Alternative medicine: medical marijuana

         Nowadays, more and more people is using marijuana as an alternative to conventional medicine to treat sleeping disorders, painful diseases, and stress  although it is still considered as an illegal drug in almost the whole planet, which means that its regular consumption may be penalized by the law regardless the purpose of its use; recreational or medical. Specifically in Chile, this tendency is not as strong as in others parts of the world, but it has its followers.

In this sense, it is possible to see that the social concerns about the use of cannabis have to do with the common association between this drug and criminal acts. In fact, it is estimated that about a ten percent of armed robbery and burglaries might be brought about by the ingestion of this herb and the violent effects that it may cause in its consumers.

Currently, the use of this controversial drug as a medicine is been discussed by many governments due to the growing increase in its popularity. Nevertheless, its legalization is a difficult matter since it counts with neither the complete support of recognized scientific institutions nor the approval of more conservative wing existing in every society. 

However, we do not have to close our minds regarding the medical benefits that the use of marijuana may have and highlight that it appears as a real opportunity for those patients who did not find a solution for their suffering in traditional medicine. 

So do you think that there is an actual possibility that one day medical marijuana could be prescribed in our hospitals?

Sweet dreams

Some of us have to wake up early in the morning and we are all the day complaining because we are sleepy, I’ve always said: classes too early in the morning should be forbidden. Other people said we are sleepy because we rather to stay wake up in the night until late, so the next morning we suffer the consequences. Not all the cases are like that, some of us go to bed early, nevertheless still have issues to fall asleep.

The importance of have a good sleep radicates in the fact that our body needs some time to get full of energy, also there are other properties and negative consequences if we haven’t sleep a reasonable period of time.

As students, it’s highly important to sleep around 7-8 hours otherwise we will see how our performance at classes is affected (1). Since our mind is like a computer needs time to clean up memories and makes stronger connections.

Another interesting point that I found out is the relation between lack of sleep and obesity. Definitely this catches my attention, due the discussion we had the other day. The relation is based on the fact that the lack of sleep increases the stimulus to consume food and increases appetite-hormones. (2)

So, as you can see to have a good quality and quantity of sleep will improve your life, next time someone come to you and tell you: “You shouldn’t sleep that much”, you know what to do.

Do you know other pros/cons?

To predict the unpredictable

How many lives would be saved if some people could predict the time, the place and the intensity of an earthquake before it happens? The answer is millions. Since a long time, there has been an endless discussion about if scientists can predict earthquakes before it occurs or not. Up to now, earthquake prediction is still very much an imperfect science; however, there have been some progress in the last decades.  

Even though there have existed a few precise earthquake predictions, scientist can’t asseverate they have an exact formula to know when or where is going to happen the next movement of the earth’s surface. Most of the information scientists can validate as accurate is from the prolonged observation from the changes in rocks compression, sound waves propagation, and electrical resistance of the tectonic plates. 

Besides all that, it is even worse when earthquakes are predicted by psychic or people who don’t know anything about this matter. These types of predictions only bring hysteria among people and, in some cases, a lot of monetary expenditure. This is because false alarms, cancelled alarms, and preventive evacuations not can only affect the confidence of people, but can also influence negatively the effectiveness of any kind of warning. 

Unfortunately, there isn’t a way of predicting big earthquakes, but can you imagine that, in a near future, scientists could be able to anticipate a tremor? Impossible is nothing.

The influence of music in your brain

Have you ever feel in a good mood because you've heard a happy song? Why does music carry so much meaning for us? Music can break or make your day. When you wake up in the morning and listen to upbeat music. That can change how you feel during the day. Some studies show that the body's stress levels drop due to a decrease in the stress hormone cortisol. For instance, cheerful music helps you to take away your anxiety. But, why is that?

Music can change your mood as a result of reminding you of certain events in your past. Normally, we remember things that happened before, or we associate music with some specific people. When musicians play an instrument, it’s has been proven that this action increase memory and language skills. In the case of listeners, it’s better used as means to recall memories.

