More sleep leads to superior learning
After reading the article “As We Sleep, Speedy Brain Waves Boost Our Ability to Learn”. I was amazed on how much I learned and how intriguing the article was. Every night we should be receiving a full night of sleep of up to eight hours so when we arrive at school our brains are refreshed and ready to learn. UC Berkeley researchers have found interesting evidence about “sleep spindles” which is access of brain activity that may be connected to main parts of the brain to clear a path for the brain to learn. Having a good night’s rest helps the hippocampus, the main place for storage, to become clean and have more room for memory. Even though the hippocampus is being cleared it doesn’t mean you are losing the information, it goes straight to the prefrontal cortex’s or the brain’s “hard drive”. This is why we should be getting more than six hours of sleep every night so our learning experience can be easier. This usually all happens during the Rapid Eye Movement sleep, which happens right before we reach the dream state. To prove that this was the case Walker and his team took forty-four adults to participate in the experiment. Half of them took ninety minute naps and the other half stayed awake. When they began teaching again the people who took naps had an increase in learning ability and the ones who didn’t did worse than the others. “Our findings demonstrate that sleep may selectively seek out and operate on our memory systems to restore their critical functions,” Walker said. Finding out that sleep spindles are produced more when we sleep, makes me want to get more sleep so it will be easier for me to learn and comprehend what we are learning. “These findings further highlight the importance of sleep in our educational populations, where the need for learning is great, yet late bedtimes and early school start times prevent adequate sleep amounts,” Mander said. This makes me realize how important sleep can be and that schools should really think about starting school at a later time because most teens don’t go into bed until midnight. Sleeping helps us recharge and absorb everything we learned during the day. This article was very interesting, caught my attention right away, and now I will think twice before I want to stay up all night doing homework because it will only deprive me of my school work.
Double Doses
Chicken pox is one of the most contagious diseases around the world. Even though we have a vaccine for this disease it can still spread very easily. But in 2006 the CDC changed the doses from one dose to two doses because the odds of developing chicken pox were 95% lower in children that received two doses of the vaccination rather than one. The effectiveness of two doses is 98.3%. Eugene D. Shapiro, M.D professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Yale and his colleagues found that the two doses of Varicella vaccine are more effective to prevent Varicella then one. Other countries may begin to distribute two doses rather than one. “Other countries that are routinely immunizing children with varicella vaccine may consider changing to a two-dose regimen.” If other countries start using that idea then this will prevent more outbreaks of chicken pox. “We weren’t surprised to find that two doses of varicella vaccine are highly effective and are more likely to prevent varicella than a single dose,” said Shapiro. He had a brilliant idea on doubling the doses because it is more effective then only taking one. I believe that this is a great idea and will help children to be less affected by this disease. If it helps in the children’s and adults have a less risk at getting chicken pox I’m all for it. This article was very interesting because it’s good to know that vaccines are developing and making it better for the people around world.
Glacier Found to be Deeply Cracked
Global warming is one of the most talked about problems in America. This tragic catastrophe has many effects that are destroying the earth. One of them is causing glaciers to melt and collapse at a rapid pace. Greenhouses are the main reason why we have this problem today. The gases that we produce are making the thin atmosphere layer become thicker causing more heat to stay within the earth. With the temperatures increasing it’s causing many glaciers to melt and collapse, just like the ones in Montana. Also known as Montana’s Glacier National Park. This fascinating park started out with over 150 glaciers, but is dwindling down to nothing. With this rapid change in temperatures there will be no more glaciers by 2030. “The glaciers have been around for the last seven thousand years,” says Daniel Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist who works at this park, “and if we are going to lose them in the next 10 or 20 years that is a pretty radical shift.” Seeing how much the scientists are worried really concerns me on what’s going to happen in the next ten years. This also is a horrifying thought thinking about the animals who live there. What are they going to do when temperatures rise? They are not able to stop global warming because they are not the one’s causing it. “There is a lot less water coming off the mountain. There are dramatic changes in vegetation. It begs the question: how is that going to impact wildlife in this park?” says Chas Cartwright, Glacier National Park Superintendent. With the vegetation rate decreasing what are the animals supposed to feed on? The animals and plants rely on the cold weather here to survive. Global warming has so many effects on the world, but none of us see how severe this problem is. We need to start thinking about what’s best for the earth or something serious is going happen. Reading this article really got me thinking on how much global warming is effecting our world. It’s destroying everything in its path and there is no stopping it. Everyone needs to start pitching in to stop this disease before it goes straight to the heart and destroys us all.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/10/06/montana.glaciers.climate/index.html?hpt=T2
Beyond the Walls in Biology 