Potential risks for diabetes: Working the nightshift?

Sorry for the impromptu hiatus. It has been a rough couple of weeks.

            So...I feel like this is a relatively well-known fact: You shouldn't eat at night. Seems simple enough, but a recent study has discovered the reasons for it. During the nighttime hours, the body actually turns more of the food into fats as opposed to fuels - like it does during the day.

            The study was published in the Current Biology journal, and in the study it was found that mice (which are nocturnal) had a variant ability to regulate blood sugar and when the researchers disrupted their sleep cycle (a circadian rhythm) they were also more likely to put on greater amounts of fat.

            This study makes me think of all of the Tom and Jerry episodes I have watched throughout the years. All I can say, is thank goodness Jerry gets all the exercise running from Tom - or he would have been super overweight (and probably eaten). I think that would have kind of ruined the show for me.

            Another interesting part of this story is that the researchers believe there is some connection between working night-shifts and the likelihood of being overweight and getting diabetes. This has been show in previous studies, but is now believed that there could be a link between the two. To test this, researchers looked to see how well the mice's bodies processed foods throughout the entire circadian cycle. It was found that during the day, the mice were not particularly receptive to insulin. Due to this lack of response, their bodies did not take sugar from the blood to use as energy, but it rather got stored as fat. They next tried keeping the mice under dim light all the time, and the mice actually became somewhat insulin resistant - and they put on more fat.

            I guess, the moral of the story is don't just watch what you eat, but also when you eat. And maybe try to get a job where you don't have to work the nightshift.

Full article - here

Info on the Circadian cycle - here

Cesium- Element of the Week from 1/25 -2/22

            

             Cesium is element 55 on the Periodic Table. It is a soft, metallic-colored alkali metal, and has a very low melting point. Cesium is one of the five metals that are liquid at room temperature. The metal is mildly toxic, but presents a high health risk to humans and the environment.

             It was discovered in 1860 by the German chemists Robert Wilhelm Bunsen and Gustav Robert Kirchhoff in mineral water from a town in Germany - Durkheim. They were able to distinguish and characterize it through the method of flame spectroscopy. When burned, its compounds give off a blue or violet color. This is why the name comes from the Latin word for "sky blue" - caesius. Its characteristics are very similar to that of Rubidium.

            Cesium forms alloys with other alkali metals. It is considered relatively rare element, with a natural abundance of around 3 parts per million in the Earth's crust. It is the 36th most common element.

            The metal is commonly used in drilling fluids to explore for petroleum, atomic clocks, and its compounds are used in the production of chemicals. One of the biggest dangers of Cesium is the fact that is lethal to humans if direct contact is made - causing spasms. It is highly reactive, as with all alkali metals. When it comes in contact with water, it is highly reactive (explosive).

That puppy/kitten/cute thing makes me feel so... aggressive?

         

           Graduate level researchers at Yale University have been researching a phenomena they have dubbed "cute aggression." Essentially, this phenomena describes the aggression that one feels when they see an image of something adorable, say a kitten or puppy. It's not necessarily that people feel angry at the animal; it's just that they begin to say phrases like: "I just can't handle this", "It's so fluffy I want to die", or want to squeeze something.

            To come to this conclusion, researchers gathered 109 participants and had them look at pictures of animals, which were cute, funny, or neutral.  It was shown that peoples' responses were most aggressive when the pictures were "cute." To further secure their results, the researchers had 90 of their participants to look at the images again, and this time pop the bubbles on Bubble wrap as many or as few times as they would like. The results showed that the cute images resulted in people popping an average of 120 bubbles, while the neutral resulted in an average of 100 bubbles, and just 80 for the funny images.

            This research seems to contradict the common notion that when an animal is cute, we strive to protect it and treat it more gently than other creatures. The researchers aren't sure why this phenomenon occurs, but they have some ideas. One idea is that this aggression may come from the fact that we want to hold or cuddle the cute animal, but we can't physically reach it. This in turn leads to frustration and aggressive behavior. It could also be similar to the reaction of children to pets - we focus on not hurting the animals so much that we end up hurting them. The last hypothesis is that when there is an overwhelming positive emotion, the response is apparently negative.

Full articles- here! here! and...here!

Cute Animals! More cute animals!