by Kathleen Sai-Halasz This article was written by a student at the Wheeler School. Brown's chapter of The Triple Helix collaborates with the Wheeler School to engage high school students in science journalism. It is a common misconception that all forms of communication between humans are through verbal or body language. That is, all communication of emotional states of people is through the sense of hearing or visual channels. However, through recent experiments conducted by researchers at Utrecht University, this theory was challenged as researchers showed that people could communicate though chemosignals as well (1). Chemosignals are chemical signals the human body gives off, often through sweat, through which people can interact. Jasper H. B. de Groot and colleagues chose to focus their experiment on the emotions of fear and disgust, and found that chemosignals given off of one person while experiencing one of these emotions can induce the same emotional state upon the inhaler (1). This supports the idea that forms of communication are not limited to eyes and ears, and that through the effects of chemosignals, people can communicate their emotions without needing to hear or see the other person. Researchers at Utrecht University tested the hypothesis that it is possible to transfer an emotion from one person to another through the fumes the sender’s sweat gives off (1). Researchers chose to work with the emotions of fear, scientifically known as sensory acquisition, and disgust, also known as sensory rejection (1). In this experiment, only males were chosen as the senders because they produce more potent sweat signals, whereas only women were chosen to be used as receivers because they are shown to have a more acute sense of smell (1).
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by Layla Kazemi This article was written by a student at the Wheeler School. Brown's chapter of The Triple Helix collaborates with the Wheeler School to engage high school students in science journalism. Does life exist elsewhere in the universe? Could life ever exist in the future and has it in the past? The possibility of other life in the universe has been speculated by the human race for centuries and is one of the most excogitated questions that humans face. Mars has been the focus of much of the research to answer this question because of the planet’s proximity to Earth, and although exploration of the planet began over half a century ago, the possibility of life on Mars is still as pertinent today as it was decades ago. For the past couple of years, NASA has been working on a car-sized robotic rover named Curiosity to explore the Gale Crater on Mars. The rover successfully landed on Mars aboard the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft on August 6, 2012 and will spend a Martian year (687 days) exploring the planet. The goal of this project is to investigate and assess whether the area has ever had or still has environmental conditions favorable to life (1). So what exactly is necessary for a planet to be considered habitable? According to NASA, there are three conditions that are crucial for life to exist: liquid water, other chemical ingredients utilized by life and a source of energy (1). To search for the existence of these conditions the rover is using a strategy that NASA Mars exploration has used for years: following water (1). Since every environment on Earth containing liquid water sustains microbial life, this strategy makes the most sense. Researchers believe that the Gale Crater, where the rover landed and where it is conducting its research, was wet at some point (1). The exact location within the crater where Curiosity landed is near the foot of a layered mountain named Mount Sharp, which contains minerals that form in water and may preserve organics (1). This was determined thanks to five years of research by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter prior to the launch of Curiosity, a mission that evaluated 30 potential Martian locations for landing (1). by Sara Kazemi This article was written by a student at the Wheeler School. Brown's chapter of The Triple Helix collaborates with the Wheeler School to engage high school students in science journalism. You’re about to take your last final of the semester, but you simply cannot focus. The ability to ace this exam is presented to you in the form of a simple pill that plenty of your friends already take. How bad could it be? Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a disorder characterized by the inability to focus, hyperactivity, impulsive behavior, or a combination of all three (1). ADHD is one of the most common childhood disorders and usually continues to affect those people diagnosed through adolescence and adulthood (1). Although scientists are not completely sure what causes ADHD, studies suggest that genes might play a large role (1). Like other disorders and illnesses, it is most probable that ADHD results from a combination of factors (1). Research has shown that ADHD often runs in families and children with ADHD who carry a particular version of a certain gene have thinner brain tissue in the areas of the brain associated with attention (1). Environmental factors are also linked to ADHD; studies suggest that there is a potential link between cigarette smoking and drinking during pregnancy and offspring with ADHD as well as high exposure to lead during early childhood (1). Also, children who have suffered from brain injuries tend to show some behaviors similar to those diagnosed with ADHD (1). There are other causes of ADHD that are harder to support; there are ideas that refined sugar causes ADHD or makes symptoms worse while British research indicates a possible link between consumption of certain food additives like artificial colors or preservatives and hyperactivity (1). There are a multitude of medications that are said to treat or improve the severity of ADHD, but unfortunately there is no cure to this disorder. |