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Five ways to reduce anxiety naturally

Posted on by Guest Contributor

This post was written by ScIU Undergraduate Intern, Gabrielle Rangel.

According to the NASPA, 4 out of 5 college students felt overwhelmed at least once in the past year by the amount of anxiety that they have experienced. The usual stresses of school, life, and work were met with even more challenges due to COVID-19. Students had to switch their learning style, were kicked out of their dorms on campus, lost on-campus jobs, and some even lost family members. To top it off, quarantine has amplified feelings of isolation and loneliness. As quarantining persists, it’s important for everyone to take personal measures in order to reduce stress and anxiety as much as possible. Here are 5 everyday practices that have been proven by recent studies to reduce anxiety. (more…)

Five ways to stay positive during a pandemic

Posted on by Guest Contributor

This post was written by ScIU Undergraduate Intern Jackie Williams.

It’s been over a year since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and staying positive this past year has not been the easiest. Despite what your greatest instincts say, going on your phone could be the cause of your blues. After a year of foregoing family and friends, we crave connection now more than ever. While social media may initially seem like a good way to engage with others when we’re apart, research has shown that social media can negatively impact our mental health and lead to a more sedentary lifestyle. Like social media, a sedentary lifestyle often harms your mental health. Luckily, researchers have discovered small hacks that you can do everyday to increase your levels of serotonin (the mood and happiness hormone). 

A photograph of at home workout equipment. It includes a blue set of dumbbells, a black pair of sneakers, a scale, and a blue exercise ball laid out on white flooring.
A photograph of home workout equipment.

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Five fascinating facts about bees

Posted on by sciutern

This post was written by ScIU Undergraduate Intern Anna Grimes.

There is more to bees than what initially meets the eye! Sure, we couldn’t live without these busy pollinators, but bees are scientifically interesting beyond just the honey they create. Bees can provide insight into other areas of science, and they themselves are fascinating little creatures. Get to know bees better with the five crazy facts below!

a photograph of a swarm of bees sitting on golden honeycomb. There are many bustling workers surrounding a significantly larger queen bee.
A swarm of bees is made up of many close relatives. In fact, the larger-than-average queen could be genetically identical to a worker bee. Their appearance and capabilities are highly dependent on their environment. Image credit: Mostafa Eissa (CC0 on Pexels).

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Cannabidiol: A step in the right direction for treating epilepsy

Posted on by Taryn Bosquez

Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder that is characterized by sudden, uncontrolled electrical activity between neurons in the brain. These electrical disturbances typically manifest in the form of seizures which, in their mild forms, can go unnoticed, but in more severe cases can cause uncontrollable muscle twitches, loss of consciousness and, ultimately, memory loss. There are two classes of seizures: general, whole brain seizures and focal seizures, in which only a part of the brain is affected. Based on these two classes, additional seizure types are characterized by their severity and symptoms. 

Image of lightning during a thunderstorm. The lightning represents the irregular electrical activity occurring in the brain of an individual with epilepsy.
Think of the irregular electrical impulses in the brain of epilepsy patients to be like lightning in a thunderstorm. Photo credit: CCO on Pixabay.

The underlying cause of a seizure has many origins, some of which include high fever, infectious disease, lack of oxygen to the brain, genetics, or even a tumor. Individuals who are diagnosed with epilepsy, especially with refractory, drug-resistant forms, unfortunately experience a high level of risk and uncertainty in their daily activities and are unaware of when their next seizure will occur. In some cases, individuals diagnosed with the disorder may not be allowed to legally drive or even obtain their driver’s license for fear that the seizures are uncontrollable. Although there is no cure for epilepsy, medications known as antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) have been beneficial in reducing the frequency with which seizures occur; however, in some cases, these AEDs are inadequate. 

Lennox-Gastaut and Dravet syndromes are two rare forms of childhood epilepsy for which many basic AED treatments fail to mitigate their severity. Enter a little molecule called cannabidiol, also known as CBD, and what at first appears to be a bleak and hopeless situation suddenly offers reason for optimism.

