Scared Stiff

I am going to start off by being completely honest, I LOVE TO SLEEP! Unfortunately, being a college student I don't  get to enjoy it as much as i would like to, but trust me if i could sleep all day i would.  Although most people may see this as being lazy and unproductive, I tend to see it as a biological necessity. Sleeping is the time where our body regenerates and helps save energy. It helps us conserve energy for inefficient times. When you have 3 exams one after another, trust me sleep is extremely necessary!

Nevertheless, i have heard of some stories where there are people who are scared of falling asleep. I have a friend who about a year ago called me telling me a horrible experience she had and i didn't believe her. It wasn't until i met several people who experienced the same thing did i begin to question it and started researching more about it.

My friend called me and began telling me how she woke up at the middle of the night and was scared to fall back to sleep. Apparently, she woke up and saw a black shadow in her room. It moved across the room and my friend had the desire to scream but said she couldn't. She said that she wasn't able to move at all and the only thing that did were her eyes. Scared stiff, (literally!) she frantically tried again to move her body. She said that when she realized that no matter what she did she couldn't move, she closed and squeezed her eyes shut. She said that when she reopened them the image was gone and she could move. People say that it was the "devil sitting on them."

When i began researching this, the closet thing that could explain it was Sleep Paralysis.
Sleep paralysis is when you feel conscious but you are unable to move. It can occur one of two times. Either when your falling asleep or wen you are waking up. The chances of sleep paralysis reoccurring more than once is very uncommon.

Above is a video of a doctor who explains what sleep paralysis exactly is. Then it follows by having people talk about their sleep paralysis experience. Its a scary thing! Especially when i've heard of people seeing this same black shadow. Which was probably why it took a while for me to believe it since ghost obviously dont exist. Sleep paralysis happens to alot of people and if you know of someone who has gone through a similar experience let them know that their arent alone. I just hope to god that i dont experience this. I like to sleep! Nevertheless, it good to learn about it and educate others. Continuous Sleep paralysis can even cause Narcolepsy another sleeping disorder. I have mentioned in my previous blogs how important our brain is. The more i learn about it is proves me right. We all sleep and it good to learn about situations where it might go wrong.

Intersex: should parents decide on specific gender?

This past week, I was struggling to answer one toughest questions i've ever been asked.

If i had a child that was born as intersex and was responsible in choosing to have genital surgery , which gender would I prefer?

Automatically the first thing I thought was, "well duh, a girl!" ( I've always wanted a little mini me)
But for some reason i hesitated and answered that i didn't know.
Going to college and studying about the human anatomy and its biological functions it has taught me that our body is extremely complex and that there are plenty of ways where things can go wrong. A lot of times this tends to move away from whats considered to be "normal" and we try to fix this problem and make it as normal as possible, like intersex for example. How do you chose what gender is suited best for a baby?
Although i cannot hesitate and admit that i've ALWAYS wanted a girl. And knowing how i am, i don't know if i will ever be satisfied without having one. But, I also know that i believe that its a 50/50 chance and the only person who can decide is God. I don't feel adequately capable of deciding that. I can wish and pray to have a girl soo bad, but when the baby is born the gender of the baby is what it is. Answering the question the now, i would say that i wouldn't decide anything. Im aware If you are born as an intersex there are alot of imbalance hormones and possibly extra genital parts that come into play. I also know that if i hypothetically decided to choose a specific gender this can possibly affect my child psychologically in many different way. What if he/she didn't feel like they were that specific sex that you choose, but felt they could relate more of the opposite sex, what do you do then? I'd feel extremely guilty. The best thing to do is just wait till my child is older and then they can decide for themselves. I mean its there body and they're going to be the one living with what gender they are. In my opinion, they should be the one to choose for themselves. The only exception to this is if their genitals parts were interfering with they're everyday necessity and it was crucial to decide.

Below is a video about a girl who was born as an intersex. She never had surgery and felt that it was the best thing to be able to decide for herself as she got older.

For the longest time, doctors felt it was necessary for parents to decide on a surgery. They felt this was beneficial for the child to have surgery as babies because it psychologically better to do it when compared to later on in their lives. Recently, a controversy has risen as more and more people believe it is unethical to do so and for those who have undergone the surgery now feel like it has actually affected them more psychologically by doing so.

Are Pheromones real?

When I hear the word pheromone the first picture that comes to mind are small honey bees that are attracted and ready to mate with the queen bee's chemical scent. I remember this from my organic chemistry class because my professor made us learn the structure and reaction for that chemical :/ .
Pheromones are chemicals that are secreted for a social response of the same species. There are about 10 different types of pheromones known to date:
1) Aggregation
2) Alarm
3) Epideictic
4) Releaser
5) Signal
6) Primer
7) Territorial
8) Trail
9) Information
10) sex

