from 90 8-oz to 600 8-oz per person. Interestingly, by the research of Koning L , People who take soft drinks 1 to 2 cans a day or more, have a 26% greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes than people who rarely have such drinks. And Dr. Frank Hu, which is the professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, indicate that there is significantly evidence show that decreasing sugar beverage intake will reduce the risk of obesity and related diseases. Also, for most of soft drinks, the added colors and preservatives have even worse effects than high sugar content. The bright color of the soft drinks looks pleasing but its effects are sensational: 4-methylimidazole, which is a compound found in the brown food coloring may caused lung, liver, and thyroid cancer in mice.

NO MORE SOFT DRINKS

Above available studies show a strong relation between soft drink consumption and increased health risk. This finding alone suggests that we should reduce the soft drink consumption. So what could we drink instead of soft drinks? The plain old H2O would be perfect to replace soft drinks; Or if you can’t give up on that fizz, the soda water or sparkling water will satisfy you.

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What is Cryptocurrency Mining and is it Profitable?

Posted on March 19, 2018 by | 1 comment

By now most people have heard of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, but where does this currency come from? Much like gold, there is a fixed amount of bitcoin, 21 million bitcoins to be exact. These bitcoins can be ‘mined’ using computers running a special algorithm. In the past miners would use old computer hardware, specifically GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) which are typically used for computer gaming. This meant it was very easy for someone with a gaming computer to make some extra money by letting their computer run the mining algorithm while they were not using their computer.

Gaming GPU: Wikipedia Commons

As cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin become more mainstream, its value skyrocketed. This drove more people to become miners. More miners and newer, more powerful GPUs in computers lead to many bitcoins being found. So far, this sounds great, so should you go out and buy a GPU and become a miner?

Bitcoin Prices: Wikipedia Commons

Here’s the catch; as more bitcoins are found, it quickly becomes much more difficult to mine. This is because of the way bitcoin is setup. Because there is a fixed amount, it is very easy to mine the first bitcoins, but as more are found, the remaining bitcoins become much more rare. This rarity and huge popularity causes the value of bitcoin to rapidly inflate, causing more people to become miners.

One might ask, is mining profitable? The answer is more complicated then you might expect. Back when miners were just using old computers to mine, the only cost they had to worry about was electricity, and yes it was very profitable. Nowadays you need much more powerful hardware and multiple GPUs to mine. Although GPUs have become more efficient, multiple GPUs will still consume a lot more electricity than a single older one. Not only that, GPU pricing has also sky-rocketed, much to the dismay of computer gamers. 

So with all these variables taken into consideration, let’s see what it would take to become a miner. First you would need an extremely powerful computer with as many GPUs as possible. For our example lets say we use 8 high-end GPUs. This system would cost around $18,000 and would make around $11 a day in profit (assuming your electricity rates are relatively low in your area). This means it would take over 4 years to just break even and that is assuming the cryptocurrency market remains stable, which it is notorious for being very unpredictable. So no it is not profitable to be a cryptocurrency miner using regular computer hardware, unless you already have the GPUs. Nowadays, you are better off using dedicated mining machines or just trading cryptocurrencies on the stock market, if you are trying to make some extra money.

Dedicated mining machine: Wikipedia Commons

 

 

 

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Time Travel, is it possible?

Posted on March 19, 2018 by | 2 comments

Video Resource: YouTube Channel: Second Thought   Is Time Travel Really Possible?

 

Time traveling has been an interesting topic for a long time. In 1985, a movie called Back to the Future caught great attentions from the crowds about time traveling. In 1988, the publication of the great book named A Brief History of Time written by Stephen Hawking raised people’s attention about time traveling again. Since traveling through time is such an interesting topic, is time travel possible in real life?

Image result for back to the future

Image Resource: Google Image:  Wikimedia Commons

 

There are two parts of time traveling. The first one is traveling to the past, and the second one is traveling to the future. Let’s talk about travelling to the past first. It is usually stated that people cannot go back to the past. A very common way to explain it is the Grandfather paradox. It says that if a time traveler can go back in time and kill his grandfather before their their mother or father was born, then he will not be born himself and the killing would not be possible. Another recent explanation was given by Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest physicists in the world. He said that if we want to achieve time travel, we need to consider time as the fourth dimension like length, width and height. However, unlike those three spatial dimensions, time does not have multi-directional property. We are only able to move forwards on the time dimension. Although lots of people still believe that traveling to the past is possible, current knowledge and theories do not support it.