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5 Strategies to Maximize Studying

Posted on by sciutern

This post was written by ScIU Senior Undergraduate Intern, Carly Jones.

aerial view of someone wearing jeans who is studying in front of laptop sitting criss-crossed with several books laid to their side against white sheets
Getting back into school and a study routine is not always easy, but researchers have identified several ways to improve our studying! Photo by Windows on Unsplash

Getting back into school and a study routine is not always easy, yet we have to manage somehow. But have you ever considered you could be studying wrong? As it turns out, common techniques such as highlighting, re-reading, and mnemonics (for example, PEMDAS) are not very effective. In fact, most of the time, they do not boost performance and offer limited benefits compared to other techniques. Luckily, researchers have identified study methods that are actually effective and improve learning. Check out these 5 proven studying techniques that will help you maximize studying:

  1. Recall: Stop Review

People tend to review the material: glance over notes, check highlighted words, re-read passages. However, this is not effective because it does not require you to retrieve the information like on an exam. Instead, use recall, or retrieval practice, where you recall information (verbally, mentally, or even written) from memory, then repeat after reviewing incorrect answers. This technique ingrains the information because it is more cognitively active. Some examples include practice tests and flashcards.

  1. Focus: Ditch “Multi-tasking”
yellow highlighter set on an open textbook with black glasses on top of it
Highlighting has been shown to be an ineffective way to study, things like glancing over notes and underlining do not help put information into long term memory. Photo by Hans – Pixabay

“Multi-tasking” is really not possible, despite our persistent belief that we can do many things at once. In reality, these attempts to split our attention lead to prolonged studying and inefficient use of time. Our brains do not fare well switching tasks and this stop/start process from one task to the next wastes a lot of energy and time. Ultimately, the best strategy is to focus and limit distractions such as music, conversations, and phones.

  1. Print: Avoid Digital

Almost everything is online these days, including our textbooks, but unfortunately it could be stifling our learning. Recent studies have demonstrated that print text has higher and faster rates of learning information compared to digital text. Clicking through pages instead of flipping back and forth is more distracting for us, which lowers our ability to focus our attention. In addition, the lack of physical markers (i.e. location on page) can make recall more difficult because we lack that reference point previously available in print text. So, when
possible, try to find physical print!

  1. Variety: Forget “Learning Styles”

We all remember those “learning styles” from grade school, but there is little evidence to support this idea. The notion is that you should cater your learning to one of the 7 styles; for example, a visual learner should use diagrams and pictures. However, research has instead shown that we all benefit from a variety of these “styles.” Incorporating several modes of study (i.e. using visual, auditory, and verbal) is far more effective because it is stimulating and keeps interest, as opposed to using one single sense and getting sensory overload. 

  1. Spacing: Cut Cramming
White flashcards with lines laid fanned out on a stained wood surface
Practicing or spaced learning is a great way to optimize studying and retaining information. A great way is to use practice tests or study cards! Photo by AnnasPhotography – Pixabay

All of us are guilty of cramming the night before a test and spending hours trying to remember as much as possible. But at the end of the day, this technique is not setting us up for success. Spaced practice is better for learning because it fights the forgetting curve. With this technique, you study intermittently over time so information goes into long-term memory instead of short-term memory with cramming. Instead of forgetting, our brains are able to remember the information because of the repetition over several study sessions. 

Studying is extremely important to college life, and it can make or break how well we do in a given class. However, a lot of the time, we find ourselves making common mistakes that actually do not help us learn, like cramming or reviewing. Fortunately, using recall, print, focus, variety, and spacing will help you maximize your studying! Using some or all of these techniques may just give you the little boost you need to get back into the study grind. But, keep in mind, these are lifelong tips that can be used for anything in the future like work! Which one of these methods will you be using before your next exam?  

References

Study techniques that work — and (surprisingly) don’t
Do E-Books Make it Harder to Remember What You Just Read?
The Myth of Multitasking
How to Study Using the Spaced Practice Method
Different Learning Styles

Edited by Dan Myers and Gabriel Nah

Rain-on-snow: I’m melting!

Posted on by Dan Myers

Two “road closed” signs because a major flood blocks a street in the outskirts of a big city.
An extreme 2013 flood in Alberta, Canada that included rain-on-snow melt. Photo credit: Ryan L. C. Quan (CC BY-SA 3.0).

