The ocean. Beautiful, mysterious, and the home to many animals is now under attack. It has been for a long time. Trash in the ocean is a huge problem and it's not just the plastic bottles you see floating on the surface. Plastic is the main problem. When plastic is thrown in the ocean, or anywhere for that matter, it doesn't biodegrade meaning it doesn't break down without hurting the planet. Instead it photodegrades, which means it is broken down under sunlight. When this happens the plastic particles separate and create tiny balls of plastic that can then be eaten by animals in the ocean. This specifically has been wreaking havoc on small animals such as baby chicks that live in or near the ocean. When researchers cut open their bellies after they had died they found large amounts of these tiny particles of plastic. Some may ask "So why can't we just go and scoop up all the plastic out of the ocean?" and the answer is its not that simple. Like I said its not just the plastic on the surface, it's all the tiny particles in the water from the broken down plastic too. Not to mention the disruption of ocean life. We need to start on land and it's really simple to help out. Throw away your trash, don't leave it to be swept away by the waves or to be picked up by someone else. Take your own action and the planet will be much healthier because of it.
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No Surprise! People aren't getting enough sleep. Everyone talks about how tired we are and how we need to get more sleep, but how do we get it. For starters we can take a look at our daily schedules to see if there is anything keeping us from the amazing thing we call sleep. Below is an simple sketch of my schedule stating the majority of what I am doing from 1:00 in the morning to 12:00 at night. Not much surprised me. Everyone is always shocked when I say I go to bed at 8:30, (More like 8:45), but even with what looks to be 10 hours of sleep I often feel like I don't get enough. When you break it down it takes about five minutes to get to bed, about an hour of just lying there waiting for my brain to slow down enough to sleep, and on bad nights who knows how many times I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night for any number of reasons. I understand why its hard for people to get to sleep. It doesn't take much to keep me up at night. So how can we help people like that, how do people get the much needed sleep they need. According to the article some foods can help you with this. Before bed if you're going to eat anything eat something like egg whites, chicken, granola, or whole-grain crackers with milk. These foods are high in tryptophan and melatonin which are things found in these foods that help induce sleep.
This article talks a lot about how summer learning loss is a real problem and uses many unproven or reused reasons to support year round schooling. For me this article sounded like a broken record saying that we no longer need a long summer break and that it really hurts the amount of things students remember. I love the long summer break and I would never want to change to year round school for a few reasons. First of all the three months of summer that we get is the best time to travel in Michigan. My family and I go up north to Traverse City a few times a year and while it is fun in the winter, you don't get to experience all of the things you get to if you go in the summer. Secondly this article uses the argument that students learn to have a healthier diet during the school year. I think kids eat healthier in the summer even with all of the ice cream and smore's waved in their face. When you're home you notice more of the food you need in the house. It also gives you a chance to eat more of the delicious fruits that are good in the summertime like watermelon and berries.
It This is crazy! Scientists have now created an artificial womb so help premature babies fully develop essential organs such as their lungs. I think this new technology could be very useful but I also have some very high concerns. First of all the united states spends an estimated $43 billion every year caring for preemies and most of them don't make it. This could help us reduce this cost and save the lives of many premature babies. Don't get me wrong there are also a lot of challenges along the way before this can be used on a human child. For one thing the "Biobag" would have to be sized down in order to fit the premature babies. The system also wouldn't work for a child if they had actually been born. It is shown that there are many things to be sorted out but I wouldn't be surprised if we heard of this being tested on a human in the near future.
Anyone that knows me knows that I love sugar and I have often wondered "what happens to my brain when I eat sugar." Well according to a series of experiments where rats were deprived of food for 12 hours, then given access to sugary solution and regular chow for the other 12 hours, it was shown that the pattern of the rats behavior with and without the sugar was similar to that when they were exposed to drugs, such as cocaine. I found this very surprising, but it also made sense to me. For example, I absolutely LOVE Sprite or any sort of fizzy, sugary drink. Often times when I haven't had Sprite in a while (as in maybe a day or a few hours), I start to get headaches and a severe "need" to have some. In the past my parents have also given up pop for a few months just to try to stop drinking it like the "healthier lifestyle" kind of stuff. During the first month of them doing so, my mom often complained about having headaches as well. After this I have come to the conclusion that people do have sugar addictions and that sugar withdrawal is a very real thing. It is also hard to quite bad habits when you have something sweet even if it's not doing you a lot of good.
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Kelsey AndrewsThis is where I will be Putting my Responses to our Articles of the Week Archives
June 2017
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