Coping With End of Year Stress

School ends next week and we have 4 days of cumulative tests, and a field day at the end. The stress level and workload varies from student to student as the difficulty and lengthiness of a cumulative varies from teacher to teacher. Some teachers are assigning lengthy or short projects while others are assigning tests that cover half or most of the class’s curriculum. Some teachers are kind enough to give their students a break and have the class watch a movie that “relates” to the class material. Besides the fact that Loudoun County doesn’t have official Finals and Dominion is the only school in LCPS that has a substitute cumulative exam, I find it very excessive to make students who miss a class’s exam to return during the summer to make it up. For the students with the laborious exams and projects, it can be very stressful to have another week of testing after SOLs and AP Tests. It’s very medically important for your mental health to handle this stress. Here are some ways to deal with the stress:

  1. Think Positive and About the Summer: Right after this last week of school, school is out and summer has started. Think about your summer plans. These may be going on vacation or hanging out with friends. Think about all the money you’ll make at your summer job. By thinking about what’s at the end can motivate you to keep going.
  2. Put in That Last Bit of Effort: Tell yourself the end is in sight, and you are on the last leg of the race. Just give these last 4 days your all and do your best to either improve or maintain your grades. YOU CAN DO IT!!
  3. Take A Break: During this weekend, put some time aside from your studying and project working to do something you like and have some fun. It’s important to do this for stress relief. It would make more sense to have the field day before the exams, but you can make up for that over the weekend.

Good luck to everyone with their exams !

About Super Foods

Super foods are foods that are loaded with nutrition. Super foods are usually plant based or fish. These foods have a lot of antioxidants which are good to fight off cancer, healthy fats, and fiber.  There is some controversy and criticism against superfoods. Some scientists say that superfood is a marketing term to persuade consumers that want to eat healthy to buy the product. Some superfoods are processed so much that they lose their nutritional value. Like all other foods, it is best to eat superfoods in moderation and to keep a balanced. Here are some examples:

1. Blueberries

2. Kale

3. Sweet Potatoes

4. Salmon

5. Beans

About Flu Pandemics

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Flu pandemics occur when a drastically different strain of the flu virus emerges and passes through humans. These strains are very foreign to the immune system making it hard to naturally fight it off. New strains form in farm animals such as chickens, pigs, and cows. The last flu pandemic, swine flu, happened in 2009 and was caused by pigs. Swine flu killed over 200,000 people. Flu pandemics occur every 10-40 years. New strains constantly form, but only a few are able to pass and spread among humans because animal and human viruses are very different. Researchers are working to find new ways to stop these viruses from spreading.

Source: https://www.livescience.com/64992-how-flu-becomes-pandemic.html

Oregon Kid Diagnosed with Tetanus

Tetanus is a bacterial illness that causes severe symptoms. This past week, a boy in Oregon cut his forehead while playing outside. He was patched up, but after a few weeks he began to feel very sick and had a lot of muscle spasms. He was taken to the ER where the doctor diagnosed him with tetanus. This was the first reported case of this disease in Oregon in 30 years.  This disease is preventable with a vaccination. However, this child was never vaccinated.

Moral of the story, have your kids vaccinated. Anti-vax isn’t cool.

UVA Scientists Find the Cause of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

During an investigation into schizophrenia, Michael McConnell, a neuroscientist at UVA, found variance in the genes of neurons and how it affects their life. CNV neurons, neurons with a significant difference in gene make up, are the most vulnerable to dying. People who have CNV neurons may develop neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

McConnell has only looked at neurons in the frontal cortex, and neurons can only be examined after death. More work needs to be done, but this is a good lead to find the cause of these deadly diseases.

This Protein Contributes to Aging

Researchers in Switzerland found a protein that alters the function of the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. When the mitochondria no longer works or is depleted, the cell can no longer respirate and burn the nutrients coming into the cell. This slows the metabolism of the body. This protein is called pumilio RNA (PUM2). Aging causes the production of PUM2 to increase. High levels of PUM2 induce lower levels of another protein called mitochondrial fission factor (MFF). In turn, aging contributes to more unhealthy mitochondria in the body.

PUM2 can production can be reduced using gene-altering techniques. Besides reducing the signs of aging and increasing lifespan, lowering PUM2 will prevent the development of neuromuscular degenerative diseases.

