Evidence That Little Touches Do Means So Much

In the article Evidence That Little Touches Do Mean So Much, Benedict Carey of the New York Times tells us of a new, rather peculiar study. Carey introduces the study with the description of another very similar study. For quite a while, physiologists have researched and examined body language, a unique vocabulary that we as humans may not notice. A smile, a wink, or a sour face we might make at an enemy all have special meanings that we might not be able to explain in words. However, we don’t have to; our body is capable of interpreting body language far faster than we process words. Another subconscious language that we seem to ignore is human touch. A high five, fist bump, or a pat on the back all have special meaning that we might not understand, but our body does. Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at Cal Berkeley, tells us that touch is the first language we learn as human beings. He also tells us that touch is “our richest means of emotional expression.” When a student receives a pat on the back from a teacher they are twice as likely to participate in the classroom. Emotion expressed through touch can not only give us confidence in the classroom, but also on the field. A research team from Berkeley, led by Michael W. Kraus, took the study onto the NBA court. Psychologists consider basketball to be a sport where the strongest bonds between players are formed through human touch. After observing each and every team of the National Basketball Association, the Cal team concluded that the two teams that interacted the most using fist pounds, chest bumps, and high fives were the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics. Coincidentally, these two teams were of the best in the NBA. The two teams who interacted the least through touch were the Charlotte Bobcats and the Sacramento Kings. And these franchises are of course, two of the worst teams in the NBA. Two of the “touchiest” players in basketball were Kevin Garnett and Chris Bosh. Bosh of the Toronto Raptors is considered one of the best forwards currently in basketball and Garnett not too long ago led his team to a championship win. “Within 600 milliseconds of shooting a free throw, Garnett has reached out and touched four guys,” Dr. Dacher Keltner said. The secret behind the high five and chest bump is simply the excitement it provides and the stress that it relieves.
Although this research carries well into sports, there is an incredible amount of science in athletics that we often take for granted. After scoring a goal or basket in a close game, players yell, fist pump, and most importantly, make contact with their teammates. Believe or not, that chest bump that you and a teammate connect with exchanges cortisol stress hormones with oxytocin, a hormone that helps create a feeling of trust. When the frontal lobe of the brain is relaxed, problem solving becomes a simpler process and you are able to perform better no matter the task.
The sole problem with the article is that as studied the topic is, the theory is not confirmed. The problem is certainly not with Benedict Carey but rather with the psychologists who have conducted these surveys, interviews, and examinations. There is room to say that this is simply coincidental, but the research seems very convincing. This article was incredibly interesting, especially in the eyes of an athlete. Due to the fact that all I am able to say about the article is that the theory it addresses might be wrong, it is very well presented and researched.

Transplants That Do Their Job, Then Fade Away

At the age of eight months old, young Jonathan Nunez needed a liver transplant because of his acute liver failure. Three years later, the body rejected the transplant by wasting it away until there was nothing left of it. This is exactly what Dr. Tomoaki Kato wanted. In 2006, Kato performed Jonathan’s transplant at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Instead of Jonathan dying like anyone would expect if a liver transplant wasted away, his old liver regenerated. This new and very unusual transplant surgery is only available for children that are eligible. This surgery also helps kids live normal lives without needing to take antirejection medications that can destroy the immune system and set risks for cancer. This new surgery is when part of the diseased liver is taken out and part of a donor liver is put into the body as well, unlike a traditional transplant, where the diseased organ is replaced completely by a new one. At first, the patient must take antirejection drugs, but then overtime they can stop taking it while their organ regenerates and gets rid of the transplant. This process can take more than a year, and in Jonathan’s case, 3 years. Now, working at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, Dr. Kato wants to promote this surgery to get more patients off of immunosuppressant. The surgery was first tried in Europe in the 1990s, and since then there has been mixed results. Kato believes that the key for the surgery is a child, since they have different systems. He has worked on children from ages 8 months to 8 years. Six out of seven of his patients had successful surgeries and his seventh is on its way to taking away the medications. At Kings College in London, England, 20 surgeries have been done between the ages of one and sixteen. These surgeries came out with seventeen survivors, fourteen of them rejuvenating the livers, and one needing a second transplant. Even though this surgery can work, it is very dangerous and is only available to patients more on the healthy side. Jonathan now lives a happy life in Miami, which makes others hopeful, According to Dr. Langnas, “When it works, it’s cool.”

