Habits

Habits are behaviors wired so deep in our brains that we do them without hesitation.  Recently MIT neuroscientists has discovered a small region of the brain's prefrontal cortex is responsible for the moment-by-moment control. The prefrontal cortex is where most of your thoughts and planning occur. Professor Ann Graybiel, a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT said " that the value of a habit is one you don't have to think about it." If you dont have to think about doing that habit, it leaves space in your mind so you can think about other important things. Habits often become so serious that we keep doing them even though we do not gain anything. 
The MIT team preformed an experiment with rats. They let the rats run a T-Maze. When the rats got closer to the turning point the heard a noise telling them to go either right or left. When the chose correctly they was rewarded. After a while the stopped rewarding the rats and found out that the rats still ran the right way. This proves that their behavior was habitual. Using optogenetics, a technique that allows researchers to inhibit specific cells with light, the MIT scientists turned off IL cortex activity for a few seconds. As the rats neared the point in the maze where they had to go left or right, the rats forgot all about the previous turns and went a different way. This says that turning off the IL cortex switches the rats' brains from an automatic  mode to a mode that is more engaged in the goal.
This topic was interesting to me because everyone, including myself, have at least one habit that needs to be broken.


-Travis Farmer-

Which trout fish is smarter?

Taylor Noblett

Bio 101

Gazdik

Which trout has a better memory?

A fish’s personality can tell a lot. From how it learns and responds to threats or predators. There are two kinds of trout that Brown looked at. One was a shy trout and the other was a bold trout. The shy trout are a little more cautious, have a good memory, and can remember a predator’s sense better than the bold trout. The shy trout has a better chance of mating and defending where it lives because it keeps the sense of its predators. So when a predator comes around it knows it and can escape while the bold trout are forgetful and have a lesser chance to mate and survive because it does not remember the predators smell. A trout needs to be able to retain a predators smell wherever it goes because a predator can show up anywhere at any time.

Brown and his team set up a tank with removable Plexiglas and tested which fish would escape the test tank faster. He found that the bold trout would move quickly and use risky behavior. While the shy fish was more cautious and took its time to avoid being risky. Brown and his team also had the trout remember the smell of pumpkin seed. They tested to see which trout would remember the smell after 24 hours and after eight days. By the end of their research they found that the personality of the trout helped them remember the smell. Both the bold and shy trout remembered the smell after 24 hours, but when it came to the eight days the shy trout came out on top.  

            I feel that personalities can tell a lot especially about trout. Some animals are smart while some are not. This test of the two trout shows that even though they are the same fish they do not retain information the same. This test was a good way to determine which trout would remember and which one would not, but I feel as though they should have done more than just this test to test their memory. I chose this article because I love animals, and I have been trout fishing a few times. It was interesting to learn about one of the animals I hunt and see how their minds work. The article is relevant to society because some people, especially animal science people are interested in animals and fish, and some people, like me, like to learn about animals they hunt. This article also helps show society that not all trout have bad memories like the bold trout. 

Hunger: A good thing?

The article I chose was about how a new experiment showed that being hungry is a was to stay awake without feeling groggy or mentally challenged. In the article a group of scientists at Washington University in St. Louis found that being hungry was more important than the need for sleep. The body determines that it would rather be nourished than sleep. They discovered that if we modify our lipids with drugs we can solve or reduce sleep problems without the side effects. There are a lot of problems that result from sleep deprivation and lack of food. As stated in the article, sleep deprivation can result in obesity (which was very interesting to me), and can help with the development of diabetes and coronary disease.
I chose this article because it was very interesting to me. I know I can get extremely groggy when I don't get my rest. I would be very interested to see if this could really work. I really don't think it will however, sleep is just as important as being nourished. No sleep makes you sick and no food makes you sick.

Chocolate that could save your life?