 

Source: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324163.php

Risky Decision-Making is Linked to Social Media Use

Research has shown teenagers are susceptible to addiction and poor decision-making because their frontal lobe has not fully matured yet. However, research into behaviors of people who use social media excessively could add a new factor to this poor decision-making. Researchers at Michigan State University had 71 participants measure their dependence to Facebook using a survey.

They then went on to do the Iowa Gambling Task. The Iowa Gambling Task is a commonly used test that psychologists use to analyze behaviors of subjects. In this task, the participant picks from different piles of cards with different values to earn the most money possible (fake money). Each card was either negative bringing their current amount of money down or positive bringing their amount of money up.

The researchers found that the users that were less dependent on Facebook did better on the task than those who used it more. The Facebook users usually chose the bad piles in the time given.

 

Source: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20190110/Research-shows-connection-between-social-media-use-and-impaired-risky-decision-making.aspx

Advancements in Space Planting for Astronauts

Astronauts who work on the International Space Station (ISS) often have to stay in space for 6 months. Astronauts going to Mars have to be in space for up to a year. While in space, astronauts begin to miss their lives on Earth. Lack of fresh food diminishes their appetite and they begin to lose weight. Growing food in space is a psychological need for the astronauts. The challenge of growing plants in space is that there is a lack of nutrients in the air such as nitrogen, a must have for plants. Their is also no gravity which confuses the flow of water and nutrients.

Despite the obstacles, astronauts have managed grow lettuce using lava rock as soil. As a supplement for the missing nutrients, the astronauts grew the plants in a water infused with the nutrients. They are currently working on growing beans. Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) are working on making high tech planters that control the water, air and nutrients of the plants grown. These sophisticated planters will be essential to the astronaut’s life.

Source: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20190105/High-tech-planters-for-growing-food-in-space.aspx

The Black Death Dates Back to Neolithic Times

A plague doctor from 14th century Europe

Archaeologists have found the body of a 20 year old woman who lived in the neolithic times (5,500 years ago) in a large Swedish grave. They found a strain of the plague bacteria Yersinia pestis along her teeth. This was the oldest recorded track of plague bacteria. This strand of bacteria caused pneumonic plague which is much more severe than the bubonic plague that hit Europe in the 14th century.

Other records show that contemporary strains of the plague were found in areas of Ukraine and Romania. During the neolithic era, these areas were densely populated, unsanitary, and in close contact with animals. As a result, the breeding of pathogens contributed to the sudden decline of those populations. The plague rapidly spread in the area of Eurasia 5,700 years back via trade. This lead to a rapid decline in the area called the neolithic decline.

As the population of Europe declined, new groups of people migrated into the region and completely changed the genetic makeup of what Europeans are today.

 

 

 

 

source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)31464-8

A Treatment to MS May Have Been Found

Diagram comparing healthy myelin sheaths to MS affected myelin sheaths.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a degenerating disease where the immune system strips away the fat tissue that coats the neurons of the brain. The neurons are the brain cells and nervous cells in our bodies that are in charge of passing messages across our bodies (i.e. sensory, coordination, moving, etc.). This fat is made of myelin. As the myelin insulation is stripped, the axons, the parts of the neuron that passes electrical signals to other neurons, is not able to conduct as well. This causes the messages to pass slower, and the patient begins to develop symptoms. These symptoms include visions loss, impaired coordination, paralysis, and a lot more. This demyelination (degeneration) can occur in all parts of the body. The loss of sensation and muscle spasms depends on the area the disease occurs.

Diagram of an oligodendrocyte remyelinating the axons of a neuron.

Oligodendrocytes are the cells that replenish myelin on the axons (remyelination). This is our bodies’ natural defense against demyelination. Many experiments and labs were done on cats and monkeys to observe the activity of these oligo cells. Studies found that the oligo cells move up and down the spinal cord in a cat to resupply neurons with myelin. In a cat with MS, the oligo cells moved too slow to keep up with the loss of myelin surrounding the axons.

Scientists now believe that MS can be stopped and even reversed using therapeutics and drugs that help the body produce more oligo progenitors, the cells that produce oligodendrocytes.

 

 

Source: https://news.wisc.edu/discovery-opens-new-opportunities-to-slow-or-reverse-ms/