This topic is related to science and it important because it helps save lives, without taking away opportunities from the patient. Even though the process is long and hard, it gives hope to children that they can be saved from acute liver failure. This also has to do with biology with the functions of the body and how it may not always work. The article also mentioned how 525 people under the age of 18 needed a liver transplant in the past year, which means that the world needs to help out one another and find new ways to cure the diseases.

What I thought about the article was that it was very informative, but there were also some issues I had with it. For one, the article was all over the place and was repetitive in some places. Also, it was hard to follow since bits of information were scattered around the article. What I would like to know more about is more statistics as a whole world, and not just for one doctor in certain countries.

"Child Obesity Risks Death at Early Age, Study Finds"- Caitlin G

Rabin, Roni C. "Child Obesity Risks Death at Early Age, Study Finds - NYTimes.com."

The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 10 Feb. 2010. Web. 22 Feb. 2010. .

“A rare study that tracked thousands of children through adulthood found the heaviest youngsters were more than twice as likely as the thinnest to die prematurely, before age 55, of illness or a self-inflicted injury.” This was published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine. It is one of the largest studies to have tracked children using detailed information on weight and risk factors were gathered such as high cholesterol. Helen C. Looker, senior author of the paper and assistant professor of medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City says, “This suggests that obesity in children, even prepubescent children, may have very serious long-term health effects through midlife — that there is something serious being set in motion by obesity at early ages. We all expect to get beyond 55 these days.”

This article is very important in today society because obesity is a growing problem in the world and especially in the United States. These issues are affecting children unnecessarily. They should not be ruining their lives even before their teenage years. Measures should be taken to cease children eating themselves to death. Hopefully this article will help in that movement.

This article was very informative and it got straight to the point and I liked that. The author used a nice vocabulary that was easy to understand, but at the same time was semi advanced. The paragraph spacing was relatively clear and had structure. The data was obtainable and mostly organized.

Minerals in Mars Point to More Recent Presence of Water

The article called “Minerals in Mars Point to More Recent Presence of Water” is about how scientists are now seeing global mineralogical signs that the planet was wet for the first two billion years of its existence.  An article in the November issue of the journal Geology,  says that scientists working with data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter report that they have spotted widespread deposits of opals and related minerals on the surface of Mars. Opals belong to a class of minerals known as hydrated silicas. The formation of hydrated silicas requires water. The opal deposits lie in areas that appear to have formed only about two billion years ago. And that spacecraft have detected other water-bearing minerals like clays in regions that date back more than 3.5 billion years. The article goes on to say that in July scientists reported that the orbiter had detected vast deposits of the claylike minerals on the older terrains. Images also showed ancient lakebeds with accumulations of the minerals, indicating standing water persisted for thousands of years.  And that the presence of water on Mars has been known for many years; its ice caps, which can be seen from space, are made of frozen water.
    This affects humans in many different ways. For example, if the scientists are able to discover why the water disappear maybe they will be able to bring it back. And once earth is destroyed maybe we could live on Mars. In addition, once we are able to find out where the water went we may be able to discover if anything living lived on Mars. And if they can figure out what happened to the water, then maybe we could use the water here on earth for our daily purposes.
    The article was interesting in many ways. First, I like how the article was  easy to read and understand. In addition, I like how they used scientist to back up their ideas and I like how they used pictures to get their point across. And I like how this topic is current to today. In conclusion I enjoyed reading this article and doing the current event on this article as well.

Chang, Kenneth. "Minerals on Mars Point to More Recent Presence of Water." New York Time 3 Nov. 2009.