Resent research shows that chocolate is actually good for preventing heart disease and cancer. The substance flavonoinds, is found in the cocoa of the chocolate. Flavonoinds held prevent heart disease and cancer due to their high levels of antioxidants. This however doesn't mean that you can over load on chocolate, just that in moderation it is good for you. Also, this is not to be substituted for fruits and vegetables which also give you flavonoids and other essential things that your body needs to stay healthy. Another thing i found out was white chocolate doesn't have any flavonoids in it at all, yet dark chocolate has a lot more in it than milk chocolate. This mainly due to the content of the cocoa which is higher in dark chocolate. I chose this because i felt like it was an interesting topic since chocolate is usually labeled as bad for you, which is only true to a certain consent. Over use of chocolate however can cause you to gain excessive weight and cause cavities.
-Brandon Noonkester

Don't Mess with the Salamander

Getting in between a female salamander and her eggs is almost just as bad as getting between a bear and her cubs. In the article "Its Not the Size of the Salamander, Its the Size of the Fight in the Salamander" scientist have studied the behavior of the Eastern Red-Backed Salamander, a very small amphibian that lives in North America in damp and wet areas, to be very protective of its babies. Researchers say that its protective behavior increases the closer it gets for the eggs to hatch. At this stage the Red-Backed Salamander is more protective of its eggs rather than its territories or even its own food. At first the natural reaction for the Salamander after just having her babies are to curl up beside her eggs, but as the days go on the first reaction becomes more aggressive. The Salamander will snap, chase, or even bite its intruder repeatedly until there were no more signs of it being a threat. The number of eggs in her nest didn't make a difference towards the aggression level, so if the salamander had one eggs or even four eggs she still would protect them just the same. This protecting the mother gives to her eggs actually helps the population of this animal.


Biology 101
Trey Pitt
12/3/10

Moderate Alcohol Consumption Lowers Risk of Metablolic Diseases

Moderate Alcohol Consumption Lowers the Risk of Metabolic Diseases, Study Suggests
I did my research on this alcohol consumption study and how drinking alcohol may or may not affect the body in a bad way. Because of the increase in obesity worldwide and type 2 diabetes this study was done to see if alcohol consumption helped prevent obesity and type 2 diabetes. The study had over 6000 subjects aged from 35-75. They were tested on different levels from non-drinkers, low alcohol consumption, moderate alcohol consumption and high alcohol consumption. The people in the low alcohol consumption area drank (1-13 drinks a week), medium-to-high-risk (14-34) and very-high-risk (= 35) drinkers. 73% of participants consumed alcohol, 16% were medium-to-high-risk drinkers and 2% very-high risk drinkers. The results showed that low and moderate alcohol consumers were at lower risks for these types of diseases. The results also showed that people in the low to moderate range also had lower blood pressure, lower weight, and lower cholesterol. So in all reality this study shows that drinking is not a bad thing unless done in high consumption.

Benjamin Hartman

A burly lineman can sweat through upward of nine pounds of fluid

The article I chose was titled, “How Much Water Weight Can a Player Lose during a Game?” by The Editors from Scientific America, November 11, 2010. The article is on how football players to reach the pro level must be extremely cautious about their health. Meaning they have to eat and drink right. The article then asks “just how much water can players sweat through?” During exercise the body loses moisture through perspiration and respiration this speeds up as the body tries to cool off by sweating. This then evaporates from the skin and taking heat with it and by breathing harder to get oxygen to the muscles.

Trainers subtract a player’s post game weight from his pregame weight to estimate the amount of moisture a player has lost. They try not to let player’s lose more than 3 percent of their overall body weight during a practice session. If a player has lost more than 3 percent of their body weight they would have to rehydrate after that game or practice session. Their intake would be more than the daily water intake recommendations for physically active adults. Fruits and vegetables also provide a source of fluids and make up about a fifth of people’s daily water consumption.

I chose this article because I have went through this playing college football. In high school we never had to weigh or anything of that nature. Once I came to college we had to weigh before practice and after practice. It was a very serious matter also, because if one of my teammates were to not weigh the entire team would have to be punished. Coaches and also trainers told us constantly to get fluids and keep them. By doing this we didn’t have any problems with dehydration.

LeRon Cameron-Fuller