In mid-February 2021, Bloomington, Indiana was hit by a winter snowstorm that dropped several inches of white, fluffy snow around town. Schools and businesses closed. However, as other people were wondering “How will I get my car out of the driveway?”, I caught myself wondering “Will it rain soon?” What? Why?

Rain-on-snow melt events have been receiving a lot of attention in scientific articles I have been reading. Aptly named, these events occur when a warm rain falls on an existing snowpack. Along with other sources of heat, this causes the snow to melt. The meltwater and rainwater from this event can then cause extreme floods. Counterintuitively, rain-on-snow melt can also lead to a decrease in water availability during the summer, since the meltwater is not stored in the landscape or groundwater. Rain-on-snow melt events occur in temperate, high-latitude, and mountainous regions around the globe. (more…)

The Origins of 420

Posted on by Michelle Murphy Green

This Tuesday is April 20th, otherwise known as 420. For some it’s just another day in the week, but for others it’s a much-anticipated and beloved holiday. 

However, have you ever stopped to consider how this pseudo-holiday came to be?

A quick google search will provide a number of varying and amusing theories. Some of the most popular 420 stories include 420 as a police dispatch code for cannabis use, as the number of chemical compounds in cannabis (actually there are over 500), or  the day of Bob Marley’s death (actually May 11th). However, the true origin of 420 began in 1971 at a high school in San Francisco, CA where five friends agreed to meet at 4:20pm every day near a wall outside of their school to smoke and search for a cannabis patch rumored to be abandoned in the woods. Over time, they became known as the ‘Waldos’ and 420 developed into a shorthand for anything cannabis related. Eventually, due to familial connections, the Grateful Dead picked up the phrase, incorporated it into flyers, and spread it across the nation. Today, April 20th is widely recognized across the United States and several other countries as cannabis day and celebrated by meeting up, preferably at 4:20pm, to partake in the fun.

The five founders of 420 sitting in the woods together.
The founders of 420: Mark Gravich, Jeffery Noel, Steve Capper, Dave Reddix, and Larry Schwartz. Image credit: 420Waldos.

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Work-life balance

Posted on by Dan Myers

An inquisitive dog and cat get in the way of a computer screen on a work desk.
Lola (dog) and Pumpkin (cat) think we should just exchange all our work time for play. Photo Credit: Dan Myers.

I am writing about work-life balance, the subjective idea of basically having a life outside of our job or schoolwork. Experts say that a healthy work life balance is when we are able to fulfil our responsibilities to our jobs, families, and other parts of life that are important to us. It has been the buzz on social media lately. Why? It seems at times there is almost an expectation to constantly be working, known as “hustle culture.” This can be fed by many things including changes in job demand, a fast-paced work environment, and the inability to escape work because of that darn internet. People early in their careers have not been satisfied with this and are pushing to discuss better balance. I know this can be a sensitive topic and that people have disagreements about what work life balance is, its value, and even how it can be attained, but most research finds that it has a positive effect on our wellbeing and places of work. Personally, I believe a work-life balance is incredibly important and would like to offer a fresh perspective on it. (more…)

Finding the Right Question

Posted on by Jennifer Sieben

Dr Songhu Wang. Image credit: Heising-Simons Foundation.

Imagining life on other planets is usually the work of science-fiction authors, but increasingly it is becoming the work of current astronomers. Although it had been theorized that there existed other planets outside of our solar system, exoplanets were only confirmed in the late 1980s. The field exploded when the Kepler space telescope started finding thousands of exoplanets. A rich field of study was born.

One of IU’s own astronomers focuses on the interactions of these distant planetary systems. Dr. Songhu Wang became interested in exoplanet research when he was learning about non-linear dynamics in his undergraduate years. He worked with chaos theory, where “if your initial conditions are a little bit different, your results are totally different.” He started out being interested in pure mathematics, but got drawn into the practical aspects of it. Chaos theory can be applied to diverse fields of study like the stock market, weather systems, or even the spread of disease based on the movement of people. Of course, it’s also used in astronomy. (more…)

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