In addition, music it’s used in the medical field as sort of therapy or source of research. When you listen to music you know, it stimulates the hippocampus, which handles long-term storage in the brain. Because of that you remember relevant things that you made while listening to a particular song.  So, even though the Mozart-effect has essentially been disproven, the idea that forming a new memory with music, and then using the same music again later to recall the memory still appears to be a sound idea. In conclusion, if you want to remember something, you might have better luck playing the same music you were listening to when you first made the thought.

In my opinion, I think that music is essential for our lives, and that listen to a particular song can change your whole day. You are what you listen to. What do you think?

.The role of Facebook in our university life

How many tests have you failed because of Facebook?  Or, on the other hand, is it useful for you to study?

Because of its sudden success, this fashionable social network has turned people into addicted; given that it many uses to waste or spare time; from games to chat, from fotolog to news.

In my case, facebook has been a nightmare for me when studying; unexpectedly, everything gets more interesting, and more people want to chat with me.That make me waste a lot of time posting on everything, and chating with friends. So, as you can infer , it is a bit difficult for me to sign out in order to study, and when I do it, I tend to log in again just to make sure if nobody else has written something interesting to me... as you can infer, it is almost an addiction.

On the contrary, logging in facebook   has been really useful for me when doing my homeworks; because, as I am  online almost everyday, I can see my classmates' posts concerning homeworks assigments for the next day. Also, in case of doubts, I can remove them all because of my classmates support; or when a test is coming, I can discuss and  share some opinions with them about the content in question.

As you can see, Facebook can be really helpful tool for you; but, it is a must to use it propperly, in order not to waste time as I usually do. Anyway, it  just depends on you how to take advantage of this controversial social network

Chocolate makes snails smarter.

    Type the word 'superfood' into a web browser and you will overwhemled: some websites even maintain that dark chocolate can have beneficial effects on people. Most people eat chocolate before a test; others when they exercise in order to have more energy and wake up. Science has been interested in the influence of eating cacao. In fact, the scientific comunity have become curious about how dietary factors might affect memory. For this, they have focused on a group of compounds- the flavinoids- found in a wide range of 'superfoods' including chocolate, and green tea. 

    A lot of factors can influence memory formation. So, it has been decided to experiment on snails with chocolate to see if this really works. Snails usually breathe through their skins, but when oxygen levels fall, they extend the breathing tube above the sruface to supplement the oxygen sypply. However, they can be trained to remember a simple activity: to keep their breathing tubes closed when immersed in water. Amazingly, after three days testing with chocolate, they were able to remember to keep their breathing tubes shut more than 3 days later. Days passed by, snails were doing the same as they were trained. Their memory had been improved, their memories were to strong to be extinguished. 

    Scientits are still testing, and experimenting to look directly at the effect that chocolate has on memory neurons and cognitive effects that half a bar of dark choclate can have. This is really a good new for chocoholics! 

    Moreover, this is also aimed to help those who have Down syndrome or any other neurodevelopmental disorder. Scientistics want to improve intelligence, memory, and concentration of this kind of people. It would be wonderful for them to eat a bar of chocolate and feel better, and smarter; obviously, not as "smarter" as ordinary people, but to be one step ahead of the disease. Is this really possible? How would it be for those with these diseases? Would the world change in a way with this little experiment?

The study is published in The Journal of Experimental Biology.

When memory goes blank

Life goes so fast that forgetting things is normal but, up to what point? I guess that we all have said at least once “Where are my keys? I’m senile!” The truth is that we (as usual) overreact, exaggerating our problems but, what happens when we are not acting? What if we are forgetting important information, like our name or our friends' faces for real? This is what happens to a 3% under 60s population in our world: Alzheimer’s disease.

Hearing the name “Alzheimer” gives me goose bumps, since this is a silent enemy that attacks our brain erasing all our memories, with no consideration. It was thought that only older people develop this disease but, nowadays it has been proved that because of a defective gene even under 60's are victimes of it. 