 

We cannot move backwards on the time dimension, but we can move forwards. If we want to go to the future, we must consider one important thing, speed. There is a speed limit in our universe, which is 186 thousand miles per second. This is the speed of light. If we can travel near this speed, we can go to the future. Imagine that we were in a spaceship that travels at 99 percent of the speed of light, every minute on the spaceship is a year on earth. Therefore, if scientists can invent spaceships that are fast enough, human will be able to travel to the future. Also, Albert Einstein once said that mass is also a factor that will influence time. Time on earth is slower than it is in the universe because of the mass of earth. Therefore, if we can find a planet that is large and heavy enough, the time we spend on it will be much slower than it on earth. When we come back from it to earth, we will be in the future.

 

All the theories and conclusions are all based on the knowledge we have right know. Maybe in the future all of this could be wrong, and people can go back to the past. However, since going back in time is impossible now, we should just cherish the present and live every day to the fullest because we cannot go back in time.

 

Liang Zou

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Where Music Meets Medicine

Posted on March 19, 2018 by | 2 comments

Since the beginning of civilization, humans have been inseparable from music. So inseparable, in fact, that certain melodies literally activate a reward center in our brains, creating that ‘spine tingling’ feeling down our backs. Hence, it’s not surprising how science continues to reveal how important music really is for us; especially our health. Here’s just a handful of ways music can improve our well-being:

 

Stress

source: flickr

Researchers are now discovering the stress-reducing properties of music. For instance, a recent Swedish study prescribed either (i) relaxing music or (ii) silent bed rest to patients who just underwent intensive heart surgery, and found that patients who listened to music had drastically lower levels of cortisol (a hormone associated with stress). In addition, a separate study went one step further by comparing music to actual prescription medicine; music still came out on top. In this study, patients who were about to undergo surgery were either given midazolam, an anti-anxiety drug, or a healthy dose of calming music. Amazingly, those who listened to music reported feeling much more calm and prepared than those given midazolam!

 

Memory

source: flickr

Music is also attributed with being an amazing memory aid. A team of Finnish researchers studied how music might affect the verbal memory (memory of sounds and words) recovery time of stroke victims. Ultimately, it was found that those who listened to music on a daily basis recovered their verbal memory and attention span much quicker than those who didn’t listen to music at all. Furthermore, in addition to helping us regain memory, a 2014 study has revealed how music can also improve our ability to create memories. In this experiment, participants were required to memorize foreign language phrases by (i) singing the phrases, (ii) speaking the phrases, or (iii) listening to the phrases. In the end, those who incorporated singing into their studying were able to memorize the phrases much quicker than who spoke or listened. However, while musical memory-aids might be the reason you ace your next Spanish exam, they’re also responsible for all the low-budget commercial jingles you’ve had stuck in your head for the last 10 years…

Mood

source: flickr

It’s well established that speaking with/relating to others about issues is an effective way to deal with depression. Knowing this, it makes sense that music may act as a two-way street by allowing musicians to express themselves and allowing listeners to emotionally relate with someone. A famous poet, Robert Browning, speaks of this when he states, “He who hears music feels his solitude peopled all at once.” But if poets can’t convince you, let science! Erkkila et al. studied this phenomenon by treating depression patients with either music therapy (playing, singing, or listening to music) or standard care. In case you haven’t noticed the common theme of this blog post yet, the patients who incorporated music into their therapy amazingly displayed less depression symptoms at the end of the study!

 

 

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Olive Oil- a prevention to cardiovascular risk

Posted on January 22, 2018 by | 2 comments

Cardiovascular disease is thought to be solely a result of genetic and environmental factors; however individuals diet is the most significant role player in a healthy heart. Most health gurus and dieticians have raved about the benefits of olive oil. How exactly does this Mediterranean delight help our heart stay healthy?

Dr Bob explains the beneficial properties of olive oil.

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The First International Conference on the Healthy Effects of Virgin Olive Oil (VOO) presented a scientific summary of the health benefits of olive oil. Olive oil consists of bioactive components including the unsaponifiable and the soluble fraction, that contains phenolic compounds. According to the EUROLIVE study, the phenolic content in olive oil reduces serum triacylglycerols and increases high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol and the reduced-to-oxidized glutathione ratio in a dose-dependent manner depending on the concentration of phenolic compound. This significantly reduced cardiovascular risk.

In addition, scientists from Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute in Barcelona took measurements of how HDL is working. They found out that individuals that consumed a diet rich in olive oil had better functioning HDL. Hence, they were able to pluck LDL out effectively from the heart vessel walls and move them to the liver for removal. This made them more better able to work antioxidants, giving security against inflammatory related damages that can destroy blood vessels and make them more susceptible to heart attacks.

Dr Gundry conducts an experiment to show the benefits of olive oil to your heart

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The human heart is one of the most essential organ for successful living. The heart is accountable for many functions of your body including transportation of oxygen and a healthy immune system. Apart from your genetics and surrounding environment, your diet plays an significant role in the health of your heart. Olive oil is the miracle power food containing healthy fats that will keep your heart bright and glowing.

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