Throughout history, people have found interesting uses for earwax. Seamstresses used it to keep their thread from fraying and medieval scribes used it to illuminate their manuscripts. Now, scientists are questioning whether a person's earwax type could show if they are susceptible to breast cancer.

Earwax comes in two varieties, and both are equally disgusting. Some people sport a wet, yellow-brown goo, while others have dry, grayish crumbs.

Interestingly, earwax type seems to be based on ethnicity. Most people from Europe and Africa have wet earwax, most people from East Asia have dry earwax, and people from Central and Southern Asia could have either type. This trend led scientists to think that earwax type could be determined by your DNA.

A few years ago, scientists found the genetic difference that determines what type of earwax you have. It's a matter of one tiny nucleotide. At a certain spot in your DNA, you either have a G (guanine nucleotide) or an A (adenine nucleotide). If you have an A at the spot on both of your chromosomes, you will have dry earwax. If you have a G on both chromosomes or an A on one chromosome and a G on the other, you will have wet earwax.

The gene where this difference occurs is used to make a specific transport protein. Then a certain type of gland in the body uses the transport protein to secrete gross substances, like earwax.

This gland isn't just found in the ear, however, it's also found in breast tissue. In fact, the transport protein in question was first discovered because there is an unusually large amount of it in cancerous breast tissue.

What's more, one researcher noticed that there were fewer incidences of breast cancer among populations of women with dry earwax. He even found that Japanese women who had breast cancer were slightly more likely to have wet earwax than Japanese women without breast cancer. In 2010, another group studied the earwax-breast cancer correlation at the gene level. As you might expect, they found a higher incidence of the wet earwax variation of the gene in Japanese women with breast cancer.

It seems, however, that the possible link between wet earwax and breast cancer risk might not hold for Caucasian women. One study published last year compared the earwax genes of 1,342 women with breast cancer and 2,256 women without breast cancer. The researchers found that the prevalence of the two earwax gene variations was the same in both groups of Caucasian women. Another 2011 study had similar results.

While it's exciting (albeit revolting) that earwax type could useful for catching breast cancer, it seems that there are still reasons to be skeptical of the correlation. But even if earwax can't be used as a diagnostic tool, it still has important uses for your body. It keeps your ears clean and free from intruders, and it lubricates the ear canal.

Last year, a gradually growing collection of statistics and studies demonstrating weight prejudice in the workplace and in medical settings briefly sparked some penetrating discussions on whether or not legislation should be crafted to protect the obese.

These discourses have not garnered national attention as of yet, and frankly, anti-discrimination legislation may not even be necessary before long. As of 2008, a full 68% of Americans were considered overweight; heavier set individuals were already the majority. In 2010, 35.7% of Americans were obese, and the number is still on the rise. How long until obese individuals become the majority? If and when this occurs, will there be rampant fat discrimination, or will these new demographics effectively drive a change in our culture's views on girth?


We've seen society evolve before. Racism used to be the status quo in many areas of the United States, but over time, these views have slowly been purged from our culture to some measure of obscurity. Why should this be any different with discrimination based on obesity?

"Fat does not, in itself, signify unhealthy and unattractive." University of Houston sociologist Dr. Samantha Kwan said. "These are cultural constructions. We as a society say what it means to be fat, and right now cultural discourses say it's ugly and unhealthy to be fat."

For centuries, Americans have idolized slender women and lean, masculine men. Their figures have been plastered on billboards, enshrined in advertisements, and worshiped in cinema. But this traditional view of the perfect human form does not carry over to all cultures. Over a generation ago, one-third of Mauritanian women were forced to overeat as children so that they would fatten-up and develop into what culture considered to be respectable and beautiful women. This tradition is slowly dying in Mauritania, but it is still alive in other cultures, especially in Africa. In general, anthropologists surmise that where food is scarce, weight can become a symbol of wealth and desirability.

This is just the opposite in the United States, of course, because energy-dense food is plentiful and comparatively inexpensive. Here, weight is oft linked to lower socioeconomic status and less education.

It's for this reason that I really don't see cultural evolution occurring with respect to obesity acceptance. As long as the idolized wealthy, educated, and powerful remain slim, then thin will almost certainly remain to be "in."

