Teenager's Perspective

Have you ever wondered why in the past decade doctors ask more questions related to family medical history? Most of the common diseases generally arise from a complex interplay of causes including lifestyle, environmental factors, diet as well as heredity. A genome is an organism's complete set of genetic instructions. Each genome contains all of the information needed to build that organism and allow it to grow and develop. The instructions in our genome are made up of DNA. Genetics is the study of Genes. Genes are the expression of DNA that are compressed into the form of an X called a chromosome. The chromosome is located within the nucleus of a cell. The DNA is a double helix structure containing the instructions for the cell and the gene expression. The coding for the instructions are made up of various nucleic acids. By learning about genes and DNA we can change the DNA sequence of plants and animals to make better versions of themselves. These plants and animals are Genetica...

  I n today's world, we often find people, especially teenagers, being addicted to something or the other. It can be as mundane as a food addiction to as serious as drug addiction. I wanted to explore more and understand the reason behind such addictions and their possible connection with boredom. Boredom is broadly defined as the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest. It seems to be a specific mental state that people find unpleasant—a lack of stimulation that leaves them craving for relief, with a host of behavioural, medical and social consequences. Addiction is defined as an inability to control/stop using a substance or engaging in a behaviour/activity even though it is causing psychological and/or physical harm. Boredom and addiction go hand in hand. When someone is bored, it is easier for them to be addicted, leaving them vulnerable. This is because boredom is caused by the lack of external stimuli in the brain. Another reason can be a hormone called se...

“As the man thinketh in his heart, so is he” aphorism by James Allen, he suggests a man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts. Thought can roughly be defined as a mental process of thinking according to the Oxford dictionary. Thinking is manipulating information when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, reason, form ideas and make decisions. Thought - the act of thinking, in turn produces more thoughts. Everything stems first in the form of thought which is enacted upon creating an action, just as a plant stems from a seed. So, the base or foundation originates from a thought, thus thinking leads to action and later to the corresponding result. Every minute of every day, actions and inactions by the physical body is a response to the thoughts that run through the mind. What flows through your mind continuously also sculpts your brain in permanent ways. Eric Kandel, the winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Medicine, discovered that ...

  I was intrigued to know the role of the heart, whether it was just limited as pumping station/muscle or has a higher purpose. In the history of evolution, humans are always referred to by their heart e.g., warm-hearted, or cold-hearted person. As we know heart which is one of the most important and vital organs in the body is a muscular organ that is part of the circulatory system and is responsible for pumping blood throughout the body to provide oxygen to the various cells present. But is it just a muscle? It is scientifically proven that as a response to the feeling of fear, extreme pain, anger, anxiety or a jump scare situation, our heart rhythm pattern become more erratic and often the heart responds to the release of adrenaline by increasing the heart rate. The increase in the heart rate in turn leads to an increase in the blood pressure consequently maximising the blood glucose levels. Blood glucose is primarily sent to the brain (for the purpose for it to react faster) an...

    Link That Connects  Concentration  And  Memory Power Are you often forgetting your cell phone? Have you ever walked into a room for something, but forgotten what it was? Are unable to recollect names or phone numbers or street names?  You probably answered yes to at least one, if not all, of these examples— you are not alone. We are all prone to committing the memory error known as absentmindedness . These lapses in memory are caused by breaks in attention or our focus being somewhere else, according to Cynthia, a psychologist (personal communication, September 5, 2013). Psychologist Daniel Schacter (2001), a well-known memory researcher, offers seven ways our memories fail us. He calls them the seven sins of memory and categorizes them into three groups:forgetting, distortion and intrusion. One of the sins mentioned is 'absentmindedness', forgetting caused by lapses in attention. Concentration is the ability to focus the mind on one subject, object, or...

  Openness to experience, or just being open, is a fundamental personality trait that indicates your receptiveness to new information, ideas, and experiences. In order to retain newly gained knowledge in our memory, related brain changes need to occur. New connections between neurons and synapses are formed in places such as the amygdala, the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the prefrontal cortex, which are involved in memory processing. It was once believed that as we aged, the neural networks became more rigid due to insufficient exposure caused by a lack of learning. But in the past two decades, research reveals that the brain never stops changing and adjusting. The capacity of the brain to change with learning is called plasticity. Neuroplasticity is the capacity of neurons and neural networks in the brain to change their connections. Neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire of University College London (U.C.L.) conducted a study on London's taxi drivers who could navigate the smog-fille...