At early stages you just forget simply things like dates and addresses, then you forget your own address, your family members, go to the bathroom and speak; at the end, you are not able to do a thing by your own, depending on a nurse or your family. The worst part is for those whose memory is normal because they are witnesses of the patient's decadency, suffering all the pain of seeing someone they love diying for inside.

Unfortunately, there is not known treatment for this disease, neither something you can do to prevent it; patients just take pills in order to slow the process. On the other hand, I heard some time ago about a vaccine that cures the problem, but it is a kind of conspiration since pharmacies prefer sell lots of pills to treat the illnesses rather than sell the cure just once. 

What do you think about these conspirations? Are they real?

Do you know someone who suffers this disease?

Here goes a sad korean movie that inspired me to write about Alzheimer, enjoy it! :)

Nanotechnology in food

Nanotechnology in food 

Many studies are being undertaken in the field of nanotechnology regarding food. For instance, scientist are embedding silver nanoparticles into the plastic in which bins are packaged, the particles will kill any bacteria stored in the bins that could be harmful to human body; scientists are also trying to develop nanosensors that could eventually detect unsafe elements in a package plant; nanocapsules are being developed in order to provide people with the nutrients they need. This nanocapsules might have the function of releasing nutrients inside of people´s body when nanosensors may detected that the organism is in lack of them.  But that is not all; experts are also working on “interactive food”. This could be possible with nanocapsule containing flavor and color booster which are activated when someone could eat the food. However, the method that will be used to activate the boosters has not been told, yet. With this, we can come to a conclusion that not only is technology a detonator when it comes to obesity, but also a collaborator if it is well-used. So, should be blame technology for the incredible risen in people obesity? Or should we introspect and think about our own habits and how they affect our body and health? Isn’t it all about taking technology as a “friend” instead of an “enemy”?

Do Videogames Elicit Violence in People?

When it comes to videogames, people and governments tend to say that they are a vivid source of violence, and games are blamed for shootings and killings that sometimes shake their countries. Moreover, the media and many research studies have eagerly shown how violent videogames are and how they are responsible of such accidents. Would you dare to contradict them?

Well, I would. The problem with the media and the governments in general is that they seem to need an entity on which they can blame for any negative event that produces fear. Noticeably, in developed countries, shootings happen every now and then, and since the media and the government do not know why those events happen, they blame videogames because of trivial details like “investigations on the killers showed that they played games on a daily basis.” But, does that mean that videogames are the reason why these murderers commit their crimes?

To support such statements, researches on videogames and violence are commonly carried out to verify the connection. However, the results are somewhat shaky because they do not show the link between playing videogames and those terrible outcomes. Moreover, several other elements are not taken into account such as family violence and mental illnesses.

All in all, the non-existent connection between videogames and violence is commonly used by the media and the governments to overlook the real problem behind the mortal incidents, which may refer to a society that every day becomes more and more dehumanizing; and researchers are not responsible either, for they are not consistent with their results.

A new gang of criminals: cyber thieves

There is no point in discussing the multiple benefits that the use of internet has brought to our lives since its spread in the late 90's. The Net currently offers us a wide variety of resources that can help us to deal with tiresome activities like going to the bank and paying bills. But is it really secure to carry out them virtually?

 As an consequence of the popularity of this new way of fulfilling with our tedious commitments, it was born a different kind of thieves called hackers whose job is to steal people´s personal information from their computers with the purpose of defrauding them. This new tendency in criminal actions increased dramatically in the world the last decade. Moreover, it was necessary that politicians started legislating on this issue since in those times it was practically a new currency offence.

Fortunately, nowadays there is a lot of information available on the web-wide world and the media about the existence of cyber fraudster and their modus operandi; in fact, in most of the web sites devoted to commerce and bank transaction, it is possible to find advertisements warning to disclose neither numerical codes of credit cards nor your ID number on the web since cyber robber might take advantage of it and steal all your money.

In this sense, it is almost curious to see that  many of our facebook contacts insist on divulging even their personal data through this channel; especially, when it is publicly known that the danger of cyber robs is real and more common that you could ever imagine.