Diets which call for severely limiting carbohydrate intake don't ever seem to go away, they just roll in and out on the tide of popularity. One such diet that's currently riding high is the "Paleolithic Diet." Currently promoted by such individuals as Dr. Michael Eades and Dr. Loren Cordain, the diet asks its followers to consume a selection of food supposedly similar to that of their caveman ancestors. That's right, eat lots of meat, nuts, and berries and you can be as fit as Fred Flintstone... or maybe Barney Rubble.

In keeping with society and the media's traditional fixation on fad diets, some proponents of the Paleo diet don't give due credit to, or neglect entirely, the impact that physical activity plays in maintaining a healthy weight. This is somewhat ironic, because the most important reason that their idolized caveman ancestors were so "lean and mean" was probably due to how they lived instead of how they ate.


In searching for nuts and berries and hunting for wild game, our ancestors were forced to exert themselves physically. Attaining nourishment was not as simple as a stop at the supermarket; it required time and sometimes stressful exertions. An entire day's duration was, occasionally, spent searching for food. For the modern-day American living a mostly sedentary lifestyle, simply eating a carbohydrate-restricted Paleo diet will not make up for the deficit in caloric expenditure.

The comforting truth is that humans can thrive on a host of different diets, including ones featuring lots of carbohydrates. Our species really is a physiological wonder. Throughout history, humans have subsisted as hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and agriculturalists and have managed to not become excessively rotund or unhealthy. This is because they balanced their eating with physical exertions.

The hunter-gatherer !Kung of Botswana attain about 67% of their energy from plants and consume about 2,100 calories a day. Their average BMI is 19 (normal). The pastoral Quencha of Peru get about 95% of their food from plants and consume about 2,000 calories a day. Their BMI is 21 (normal) . In 2002, Americans received about 77% of their food from plant-based sources and consumed 2,250 calories on average. Our average BMI was 26 (overweight). 

To the question of how to be healthy, equilibrium is the unequivocal answer. There is no dietary silver bullet. Severely restricting essential nutrients from your diet -- be they proteins, fats, or carbohydrates -- probably isn't a good idea. You must learn to balance energy intake with energy expenditure.

A good way to achieve this energy stability may not be by eating like a caveman, but instead by living like one. Americans don't have to gather mushrooms or hunt squirrels with spears, but they can try walking to the grocery store. Or they could go "primal" by pretending they're hunting mammoth while on the treadmill.

Heck, standing instead of sitting burns about fifty more calories per hour. Considering that some Americans spend as many as twelve hours per day on their bottoms, that might be a good place to start.

On April 1st, 60 Minutes shined a spotlight on the dangers of sugar intake, broadcasting a report from Dr. Sanjay Gupta questioning whether or not the ubiquitous sweetener is actually "toxic."

If "toxic" is taken in the dictionary sense -- an adjective meaning "harmful" or "poisonous" -- sugar, in moderation, is not toxic. One jelly bean isn't a poison pill. A lump of sugar in your camomile won't transform your tea into a deadly cocktail. Consuming a single candy bar won't single-handedly clog your arteries.

Don't Overreact

There are numerous studies out there that might confuse one into believing that many things in our diet are dangerous in any quantity, despite the reality that when eaten sparingly or in moderation, they are harmless.

What follows are a few examples of this research and corresponding examples of how not to react to them:

A recent study has associated red meat with DEATH. Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health followed 37,600 men over 28 years and calculated that for each daily serving of red meat, the risk of dying increased 12 percent. No filet mignon for me, I guess. Drat!

Over the years, countless studies have told us that salt can be toxic. Sounds scary, I better get rid of that from my diet, too.

Uh oh, refined grains such as white rice and white bread can lead to the build-up of visceral fat, which has been strongly linked with many forms of heart disease. No more Asian food for me. This stinks.

Whoa, and apparently water can be toxic! Better stop drinking that stuff...

As illustrated, one should definitely not overreact to every piece of damning dietary information.

But What About Sugar?

I took a high level of skepticism into my viewing of 60 Minutes' piece on sugar, but I must admit, my skepticism was stifled within the first minute of watching Dr. Gupta's measured and well-rounded report. Scientists have amassed some pretty convincing research which demonstrates that the amount of sugar consumed in the diet of most Americans can indeed be harmful, dare I say, toxic, to their health.



I still hold fast to my skeptical stance that sugar is not a toxin, but it's obvious that sugar's sweetness is a double-edged lollipop, and it's adversely affecting America's collective health and national economy. One can't be skeptical about that.

