Jordan Gaines's Blogs

The following is a story about a college girl named Jordan.

Jordan blindly, exhaustedly, yet somehow successfully stumbled her way through college. In her final two years, she averaged 4 or 5 hours of sleep every night due to schoolwork, labwork, club responsibilities, and the dreaded 4:55 A.M. alarm for crew practice.

She only drank one coffee, ever—a pumpkin spice latte—simply because the rest of her team regularly raided Starbucks after races. It tasted alright. Oh, and she had some orange energy drink before a Developmental Bio exam once. Her pee was subsequently green.

A graduate student once told her, "If you get into grad school, you'll become addicted to coffee." Jordan scoffed at the silly, weak student, and vowed, "Ha! Never."

Then one day Jordan had a Bob Evans mocha, and her life was forever changed.

Well, maybe that was a bit dramatic. My life hasn't changed that much really, but the unique smell and somewhat bitter taste of coffee is no longer aversive to me. To the contrary, I've come to pleasantly enjoy its energizing effect in small doses. And, because I like to understand what I'm putting in my body, I decided to explore coffee: its history, its neurological mechanism, and—what I'm sur . . . More

Why yawning is contagious

Views: 919 | Comments: 1
Last by Chas on Dec 09, 2011, 9:36pm

Check out the woman on the left and try not to yawn. Go on, give her a good ten seconds of your time. In the spirit of A Christmas Story, I triple-dog dare you. Really—try your absolute hardest not think about yawning as you read this post! C'mon, you know you can do it—you've been dared before, and you always fail miserably. NO YAWNING!

Chances are you've already let out an extended, eye-moistening, feel-good yawn or two at this point. I've personally counted six of my own since starting this post.

We've all heard that "yawning is contagious"—but why? In this busy world, we don't sleep as much as we should. Gallup Polls in recent years have found that 56% of Americans report drowsiness as a daytime problem, and 34% of us are "dangerously sleepy." Does seeing someone yawn remind us that we, too, are exhausted are must follow suit?

That may be part of it, but the true reason may go much deeper. As it turns out, yawning may have ancient roots in social bonding.

. . . More

Lunacy by the full moon-acy: is it real?

Views: 697 | Comments: 2
Last by Jordan Gaines on Nov 18, 2011, 2:06pm

When I was in elementary school, my teacher told my class that the full moon makes people crazy. She said it was caused by the gravitational tug of the moon on the Earth—the same forces that cause high and low tides—the argument being that our bodies are more than 60% water. I was impressionable and fascinated by weird science—who isn't at that age?—and have long since stored that "fact"oid in my ever-developing hippocampus. The full moon last week (which, not to mention, was GINORMOUS—did anyone else notice?) reminded me of this theory and made me want to do a little research of my own. Does the full moon really do something to our brains?

Firstly, we must be on the same page as to what a "full moon" really means. The moon revolves around the Earth, and the Earth revolves around the sun. The phases of the moon simply represent the portions illuminated by the sun. All of this motion creates a very dynamic display for us earthlings. So when you see that little sliver in the sky, the rest of the moon is still there—the sun's rays just aren't reflected on the surface we're seeing.

That being said, why would an illuminated moon have some sort of effect (on tides, craziness, etc.), while a shadowed moon wouldn . . . More