Nickii’s discoveries

Does the brain sleep when we do?

Does it ever happen to you that you wake up feeling even more tired
What do you think is the main reason we sleep

- humans spend ⅓ of their life sleeping

- sleep deprivation will kill you faster than food deprivation
- within 5 mins of waking up, 50% of your dream is already forgotten
- pain tolerance is reduced by sleep deprivation

- our brain doesn’t get exhausted

- when we sleep, it keeps on working, by rescheduling our tasks,and energising
us
- sleep allows us to relax and to give more energy to our mind and body
- our brain sorts out our days events, to then start the next day with a bang
- in other words, sleep allows to filter everything that has happened in our day
- that is why when we are tired (at the end of the day) our mind starts shutting
off, as our brain is ready to organize the events that have happened
- that is also why we wake up with a clearer perspective and sometimes with the
answer at our fingertips
- even that our brain provides us with better solution s while we’re sleeping, as
it is able to work more efficiently on the remaining tasks
- throughout one night, your body goes into different sleep periods, and the
brain stimulates different kinds and amounts of neurons in these different
states
- to conclude, the brain in fact works harder while we are asleep and never
sleeps 1

Alien planet
- The galaxy is precisely 100 000 light years in diameter
- Wild to think that their is so much more beyond our world, whether there's life or not
- 100 billion planets in our galaxy
- 250 billion stars, give or take 150 billion
- a decade ago, the thought of alien planets were ridiculous
- exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light years from earth
- passes in front of it’s parent stars as it orbits, retained most of its atmosphere
and a little larger and massive than the earth
- 10 times closer to it’s star then the earth to the sun
- red dwarfs, = smaller and cooler, planet receives half as much sunlight as the
earth

1
www.thefactspeak.com/human-brain-active-sleep-day/
 - “We could hardly hope for a better target to perform one of the biggest quests
in science — searching for evidence of life beyond Earth.” -Jason Dittmann of
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- for a planet to be livable, it must be able to retain an atmosphere and have
liquid surface water
- when red dwarf stars are young, they can produce radiation that can have a
negative effect on the atmospheres of the planets nearby
- researchers believe that there must've been a magma ocean, that was feeding
steam into the atmosphere and replenishing the planet with water, until this
day where it’s reached its cool temperature
- around 5 billion years old
- diameter : 18000 km = 1.4 times larger than earth
- guess that's it made of rock

Cravings
Do you experience specific cravings often?
In what situation do you find yourself having these cravings?
Which food/kind of food do you crave most?

- needing chocolate isn't a thing in other countries

- When you’re tired you are most likely to give into your cravings
- you are most likely to crave sugar over fat

- its common knowledge that the human body is filled with tiny living critters
- intestinal microflora
- only recently they discovered how much they have an influence on our body
- they help regulate the metabolism, assist the immune system and fight disease
- 100 trillion living inside the body : 1 to 2 kg of our total body weight
- certain microbes have evolved and can now influence the vagus nerve (links
the brain and the gut)
- it is this relation that allow them to influence our cravings
- they prefer sugary or high fat foods
- they release chemicals that stimulate our nervous system to affect ou cravings
or by lighting up our satisfaction nodes when their demands are met
- may be partly responsible for today’s obesity problems

- the only way out, is to abstain from microbe-driven cravings

 Isa’s discoveries
-Urine used to be used for tattoo ink color mixing.
-When you get a tattoo, your skin is pierced 50 to 3000 times per minute by the tattoo
machine.
-The most popular tattoo images are angels and hearts.
-A tattoo is created in the second layer of the skin, the dermis, because its cells are more
stable than those of the epidermis.
-‘Tattoo’ is one of the most misspelled words in the English language.2

Some products that make up tattoo ink move inside the body in the form of
nanoparticles and even reach the lymph nodes.

○ Did you know, that when getting a tattoo, toxic impurities and inorganic
pigments present in the ink travel into the body?
○ When someone wants to get a tattoo, they are particularly concerned about the
hygiene conditions of the tattoo parlor they choose. They pay lots of attention
to the sterilization of used needles.
○ But most people are not interested in the chemical composition of ink colors,
○ Recent research shows that they should take it into consideration.
○ According to the researchers, very little is known about the potential
impurities found in the color mixes used in tattoos. Most inks contain organic
pigments, but they can also contain chemical contaminants such as nickel,
chromium, manganese or cobalt.
○ After black carbon, the second ingredient to be commonly used in tattoo inks
is titanium dioxide, a white pigment usually used to create certain shades and
to lighten certain colors when mixed with other dyes. White tattoos, therefore,
the use of titanium dioxide, is often associated with a long healing process,
swelling and itching.
○ In addition, UV X-ray measurements allowed researchers to locate titanium
dioxide at the micro and nano scale in the skin and in the lymphatic system.
They detected a wide range of particles up to several micrometers in human
skin, but only nanoparticles were transported to the lymph nodes. This reality
can lead to chronic enlargement of the lymph nodes and permanent exposure.
○ The next step is to study a larger sample of people who have had negative
reactions to tattooing, in order to find a link between the chemical and
structural properties of the pigments used to create tattoos.3

2
https://www.tattoodo.com/a/2014/12/14-facts-about-tattoos/
 The fear of spiders is innate.