Scientists have noticed that all cultures developed names for colors in a certain order: black, white, red, green, yellow, and blue. Basically this means that the colors later in this list weren't identified with names until the colors at the beginning of the list were named. For instance, if a community has a name for green, it will have names for black, white, and red.

This trend is interesting and all, but is there a scientific reason for it?

In a recent study, a team of researchers presented a possible explanation for this color hierarchy. By creating a community of virtual people imposed with the limits of human vision, the researchers were able to watch color naming in action. Based on their observations, the team posited that the color hierarchy is caused by the properties of human vision.

You might have noticed that blue is last on the hierarchy. This doesn't mean that blue is the least significant color--it just means that humans eyes probably weren't able to detect it as easily as other colors.

In fact, blue light is unique because it has one of the shortest wavelengths of visible light. This property grants blue light some very useful applications.

1) Blue light goes the farthest

As you may know, white light is all colors of light mashed together. When white light shines on an object, the object absorbs every color besides one. This color is reflected into our eyes, so we perceive the object as being that color.

As you also know, the ocean is blue. This is because water (along with salt, plankton, and other gunk) absorbs all the other colors in sunlight besides blue. The deeper you go, the more light is absorbed by the water, which makes most colors appear very faint--except blue.

Because blue light has a very short wavelength, it resists being sucked up by the water and penetrates farther down into the ocean than any other color of light.

Check out the difference between these pictures of the same coral that I took on a scuba diving trip. The one on the left was taken with a flash (which provides a source of white light under the ocean).

2) Blue light may help with depression

Though it may go against the "feeling blue" idiom, it's possible that blue light can be emotionally therapeutic. In 2009, blue LED lights were installed in twenty-nine Japanese train stations in an effort to reduce the number of people committing suicide by jumping in front of trains. The thought was that blue is a calming color because it evokes images of the sky and ocean. Similar action was taken in Glasgow, Scotland in order to reduce crime. In both cases, the blue lights seemed to work, but the success may have been due to the lights' novelty and their resemblance to police lights rather than any inherent psychological properties of blue light.

However, other studies have shown that light, and specifically blue light, may help to relieve Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). People with this disorder develop depression in the winter months due to the short days. Light therapy may help patients by decreasing their melatonin levels and by allowing their circadian melatonin rhythms to re-sync. In one study, blue light was better than red light at relieving symptoms of SAD, but further research is needed to determine optimal wavelengths.

3) Blue light makes better movies

I know it's a pain to have to re-build your movie library, but you have to admit that Blu-ray technology is pretty nifty. Quite possibly, the coolest thing about it is that it uses blue light.

Boring old DVDs are read with boring old red lasers, but Blu-ray discs are read with blue lasers. Because blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light, blue lasers can read bumps on a disc that are very small and spaced closely together. This means that a whole ton of data can be packed onto a Blu-ray disc and the machine can still read it accurately.

4) Blue light helps plants grow

Both red and blue light are essential for plant growth. No only do plants absorb light in these wavelength ranges in order to perform photosynthesis, but these specific colors trigger certain chain reactions in plants that regulate growth and life-cycles.

Blue light triggers mechanisms involved in leaf growth and phototropism, while red light tells a plant when to germinate. But these colors are not in competition. In fact, they work together quite nicely.

In a 2011 study, scientists showed how red and blue light need to work in tandem in order to promote growth and development in plants. However, it seems that blue light starts the molecular signaling necessary for plant growth while red light simply keeps it going.

5) Blue light treats acne

Though blue light probably won't remove your braces or get you a date to prom, it may help you out with another plague of puberty. Several studies have shown that blue light might be a gentle way to treat moderate acne.

The blue light works by zapping some compounds found in zit-causing bacteria. Chemical changes occur within the compound, causing it to kill the bacteria from the inside.

One recent study saw a change in some subjects' pimple size after just two treatments with a hand-held blue light.

6) Blue light is everyone's favorite

I probably don't even have to impress upon you the immensity of blue's awesomeness because blue is probably your favorite color already. In fact, most people in the world prefer the sight of blue light over any other color.

If you prefer a different color, maybe you want to reconsider. Because when in comes to wavelength, smaller is definitely better.

Humans, for the most part, love animals. We fawn over viral videos of adorable infants. We flock to zoos by the hundreds of millions each year. We dutifully dote over our pets with more affection and care than we grant ourselves. We look at them face-to-face, scrunch up their cheeks, and say obnoxious lubby-dubby things like, "Who's a bubby boo-boo?" Admit, it; we humans are smitten with critters.

