Yawning – What For?

Air is coming in, it’s coming in, it’s coming in. Now it’s in the highest of high stretching my fully expanded mouth. I closed my eyes, stretched my arms and exhaled air back out. Yaaaaawwnnn. Ah, that’s satisfying.

We’re told guesses on why we yawn. It is a response when the brain needs oxygen. People think that it preludes sleep. But contradictories dismissed them. We don’t yawn while we’re exercising – the time when oxygen use is expeditious. Singers yawn before taking the stage – which doesn’t sound like a drowsy person.

But yawning has an alerting effect. It keeps us wake and more responsive. And it just felt damn good.

It may cool our brain as it sends air towards our headspace. Albany researchers found that those with cold packs in their foreheads are less likely to yawn than those with warmer packs. Since our brains burns a third of our calorie intake, it’s hot enough. It needs some cooling mechanism and yawning is some sort of our ventilation.

Yaaaaaaaaawwwnnnn. That’s a long one, really passionate. Writing YAWN couple of times won’t keep my mouth closed.

Everybody yawns. A growing 11 weeks old fetus already knows how to yawn. 50% of those who’ve seen other people yawning did the same. Probability is higher when we have a closer relationship with the yawner, says University of Pisa’s Elisabetta Palagi. Even dogs yawn with their owners, says Lund University’s Elainie Madsen. Many called this an evidence of empathy.

An interesting theory thinks yawning is a threat. Since it opens the mouth and exposes the sharp teeth, it may be considered as an aggressive behavior among certain species. The alpha primates yawn more frequently than the beta population. The leader is thought to yawn first while the rest follows to keep them alert in the wild. Thus, yawn is associated with dominance.

Even more intriguing, yawning is claimed to be a sign of sexual attraction. I don’t know but perhaps these scientists are bored.

How many times did you yawn while reading this?

Think to Decrease Pain

I may shrug when a woman’s pronged heel trod on my bare foot while the next adult will roar aghast at an injection. We are all susceptible to physical pain. A neural activity is spurred upon a pressure or cut. But we feel different pain intensity; thus a terrible pain may be a tickling scratch to the other.

Our genes are a determinant of pain tolerance. Red heads are more sensitive to pain possibly due to a mutation in their genes. You encounter pain the way you experience it because that is how you are coded.

Men have higher tolerance than women. Certain researchers claim this to masculine and feminine stereotyping. People with smoking vice and obesity are susceptible to feel more pain while the fit ones can withstand more pain. And as we age, we increase tolerance on cutaneous pain, meaning the pain on our superficial skin. However, older people have decreased tolerance on the deep pain.

How the pain is interpreted has a bigger role in tolerance. It is more psychological than physiological. “Mind over matter”, we heard people say.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Wisconsin revealed the mind power to increase our pain tolerance. In their study, they asked participants to plunge their hand to ice cold water and keep it submerged until the pain is unbearable. Those who are asked to reminisce their sexual fantasies lasted the pain twice as long as those who thought a neutral fantasy like walking.

To combat the negative emotion of pain, think of something that elicits a positive emotion. This will increase your pain tolerance.

What thought will give you a positive emotion?

Dictating Your Genes

C’mon, let’s tell the truth. We wished our parents bestowed us their best genes. We hoped for the blue eyes, vertically profuse bones, tame teeth, and hyperactive metabolism. But since genes are shuffled randomly, some will get receding hairline or left inclined nose.

Thankfully, there is a way to change them. Cosmetic help has never been better at its job. But the epidemic of a treacherous disease in your line can be stopped. You have the ability to alter your genetic makeup starting from you and down your line.

Researchers in Madrid investigated the genes of twins growing up. We know that twins are basically clones with genes almost completely identical. They found that as the twins grow up, their genetic similarities became fewer since the twins engage on different lifestyles.

You may start thinking on eating leafy vegetables. Munching on greens for just 12 servings a month reduces DNA methylation of genes to 20%. Taking multivitamins reduces it to 50%. Lowered methylation suppresses the expression of diseases like cancer and helps repair DNA, thus you’ll be walking with a beneficial genes inside.

Eating foods rich in fats and sugars is carving a new gene. Not only does it make you fat but it also changes your genes in a way that your body retains more fat than you should. It makes it harder to shed them away. In contrast, a healthy intake of omega-3 found in fish oils can leverage over 100 genes positively.

There is another identical twin study that shows the influence of controlling methylation. At age 22, one developed schizophrenia while the twin brother successfully suppressed his “schizophrenia gene”. This gives us an easier breath as the disease gene we may have can be silenced.

The bad habits will make your genes bad. People who smoke, endure prolonged stress and eat on poor diet conceive children with higher risks of diabetes, heart disease and depression, among other health problems. Everything you are doing to your body may be your burden or gift to the next generation of your family. You start taking care of them by taking care of yourself.

What genes would you like to have?

Climate Change is Proved, Disapproved, Harmful and Beneficial

Scientists hustle to prove or disapprove climate change. They cite benefits and others add to the list of harmful effects to our planet. It does not only affect humans, but every species on Earth will show how the warming affects their living. It’s such a controversy that lay people and notorious researchers won’t agree collectively.