All of which are usually evident in animals, especially insects!
Human pheromones, on the other hand, aren't so obvious. There was an article that I came across called Pheromones in humans: Myth or Reality? and it talked about the six different areas of our body that glands are heavily concentrated in and how it correlates with the response of pheromones. Most people believe that human pheromones is closely related to body odor and to be honest I somewhat believe that it can be true. I remember watching a documentary on discovery channel's 'Science of Sex Appeal' awhile back and what i thought was interesting was how a person's voice or even a man's sweat can cause some sort sexual attraction. I don't know about people, but when I saw those ladies go from jar to jar to smell the sweaty t-shirts, I couldn't understand how they didn't get grossed out. EWWW!
Although the main research on human pheromones are their auxiliary steroids, vaginal aliphatic, acids and stimulators of vomernasal organ.
What i also thought was interesting how our menstrual cycle becomes in synced when you put several females under one household. When i first heard about it a couple years ago i didn't believe it. But I have noticed that over the years my mother and I have been in synced multiple times. Even this past summer, when I was doing research in San Antonio, Tx my roommate and I began to become synced as well. I've seen her almost everyday since then at school and our synched cycle remains. I thought that was a bit interesting. Although, still today there are some debate about whether or not this phenomenon is valid. I couldn't find a good video that talked about it, but i found an article, Menstrual synchrony, that talks about the evidence that has been found for it and some who are against this idea. I thought it was interesting read and hope that in a couple decades we can determine whether or not pheromones do control this!

An Alzheimer's road to citizenship

Memory is a valuable asset. This is how we begin to process our ideas, store them and recall them later on for usage. There are different types of memories, but what i want to focus on is what happens when our memories disappear.

My grandmother suffers from early onset Alzheimer Disease. She was diagnosed about a year ago and has been learning to deal with it ever since. With time the disease has progressed and is slowly having more trouble remembering many things. About a week or so ago she had an appointment to receive her US citizenship. ( For those of you that don't know, during this appointment you are required to fill several paperwork and are interviewed and based on your responses they decided whether or not you can receive your citizenship.) My grandmother has been traveling in and out of the country for almost 50 years. But she felt that the country where she bared her three children was the one country she fell in love with and was where she wanted to be for the rest of her life. Thank god she was granted this great opportunity! Well a week ago both  my aunt and my grandfather accompanied her to the meeting and according to them there were several responses that she answered wrong to. For example, they would ask her where she lived and she told them that she lived in a different city from where she lives now. Then they asked where the statue of liberty was located and she responded Washington D.C. Since the government is obviously involved, they make sure to do an extensive background check on every person applying for citizenship. Well apparently there was an incident that occurred 40 some years ago and they asked my grandmother about the incident. My grandmother argued that it never occurred and kept insisting on it. My grandfather had to let them know that because of her illness they are somethings that she doesn't remember, but confirmed that the information they had about it was correct. 

Even though there were some questions that she didnt know the answers to, they let her recieve her citizenship.

Alzheimer Disease is a form of dementia that can affect memory, behavior, and thinking.  It is an incurable disease but can be sustained by taking drugs. Recently, Chicago Tribune had an article that talked about a recent experimental drug that have decreased memory decline in two patients. 

The video above goes into more detail about how Alzhiemer Disease come about and what occurs in the brain. This is useful in understanding what exactly it is and now i can finally relate it to my grandmother. I also heard that this disease was hereditary, and im hoping to learn about it now as much as i can because if i begin to suffer from it in the future i'll make sure to find a way to prepare myself for a lifestyle that is beneficial to me!

The Overexcited Brain

We all know the our brain works wonders in just about EVERY situation. Whether its storing information so we can recall it later and try to ace our exams, or helping us cope physically, mentally and emotionally in any circumstance . It just works magnificently! I know we're all pretty busy trying to deal with what goes on in our daily lives that we tend to forget the importance of the brain.
I remember growing up and  my friends and I used to play the "which would you rather prefer" game. Would you prefer going blind or going deaf?... Would you prefer to having no arms or no legs?... Would you prefer being fat and pretty or being ugly and skinny?..
(Ofcourse as a kid, as you can tell we seemed to always have too much time on our hands :/) But at that point in our lives what we understood was that if someone had lost one their five senses or one of their appendages, for example, it was like their life was over. I mean how could you cope with not being "normal"? At least thats what we thought!
This past summer I went to my father's clinic to drop off an item that he had left home. When i arrived i noticed an elderly couple that were getting out of their car. I didnt really think much of it and gathered my things from my car and headed towards entrance of the clinic. As I was walking over there, i noticed the lady of the couple i had seen earlier, was having trouble getting out of the car. I didn't think the husband would have been much help since he could barely get out himself so i decided to help her. Once she managed to get out, the three of us headed towards the entrance. Not even 30 seconds had gone by and i noticed that the elderly lady randomly started shaking. I just remember me standing there both confused and shock not knowing what to do. I thought to myself, should I grab her? and the next thing you know she was on the ground now having convulsions. I told her husband to stay with her as I ran inside the clinic and demanded the nurses to go out and help her. I soon found that the old lady was having a seizure and suffered from a long time of epilepsy. About 20 years earlier, she had gotten in a car accident and suffered come kind of permanent brain injury. That morning she had forgotten to take the medication that would help control her seizures. I'm just glad that she had it outside of a clinic of all places!
The other day i was recalling the whole incident and just thought to myself how unfortunate is to have that condition. As a child no would have ever thought to ask "would you prefer to have a damaged brain or a missing arm"? Obviously, I'd choose the missing arm! I mean we don't ever think about how much our brain controls and how much we should protected it. Why don't we wear helmet more often, i mean think about?
Below is a video of talking about what epilepsy is and what can cause it.

I think its important for us to take the health of our brain seriously and maybe start thinking about where exactly we're taking it :P. I felt its was an important thing to share and educate others more on brain diseases. Epilepsy is a common brain disorder and even some historically important people had it. Epilepsy can occur due to many different reason, some even because of genetic abnormalities.