But what happens when animals reciprocate the feeling? Well, it's not always so innocent.


You know the story: Dolphin falls in love with woman. Man gets in the way. Dolphin kills man. It's a tale as old as a Disney love story from a dystopian alternate dimension. In 1994, at a popular vacation spot in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a resident dolphin known for his peculiar friendliness towards female swimmers attacked two human males he apparently considered to be romantic competitors. One of the men died of internal hemorrhaging after being butted by the envious dolphin. 

This tendency to engage in jealousy-triggered violence is most commonly witnessed in our avian friends. Pet birds such as parrots, cockatiels, parakeets, and even pigeons are widely known to become besotted with their owners. As renowned animal behaviorist and UW-Madison professor Dr. Patricia McConnell told me, parrots are especially susceptible. If the bird is never exposed to another member of its species at the time when it reaches sexual maturity, it may just fall in love with you.

This has some pluses and minuses. On the plus side, your pet parrot may regurgitate food and offer it to you (how nice!). On the negative side, if an unfortunate boyfriend or girlfriend gets in the way of this affection, the bird may squawk at, flap at, or even bite them.

But an animal's adoration for humans can also manifest itself in more healthy ways. Pet birds may be jealous creatures, but they're also known to be protective guardians. There are multiple reported incidents of parrots fighting off burglars, alerting others when a victim is choking, and even imitating fire alarms in order to save their owners.

But where fondness for humans is concerned, dogs are the unparalleled champions. As mankind's leading companion, dogs have kept us warm on the coldest, darkest nights, saved us from under mountains of piled rubble, and led us safely across busy intersections. Dr. Patricia McConnell has written extensively on canine-animal relations and has no reservations about calling a dog's affection for humans by what it really is: love.

"[A dog's] physiology for creating social attachment is so similar to ours, and they behave in ways that, if any human did it, we'd label it love, attachment," McConnell told WhyFiles.org.

Animal love can be both beautiful and terrible, just like the human form. It's a stark symbol of how closely humans and critters are related in the overall scheme of life.

Last week, I found myself in a local food co-op. After ogling the assortment of delectable produce (ooh kumquats!), I wandered past the store's selection of homeopathic remedies. Curious, I stopped to check it out -- not to buy, of course, just to peruse.

In a quick span of time, I was chuckling heartily at many of the remedies' descriptions. For excess salivation, I could buy Mercurius Vivus. Gelsemium would take care of my stage fright. My heartache would be healed with Ignatia. And I had a plethora of choices to deal with specific types of bodily discharge: Arsenicum Album for burning, Allium Cepa for clear nasal, Hepar Sulphur for green, Gelsemium for watery, and Pulsatilla for yellow (ewwww).

But overall, my favorite remedy was Rhenium Nida, for "preventing Chinese food-induced flatulence while on a date, but only before 6pm when it's raining outside."

Okay I made that one up, but you get the point. Some of these homeopathic remedies on the market are so ridiculous that they could be used as props at a comedy show. The only thing funnier than the remedies themselves is that from 2005 to 2008, Britain's National Health Service spent £11.89 million on them.

The vast majority of homeopathic remedies on the market don't work, of course. A host of peer-reviewed studies, including "A systematic review of systematic reviews of homeopathy," have found that homeopathic medication, by and large, is no more effective than a placebo.

One of the few homeopathic remedies that has some scientific sway behind it is honey, which can serve to soothe the symptoms of a common cough. However, this may say more about how antiquated and ineffectual available cough syrups are than how effective honey is.

Another homeopathic remedy that's proven to work is Urban Moonshine's Chocolate Love Tonic, though not precisely in the way it's advertised. The tonic functions as a terrific way to break the ice at parties and pubs. And just a few drops of the stuff -- using the conveniently included tester -- can add a little extra "ooh la la" to a White Russian.

Is it just me or does cancer seem to crop up in every movie lately? I know that I've become hyper-aware of cancer's prevalence since my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer a few years ago, but seriously--it's almost laughable how often I start a perfectly unassuming movie only to find that cancer has somehow weaseled into the plot line.

I don't mind watching movies that take a thoughtful look at cancer. Movies like Wit and 50/50 portray patients' struggles with grace and respect. What gets my goat is when movies use cancer as a plot device.

