Is loud music really bad for us?
We’ve all done it, blasted our music so loud that we drown out every other sound around us. In big places where there’s a lot of noise, we tend to turn up the volume extremely high, which isn’t a good thing. “Growing numbers of people enjoy listening to music on portable music players or cell phones, and many tend to turn up the volume, especially in noisy surroundings.” Dr. Hidehiko Okamoto and Ryusuke Kakigi have been studying this, which was published March 2nd. They discovered that listening to music when it’s loud can effect the person’s hearing, no matter how good it may be. They said that during a hearing test, they don’t hear as many of the noises.
The doctors tested this finding with thirteen young adults. They had one half of the kids listen to music at a normal volume, the other half listened full blast. The two groups had the same results, because there’s difficulty in a regular hearing test.
”It’s can be said that listening to music at high volumes burdens the nerves of the brain…” Listening to music loudly can definitely effect the nerves in the brain. This is the reason that it’s not really good for us. It’s effecting us in a bad way, not knowing exactly what could happen to the brain. The only way to really solve this problem is to simply lower the volume in our headphones.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110309102150.htm
Writing about anxiety may boost test scores
In the article, “Writing about anxiety may boost test scores“, it’s basically saying that if you write down what you’re worried about the day before a test, it could help your grade. Students spend a lot of time worrying and thinking they won’t do good, and that’s the only thing stuck in their head rather than the actual information needed for a test.
There were two studies taken to prove this theory correct. College students and 9th grade students were being watched to see if the kids who wrote down stuff before the test helped their grade or not. The result was a 12% decrease for those who didn’t write their stress down. There was a 5% increase to the students who did write their stress down.
Sian Beilock, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago said, “It’s as if your brain is a computer running too many programs at once.” What she’s saying is exactly true. As a student, I know I can say that there is a lot going on in my brain. Too many programs at once can be relatable to all students because we have so many classes. There’s more than 4 different subjects going into our brains and sometimes we’re just too stressed to focus on one thing during a test.
Beilock also said “And it has all sorts of applications outside the classroom – preparing for job interviews, speeches and big sports games, to name a few.” This shows that not only before a test, pretty much writing down what you’re stressed about can help. It’s kind of like a diary, if you think about it. When you let out what you’re feeling, it’s better.
Further tests going on with this theory are going to be trying it out on younger students, and seeing exactly how writing can affect the brain.
http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/13/writing-about-anxiety-may-boost-test-scores/
Cracking the Mystery of How Sloths Got Long Necks
In the article, “Cracking the Mystery of How Sloths Got Long Necks” is pretty much self explanatory. Many animals in the animal kingdom are said to have 7 kinds of openings in their spinal cord, except for the sloth, which has 10. Scientists were confused as to why the sloth’s necks were always long, and scientists at the University of Cambridge thinks they finally found an answer. The article states, ”After analyzing the development of the vertebral column in sloths they made a startling discovery: the part of the skeleton which they had long believed to be part of the sloth rib cage is, in fact, analogous to the bottom of the mammal’s neck.” Basically, what this quote is saying is that scientists thought for the longest time that the part of the skeleton was the rib cage, when all along, it was just a part of the neck, which is why sloth’s necks are really long.
Another quote from the article states, “By observing the position of bone formation within the vertebral column, they determined that all mammals, including sloths, are similar in when they develop the eighth vertebra down from the head – whether or not it is actually part of the neck.” The quote explains that some mammals are very alike when they develop the opening in their spinal cords.
I picked this article because I found it interesting. I never really cared about how long a sloth’s neck is, but the reasoning for it seemed easy, and at first I didn’t understand how scientists just figured it out recently.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/science/19sloth.html?ref=science
Beyond the Walls in Biology 