Posted by S. Chrappa

“One Bowl= 2 servings. F.D.A May Fix That”

“One Bowl= 2 servings. F.D.A May Fix That” by William Neuman discusses the problems with nutrition and serving sizes in America. The Food and Drug Administration wants to encourage companies to put the nutritional information on the front of food packages. The serving sizes of many foods are too small and unrealistic which makes the calorie count misleading. The F.D.A wants to make sure that consumers make healthier choices and improve their diets.
The F.D.A also wants to set rules to stop manufacturers from highlighting only the good things about their food and ignoring the bad things. For example, some products say “No Trans Fat” in bold but they neglect to mention the fact that there is a lot of saturated fat in the product. Also, the Nutrition Facts on products are often very small print so people have trouble reading it. It kind of almost seems that the manufacturers are trying to hide something.
The serving sizes used today were created in the early 1990s. They were determined by surveys on what Americans were consuming taken in the 1970s and 1980s. These are out of date and nutritionists say the surveys are wrong because often people underestimate the amount that they eat. If these problems are fixed it could help fight obesity.
I thought this article was very interesting. It got the point across and it wasn’t very hard to understand. I feel like it was able to show how crucial this issue is and show that misleading calorie counts and serving sizes are huge problems. Many of the points made in the article were also supported with a lot of detail and statistics. I didn’t really think about this issue before reading this article and the author brought it to my attention. I like how it shows all the positives and negatives of putting the nutritional information on the front of the package. It is also very informative and I like the part in the article where it talks about the potato chips and how ridiculous it is that the serving size is one ounce. I believe that it would be a good idea to change the serving sizes and put the nutritional value information of the front so people know exactly what they’re eating contains and how much.
I learned a lot from this article. I learned to be careful when reading the nutrition facts and to make sure I am careful and look at the serving size etc. I also learned that many manufacturing companies try to trick their customers into believing that they are eating something healthier than it actually is. In general I learned that this is a very important issue because if it is fixed it could help with the huge problem of obesity. It could help because people wont be confused by the nutrition facts and there will be reasonable servings so people will more accurately know the amount of calories and fat they are consuming etc.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/business/06portion.html?pagewanted=2&ref=health
Neuman, William. "One Bowl = 2 Servings. F.D.A May Fix That." nytimes.com. N.p.,5 Feb. 2010. Web. 8 Feb. 2010.
posted by D. Bellitto

“Both Parent’s Ages Linked to Autism Risk”

Rabin, Roni. “Both Parent’s Ages Linked to Autism Risk” NYTimes.com 8 February2010.8 February2010.

The journal Autism Research published a study that has connected the increasing ages of parents to growing rates of autism. Since the 1990s, researchers have observed and analyzed data from 5 million births. 12,159 cases of autism have been noted out of the millions. These cases seem to link the occurrence of autism to the increasing age of the parents themselves. The study reveals that the risk of autism increases 59% when fathers over forty are coupled with mothers under thirty as opposed to pairings with younger fathers. The risk of women aged thirty and older coupled with fathers forty and older only rose 13%. It is also noted that every 5 years added to a mother’s age increases the chances of autism by 18%. Despite these startling trends, many experts are cautious about accepting this information as a reason for the explosion in the rates of autism. “The rise in autism is occurring among children of parents of all ages,” stated epidemiology graduate student Janie Shelton. “We can’t say that the shifting trend of maternal age is responsible for the increased rates of autism.” The new studies also contradict earlier findings related to the subject of parental aging and autism. Previous research demonstrated that increasing paternal age was linked to autism, however maternal age was not a large factor. In the recent studies, scientists have discovered that the difference between the mother’s age and the father’s age actually cause an increase in the risk of potential autism in the child. There is much data to comprehend through these new studies, however, the information that is collected is essential to the understanding of autism. This new research sheds some light on the increasing occurrence of autism, as well as its possible causes. 

For years, the debate of the causes of autism raged, with some blaming vaccines for its occurrence in younger children. This suspicion has recently dwindled, and this study adds even more proof that other factors are to blame. This is extremely important. Autism is a growing phenomenon in many areas, with numbers and statistics sharply increasing over the years. A better understanding of autism may aid scientists in their efforts to prevent, combat, and treat it. From what this research demonstrates, the paternal age seems to be an increasingly important factor in the occurrence of autism. The findings of this study will further science’s understanding of autism which may lead to treatment and prevention in the future.

This article by Roni Rabin of The New York Times proved to be highly informative. The structure was relatively clear and concise, and the data was presented in a mostly organized fashion. Overall, the information was helpful and relevant. At points, the article referenced to other studies and experiments, which made parts of it slightly unclear and confusing. I would suggest adding some data regarding the rising rates of autism throughout the country, and not just in California. This article’s scholarly format and straightforward presentation enhances the reader’s understanding of the issue at hand.