Do you need to kill off a character? Need a background story for a character's troubled past? Need a desperate, dramatic situation so that characters can finally reveal their true feelings? Insert cancer.

It seems like romantic movies especially rely on cancer as a storyline crutch. If I could, I would would crown author Nicholas Sparks as the king of the cancer crutch. Not one, but several of his books-turned-into-movies feature a character who tragically dies of cancer for the sole purpose of delivering the story to its sappy ending.


Not only is cancer annoyingly prevalent in movies, it is often portrayed inaccurately. After reviewing many cancer-themed movies, one researcher found that the most common types of cancer--lung, breast, prostate, and colon--are hardly ever seen in movies. Instead, the author argues, writers opt for "cleaner" types of cancer like leukemia and brain cancer, which gives the illusion that these types are more common than they actually are.

Even thoughtful, well-done cancer movies still don't often even hint at the types of issues patient's actually face. And, as one writer points out, the character with cancer usually dies. But in actuality, more than half of people who are diagnosed with cancer will live for at least another five years.

While fictional works about cancer are typically pessimistic about a person's chances to survive, the mass media is exactly the opposite. After reviewing 436 articles from a variety of new sources, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that the mass media under-reports negative stories and plays up positive stories about cancer treatments. The researchers summarized their results, saying: 

News reports about cancer frequently discuss aggressive treatment and survival but rarely discuss treatment failure, adverse events, end-of-life care, or death. These portrayals of cancer in the new media may give patients an inappropriately optimistic view of cancer treatments, outcomes, and prognosis.   

The way cancer comes across in mass media may account for some surprising results from a survey conducted by the American Cancer Society. It seems that many people still believe untrue claims about cancer research. For instance, almost 40 percent of people surveyed thought that living in a polluted city is more likely to cause cancer than smoking a pack a day. As a result of the survey, the ACS released a list of cancer myths, stating why they are simply not true.

Despite the effects of the media's many misrepresentations of cancer, I would contend that poor portrayal and frequent use of cancer in movies is just as bad. In movies, the emotions surrounding cancer seep into your psyche without you realizing it. And then when you come up against cancer in real-life, you have trouble distinguishing your true emotions from the ones you've seen on film.    

But as I've said, my beef with cancer in movies is primarily when the disease is used unnecessarily to put characters into dramatic situations. Why not simply have the characters get stuck in elevator? Or get stranded on a desert island? Heck, why not just bring on the end of the world? Even though all these situations are over-done, they are still less over-done than cancer and they are less insensitive.

And if you're really stuck on having a character die from a terminal illness, how bout choosing a different disease for once? Better yet, try making up your own disease! That way you can decide how dramatic it is, and no one can dispute how accurately you portrayed it.

A new paper from noted American chemist Ronald Breslow was recently accepted by the Journal of the American Chemical Society. It's titled, "Evidence for the Likely Origin of Homochirality in Amino Acids, Sugars, and Nucleosides on Prebiotic Earth," but you may know it better as "the one study that says 'advanced' dinosaurs could rule other planets."

This is a tad confusing, because the paper itself wasn't about dinosaurs at all. It centered on chirality, a property of an object, organism, or molecule which means that the object is not identical to its mirror image. Human hands are a good example of chirality. Your left hand can never be perfectly superimposed upon your right. In fact, this example is so ideal that chemists and molecular biologists dub chiral molecules as having either "left-handed" or "right-handed" chirality.

Noted in the paper, sugars and amino acids -- two of the major building blocks of life -- are homochiral, which means they all vastly follow either right-handedness or left-handedness. Sugars tend to be right-handed (D-sugars), while amino acids tend to be left-handed (L-amino acids).

Breslow's primary goal with the paper was to postulate on how this homochirality came about on Earth. He argued that meteorites carrying organic material struck the Earth almost four billion years ago and thus seeded life with left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars.

Though thoroughly fascinating, the paper probably wouldn't have garnered much attention from the media. Chirality simply doesn't quite captivate a mainstream audience. But you know what does? Super-intelligent advanced dinosaurs from space! In the paper's conclusion, Breslow states:

"An implication from this work is that elsewhere in the universe there could be life forms based on D-amino acids and L-sugars. Such life forms could well be advanced versions of dinosaurs, if mammals did not have the good fortune to have the dinosaurs wiped out by an asteroidal collision, as on Earth. We would be better off not meeting them." (added emphasis)

This conclusion spawned a headline arms race across the internet on Wednesday. A few of my favorites: "Scientists Say Intelligent Dinosaurs Could Rule Other Planets." "Dinosaurs from Space!" "Dinosaurs: This is the greatest closing paragraph to a scientific paper ever."