Are you scared of spiders?

What do you know about spiders?
How do you think people develop their fear of spiders?

-All spiders are predators

-Spiders can't digest solid foods
-All spiders produce silk, but not all of them spin webs4
○ Max Planck Institute of Neuroscience concluded that the fear of spiders and
snakes are innate, by observing the stress reactions of six-month-old infants
who were presented with a spider or snake.
○ So what didn’t work with most previous studies on this topic was that they
were only tested on adults or older children. The results made it difficult to
distinguish between learned and innate behavior.
○ When the babies were introduced to images of snakes or spiders, compared to
more easy-going pictures like flowers or fish, their reaction was clear, because
the pupils of their eyes showed a remarkable growth in diameter.
○ They made sure to use pictures of the same size and color so this aspect
wouldn’t have an influence on the results.
○ The change in pupil size is an important signal of the activation of the
noradrenergic system in the brain, which is responsible for our stress
reactions.
○ Their findings show that fear of snakes and spiders is the fruit of evolution.
○ In countries like Canada or France, most people are not at risk of being faced
with a poisonous snake or spider, even in the wild. Nevertheless, few people
are comfortable with the idea of watching a spider moving on their arm,
however harmless it may be. In fact, 1 to 5% of the population would suffer
from arachnophobia.
○ The researchers note that other studies have shown that babies do not associate
images of rhinoceros, bears or other theoretically dangerous animals with fear.
○ The explanation lies in the fact that the ancestors of spiders and snakes
coexisted with those of humans for 40 to 60 million years, a period of
cohabitation much longer than with current dangerous mammals. The reaction
"induced" by spiders and snakes would therefore be integrated into the human
brain over a much longer evolutionary period.
○ These explanations would also be applicable for the risks represented by
knives, syringes or casings, for example. On an evolutionary level, these

3
http://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1056718/tatouage-des-nanoparticules-atteignent-les-ganglions-
lymphatiques
4
https://www.thoughtco.com/fascinating-facts-about-spiders-1968544
 dangers have only been around for a short time and there has been no time to
establish reaction mechanisms in the brain since birth.5

Swearing is good for you!

Do you swear a lot?

How do you feel when someone around you swears
How do you feel when you swear?

-You swear more than you think: According to statistics, swear words make up around .7% of
the average person’s vocabulary.
-Some languages don’t even have any swear words, like Japanese.
-There’s a swearing disorder called Coprolalia.6

○ According to scientist Emma Byrne, author of the book “Swearing Is Good for
You”, swearing would be good for your psychological and physical health
○ In 2009, a study by researchers at Keele University in the United Kingdom,
consisted of students who were asked to put their hand in icy water.
○ Some were aloud to swear, but others weren't, and scientists noted greater
resistance to pain among those who had the right to swear, compared to those
who weren’t.
○ Another study shows that when people are stressed and they tell themselves
that they can’t swear, their performance rate decreases and their stress rate
increases.
○ The study took place in the shuttlecock of an airplane and in an operating
room as well, and it was proven that that pilots and surgeons who were
allowed to swear during their work, handled their stressful situations way
better compared to surgeons and pilots who weren’t aloud to swear.
○ Swearing also helps cancer patients or patients with a chronic illness, for some
studies show that swearing is a way for patients to express their sadness,
therefore relieve them from some of their pain.
○ Swearing also makes us stronger physically: in another study, researchers
observed people exercising with different equipment to strengthen the power
of their fingers, hands and forearms. They found that the participants could
exert a stronger force on these objects, as well as have a longer endurance,
when they were aloud to swear.7

5
http://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1063234/peur-serpents-araignees-innee-acquis-arachnophobie-
biologie-cerveau-bebe
6
https://www.languagetrainers.com/blog/2017/02/20/6-fascinating-facts-about-swearing/
7
http://ici.radio-canada.ca/premiere/emissions/les-eclaireurs/segments/chronique/60531/jurer-sacrer-
bienfaits-sante-physique-psychologique-etudes