Health
Biological and Psychological Effects of Human Space Flight
In 2010, Barack Obama passed a bill that will have important ramifications for American space flight in the near future. The bill was called the NASA Authorization Act and introduced several budgetary reforms to the organization, including the cancellation of the program Constellation, which would have expanded the technology necessary for human space exploration. Nonetheless, [...]
The American Food Industry: An Incubator for Disaster
In the United States, the food production industry pervades everything we do. Meetings with friends are often accompanied by lunch or coffee, family dinners are treasured as time to bond with family, and mealtimes are regarded as sacred. So much of what we do revolves around food that imagining what would happen if that food [...]
Rolling Thunder: Racing Across America
For the Rolling Thunder Special Needs Program—a running and wheelchair racing club based in Long Island, New York for athletes with disabilities—the Sunday morning run is the last run of the training week. At 8 AM one Sunday morning in December, the distance runners on the team gathered at the gates of Connetquot State Park [...]
Sex and Aging: The Social Stigma
Many people find the idea of older people having sex disgusting to the point of absurdity. Older people’s sexuality is often exploited for laughs on television or casually mocked. While it is true that sex often becomes more difficult as one gets older, and the level of desire for sex often changes, the need for [...]
Methods for Educating Special-Needs Students
Special needs students are often the most challenging to teach yet also the most neglected by politicians and government educational policymakers. The number of students in special education has skyrocketed since the 1980s and only stabilized in the last few years. During the 2008–2009 academic school year, about 6.5 million students aged 3 through 21 [...]
Hidden Stress: Parental Burdens Caused by Autism
If you ask some friends for the first thing that comes to mind when you say “autism”, many will respond “Rainman” or “Forrest Gump” (even though Forrest was, in fact, not autistic). Many people have an idea of what autism is, and to a lesser extent, know how it affects an individual’s communication and social [...]
Medicare: “Generational Divide” and the Future
In April of this year, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) of the House Budget Committee released a proposal for the 2012 federal budget. While Ryan’s budget would reduce spending by $5.8 trillion over the next ten years, Republican leaders backed down from the proposal in May, mainly because it included a controversial plan to completely overhaul [...]
Lurking Dangers in Everyday Goods
The chemicals known as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) belong to a class of chemicals known as perfluorinated chemicals. From recent studies it has been seen that the concentration of these chemicals has been increasing in both our water supplies and our blood serum. Studies in the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, indicate that [...]
Methylation: The Cause of Brain Tumor?
When one thinks of the word “cancer” breast cancer, lung cancer, and skin cancer are among the various types that first come to mind. One type of cancer that is often neglected is Brain Tumor. According to the National Tumor Society, more than 500 people per day are diagnosed with primary or metastatic brain tumor [...]
Documenting Intimate Partner Violence
One in four women in the United States reports experiencing violence by a current or former spouse or partner at some point in her life. Although women of all ages are at risk for domestic and sexual violence, those ranging from 20 to 24 years old (prime childbearing years), face the greatest risk of experiencing [...]
Dying Without Sleep: Insomnia and its Implications
Ideally, humans sleep for at least eight hours every day, meaning that we spend about a third of our lives “unconscious.” Scientists have yet to agree on why this unconsciousness is vital, but we know that without sleep, all mammals and birds would die [1]. Because sleep has only become the subject of research in [...]
Facts for Digestion: The Negative Effects of an Animal-Heavy Diet
A jet plane streaks across a caerulean backdrop, expelling a stream of smoke as it goes. An SUV cruises along the road, leaving a quickly dissipating trail of carbon dioxide in its wake. A coal factory darkens the sky view, interrupting the blue patches with plumes of smog. These are the typical images which come [...]
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