The last headline gets at the point I'd like to make with this post. Breslow's conclusion was only mildly connected to the paper's primary focus and a tad overstated. This may not be kosher with some, but frankly, I'm okay with it. Embellishment like that, though slightly misleading, makes science fun and accessible to the masses. If Joe Schmoe -- while aimlessly surfing the web -- gets drawn in by a headline touting "space dinos," reads the article and learns a little about chirality and the origins of life, then no harm has been done. It might even inspire Joe to become a molecular biologist!

Now, of course, scientists should use restraint when crafting attention-grabbing conclusions. If the researchers who conducted the study, "Roles of the Drosophila SK Channel (dSK) in Courtship Memory" ended by stating that fruit flies with slightly altered genetics could TAKE OVER THE WORLD, well, that's not okay. That's just crazy talk.

Last year, the world population reached 7,000,000,000. At the time, the media and blogosphere briefly erupted in a war of editorials arguing overpopulation, but for most of Earth's citizens, life went on as it did before humans became seven billion strong. But the question was begged: what is the human race's carrying capacity? After all, we can't multiply forever...

Carrying capacity is defined as the "maximum population size that an environment can sustain indefinitely." For most species, there are four variables that factor into calculating carrying capacity: food availability, water supply, living space, and environmental conditions. Even with this relatively basic quartet, carrying capacity can be rather tricky to determine. It's simplest to compute when a clear limiting factor is realized. In the case of a population on a small, isolated island, the limiting factor might be space. For a species dwelling in a desert, it might be water.

In the case of humans, the arithmetic is much, much more complicated. Our meta-population is diverse, widespread, and affected by a large multitude of unique variables including technological advancement, disease, and energy consumption. Plus, our species has the ability to deny our reproductive instincts and procreate without producing offspring. Brilliant thinkers can estimate human carrying capacity all they want, but any prediction is subject to the whims of time and the inherent difficulty to grasp the sheer complexities of the variables.

Sometime over the next millennium -- a relatively short time when you consider the age of the Earth -- the human population's carrying capacity will be realized. Assuming space as the limiting factor, and a population growth rate of 1% (It's currently 1.14%), the population density of Earth will equal one human being per square meter of land in a little over 1,000 years.  That's quite a packed Earth.


But we know it won't get to this point, as other factors such as food availability and environmental degradation will likely stem our growth first. More importantly, as people become wealthier and more educated, they tend to produce fewer children. This phenomenon is already occurring in Europe, where the fertility rate has dropped below 2.1 births per woman -- the number considered to be the replacement rate of the human population. Because of this, some demographers think the world population will simply stop growing after we hit a population of around 9 or 10 billion within the next 50 to 100 years.

However, if the human population does continue to grow, it may be that we humans will not know our carrying capacity until it comes upon us. I wonder, will we reach it subtly, without even realizing it, or will it smack us in the face? Humans are considered a "K-selected" species, in that our population size is relatively stable and prone to fluctuate around a carrying capacity, so adapting to it may be easy. But as we've seen in the past, humans are not invulnerable to population collapse. We may fall hard before rising again.

So, in reality, the ultimate question isn't, "What is the human race's carrying capacity?" It's "what will we do if and when we get there?"

That question will likely be even harder to answer.

It's the day of Ted's big exam. For the past 48 hours, note cards and study aids have been his fare. A tedium punctured only by the occasional fifteen-minute Facebook perusal and the quick errand to restock on caffeine.

As Ted walks into the lecture hall, the subtle intensity and perspiration-spawned humidity smacks him in the face. Everywhere, it's frazzled hair, anxious faces, and hurried, last minute study attempts. Ted knows it's time to draw his secret weapon. Reaching nonchalantly into his bag, he grabs a pack of chewing gum, pops a stick into his mouth, and confidently chews with purpose. Ted then takes a seat, not too close to the front, but not too far, either.

The tests begin to be passed out. They're slapped face down on desks like a judge's verdict. Only when the tests are overturned will the test-taker learn the ruling: innocent on all counts of multiple choice, or guilty of unpreparedness? Pass or fail?

