Sleep: How It Helps You Learn

Caroline Goldberg
Science Blog
Mr. Webb

 The article I read this week from Science Daily (article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130226081155.htm) talking about the importance of sleep. Dr. Ines Wilhelm says, "Studies of adults have shown that sleeping after learning supports the long-term storage of the material learned." She conducted the same study on children and found ""In children, much more efficient explicit knowledge is generated during sleep from a previously learned implicit task." In the study, the data showed that after a full day of learning at school and at different hours of sleep, the children that got the most sleep did a better job remembering and applying the information they learned the day before.
This article is extremely relevant to my life and other serious students. The pressure to do well and still complete the hours of homework we have a night takes a toll on how much we sleep. I think if school directors would look at the study they could reconsider homework, project, and essay outlines.



image: http://blogmedia.eventbrite.com/wp-content/uploads/sleep-on-books-1.10.12.jpg

Dyslexia: More Than a Problem With Reading

Caroline Goldberg
Mr. Webb
Science Blog
Saturday February 23rd 2013


When someone hears the word dyslexia, what comes to mind is a problem with reading, but new research from Northwestern University  shows that not only do dyslexic children struggle with reading but that it is harder for their brain to decode sounds. In an article from Science Daily (article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130219172159.htm) Nina Kraus says, "We discovered a systematic relationship between reading ability and the consistency with which the brain encodes sounds." Though the study researchers have found that children with dyslexia have trouble decoding sounds they hear because their brain has trouble processing them. The students that were very strong readers could decode sound faster and more accurately than children that were dyslexic or not strung readers. The children with dyslexia had inconsistent coding of the sounds they heard. In a similiar article (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111221140340.htm) Dr. Anne-Lise Giraud states that, "It is widely agreed that for a majority of dyslexic children, the main cause is related to a deficit in the processing of speech sounds." She conducted a study similiar to the one conducted at Northwestern University and ended up with the same conclusion.

Even though dyslexia is not a life threatening medical issue it is hard to live with and can make simple tasks challenging. This research could help doctors find a way to help children learn how to control their dyslexia and maybe even find a way to treat it. Dyslexia is currently not the biggest issue but finding a way to control it would make life easier for many children and adults that struggle with reading.

Image: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01545/childReading_1545929c.jpg

What Makes a Good Science Student?

For the first day of Reaction Quantities, we were given the question, what makes a good science student. In my opinion, a good science student has 3 qualities: creative, open minded, and organized. First off, a chemistry student must be able to be creative because they must be able to infer and make connections that might not be obvious. Being creative also suggests that the student can think outside of the box which can help them understand abstract concepts that aren't exclusively black and white. A science student must also be open minded. Because science is abstract and not always straightforward, a good science student must be able to be open about new and ideas and themes that might be hard to grasp at first. Lastly, a good science student must be organized. Science and especially chemistry requires notes, mnemonic devices, and organization of rules and exceptions of rules. The many complicated and sequential methods are important to learn in a certain order and a lot of science requires a student to refer back to notes, rules, and charts.



image: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/jrc/site_images/normal_2180.jpg

Changing DNA

Caroline Goldberg
Mr. Webb

A new article that was released on science daily.com (article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130201090612.htm) states that scientists are getting closer to be closer to another "industrial revolution." In London, researchers might have found a better way to deliver drugs ot patients and make them work more effectively. Scientists think they are now able to re-engineer DNA and mRNA and put the new cells into factories to observe how the cell changes, but in a more efficient way than before. They have shrunk the time down from 2 days to 6 hours to see the new strands of mRNA by changing the first set of DNA. This way of changing DNA also shows the efficacy of drugs given to potential patients.

I think this article is very interesting. I think it's very cool that scientists can look at how different medications effect people before they take them, which I think can really help in the future. It;s great to know that we could potentially look at side effects of medication before we give them people to make sure they are safe to take for any circumstance. This new study could really help change the future because humans or animals won't have to test medications before they are put on the market for people to take.