Proved

Statistical data proves that climate change is happening. Since the late 19^th century, the global temperature increased by 0.6° C. Glaciers thaw and 10% of the snow cover decreased since 1966. The sea-ice’s thickness is narrowing in a rate of 1.57 inches annually. Since the ice is losing its mass, the sea-level is rising in a rate of 0.06 inches yearly.

This peremptory consensus already used up $106.7 billion of US taxes trying to amend the problem of global warming.

Disapproved

16 scientists tagged their names in a Wall Street Journal article discrediting global warming. While records in the past 50 years or so indicates increasing temperature on earth, it is not consistent. There has been no warming in the last 15 years.

Global Warming is natural in Earth’s climatic cycle. It happens before humans are born and even before the debate started. The glaciers in Asia’s Karakoram Mountains are getting bulkier. 2008 has been the coldest since 2000, averaging on 14.3° C. Dr Mojib Latif predicts that it’ll be colder in the next two decades while other scientists claim that Earth a century from now will be 4° C colder.

Harmful

Climate change exalted the catastrophes – fiercer storms, more prominent wildfires and longer heat waves. Flash floods are counted in Europe. Freshwater ran out in Asia and Africa. Forests disappear in Latin America. These issues keep on breaking previous records.

There is an estimated six million species on earth and 20% of them are endangered due to global warming. In 2012, newly found species include gorgeous primates, smallest known frog and 24 different skinks in the Carribean. With the rate of extinction, their disappearance will run faster than discovery.

What does species’ demise meant for humans? Russell Mittermeier answers: “without species diversity, we wouldn’t have the healthy ecosystems that supply our food, cleanse our air and water, provide sources of life-saving medicines and help stabilize our climate.”

Beneficial

The typical news reported how humans suffer from climate change, but not all organisms are contested. Plants from drylands can adapt to warming of climate. It is logical that extended and intensified draught will lead to demise of these plants, but these species are used to the hot climate. Ecologist Roberto Salguero-Gómez, who investigated the plants during the research, claims that they also benefit from the climate change. Higher temperature at night will induce the growth of plants.

Increased temperature in the North Sea boosted its food web, according to Dr. Richard Kirby of Plymouth University. Since the 1° C rise, swimming crabs actually swam longer in the sea. Adult crabs will then increase in the next year. It makes it easier for lesser black-backed gulls to hunt them, which will also increase their numbers in the next three to four years.

Killer whales, wandering albatrosses, mosquitoes, jellyfish, and trumpeter swans are thriving in the warming condition. Even polar bears, according to researchers from Umea University in Sweden, benefit from climate change as species migrate towards the north promoting biodiversity and arctic ecosystem.

Economically, climate change will increase production in agriculture. Olivier Deschênes and Michael Greenstone’s study in 2007 believed that the “changes in temperatures and precipitation” will modestly enhance the yields and profits of American agriculture.

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Any side you take on climate change, there will be a community supporting it. Which do you believe in?

Where Facebook is Actually Good at

Personal information and time are the only currencies Facebook asks in exchange for its service. It won’t care where you’re from or how fat your wallet is. Everyone is a market for a company or a business; thus Facebook could earn from anyone regardless of background.

Since it is free to signup and use the social networking platform, Facebook has been welcoming and non-judgmental. Facebook is good at creating a classless virtual world. With more than a billion users, Facebook has a society where all people are equal.

Art Jipson, University of Dayton sociologist and criminologist, interviewed homeless people. He learned that the homeless are enjoying the benefits of Facebook. One of the interviewee said, “no one on the ‘net cares if I didn’t get a shower yesterday or smell some. They don’t judge me, you know? … I feel accepted. I am accepted.”

Apart from the privacy issues and addiction tendencies, Facebook can connect people especially those who needed it. Another homeless found care from Facebook: “I have as much right to that as anyone else. Just because I am homeless does not mean that I don’t care about this stuff, you know? My family is on Facebook. My friends are on Facebook. People who care about me are on Facebook.”

They only need a phone to log in social networking sites. It’s good to know that those whose homes are drawings in the air are beneficiaries of belongingness social media promises.

What do you use Facebook for?

Hiring the New Best Friend

You will find all the skills employers wanted for hire in the job description. They prefer the graduates with years of experience. They like expertise on specified areas. They give advantages to multi-linguals.

You respond to them with your meticulously crafted cover letter. You edit and update your resume to meet the description of the person they’re looking for. This may be enough to land you a scheduled interview.

But the main deciding factor is whether they see you bonding with them. A study issued in the American Sociological Review revealed that cultural fit is the most crucial criterion employers are watching out in the job interview process. The candidate is evaluated based on his/her harmony with the “leisure pursuits, background, and self-presentation of the existing employees.”

It is enough to have the baseline qualifications and skills. The best person for the job is the best fit for the company. It is the congruence of the candidate’s personality and the corporate culture.

Evaluators are “predominately white, Ivy League-educated, upper-middle or upper class men and women”, said Sociologist Dr Lauren Rivera. Determining the usual pursuits of the interviewer’s background will help the candidates figure out their interests. Mirroring similarities will highlight a cultural fit.

Now that we know what kind of people they’d hire, they should include the following characteristics in the job description: likes hiking, fermented refreshments and Jimmy Fallon. They want to feel good when you’re around.

Do you bond with your employer?

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