As the test is placed before Ted, he spits the gum out of his mouth and places it neatly into the foil wrapper. He's ready.

College students today are looking for any opportunity to gain an upper hand on their studies. Unfortunately, this quest for an edge has led many to turn to potentially harmful drugs come test time. Aderall is a popular choice.

But somewhat ironically, if students would have just done a little research, they may have discovered a simpler, scientifically proven study aid with no ill effects: chewing gum.

In a 2002 study, psychologists in the United Kingdom administered a battery of attention and memory tests to a group of 75 subjects. One-third was given gum and asked to chew it, another third was instructed to chew without gum, and the final third did not chew at all. The researchers found that gum-chewers' scores were 24% higher than the controls' on tests of immediate word recall, and 36% higher on tests of delayed word recall.

In addition, a previous study conducted in 2000 found elevated brain activity in the hippocampus during gum-chewing. Researchers still aren't certain as to exactly why this happens.

But test-takers worldwide undoubtedly aren't too concerned with precisely why chewing gum provides such a notable mental advantage. They just care whether or not it works in real-life applications. Well, work it does.

Last year, Dr. Serge Onyper of St. Lawrence University conducted a study which showed that students who chewed gum for five minutes before taking a test performed better than those who did not. Cognitive benefits from what Onyper termed "mastication-induced arousal" lasted for approximately twenty minutes.

So there you have it, college students. Ditch the Adderall and chew your gum.

Are you sitting comfortably? Yes? Good. Now, I want you to relax... That's it; deeper and deeper. Rest your hands in your lap... Feel your shoulders loosen as your troubles melt away... If you're reading this at work, tune out your noisy co-workers... Now, while staring at the picture below, speak out loud in calm, resolute, and preferably ethereal voice: "I will read this blog post. I will click the "like" button below when I'm finished. I will read this blog post..."

Whether or not you believe in hypnosis, neuroscientists are now showing that the practice does indeed produce measurable effects in the brain.

Don't worry--I'm not going to drag you though yet another debate about whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. I've had that conversation way too many times, and each time it ends up, well, fruitless.

Instead I'll talk about the controversy itself.

First let's get one thing straight: botanically speaking, a tomato is the ripened ovary of a flowering plant. Therefore there's no question that it's a fruit.

It sounds pretty cut and dry, but in some contexts tomato categorization isn't quite that obvious. Legally, for instance, the tomato is considered a vegetable.

The need for a legal definition of tomato arose when a new 10 percent tariff was put on vegetables (but not fruit) coming into the U.S. Of course, some sneaky tomato importers tried to bypass the tariff by calling their tomatoes fruit. When the tax collector didn't go for it, the tomato importers sued.

The case, Nix v. Hedden, lasted for six years. But finally, with some help from the dictionary, the court unanimously found the tomato to be a vegetable. The reasoning was that tomatoes are eaten for the main course of a meal while fruit is usually eaten as dessert.

In fact, the USDA still considers the tomato a vegetable today. The tomato is listed with the vegetables in an annual summary supplied by the National Agricultural Statistics Service. The vegetable report also lists some other surprising would-be "fruits," including honeydew, cantaloupe, and watermelon.


Scientists who aren't even botanists have found ways to use the fruit and vegetable classification controversy. One psychological study used fruits and vegetables to explore the way we learn new concepts. The researchers presented the subjects with examples of exotic produce and asked them to use different concept-learning strategies to determine whether the produce was a fruit or a vegetable.


The source of the fuzzy line between fruits and vegetables may come from the fact that vegetables don't really exist. When you think about it, many vegetables don't have much in common with each other besides the arbitrary guideline that they are not sweet when raw. The term "vegetable" is basically just a miscellaneous category that has little scientific basis.

The vegetable's lack of definition may have come into play last November when a law was passed about federally-subsidized school lunches. The bill allowed two tablespoons of tomato paste to continue to be considered a serving of vegetables. This means that a piece of pizza can be counted as a a vegetable for children's lunches. The airtight reasoning is that a half cup of solid tomatoes (one serving) is used to make two tablespoons of paste.

This case opens up an entire new realm of controversy. If pizza is considered a vegetable, then what else?

Though they may seem trivial and redundant, apparently conversations about fruit and vegetable classification are actually important. So I guess the next time someone tries to suck you into yet another heated argument about whether a tomato is a fruit or vegetable, maybe you should oblige. 

...ON MARS!