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Audrey AmaraRSS Feed of this column.

I'm a Journalism graduate from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and I recently spent two years in Bulgaria as a volunteer in the United States Peace Corps where I worked as a high school English/Literature

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As Albert Einstein once said about balance, "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving." The same is true of bone mineral density in testing for breast cancer—balance is better.

The September 2008 issue of “CANCER” journal of the American Cancer Society published findings that higher bone density hints at higher frequency of breast cancer in premenopausal women, meaning normal or even lower bone mass points to a lower breast cancer rate.

In California it may be the summer of fires as smoke fills the air, but at Yale researchers pump smoke into the lungs of mice in order to help find an explanation behind reactions in smokers due viral infections.

Recent studies by researchers at Yale found that people who smoke have a worse reaction to viral infections not due to a weakened immune system, but because of an overreaction.

If the drinker paradox states that in any pub there is a customer such that, if he or she drinks, everybody in the pub drinks and the diamond-water paradox states that water is more useful than diamonds, yet is a lot cheaper , then the French paradox that the French suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease despite a diet relatively rich in saturated fats, must certainly be true.

The French paradox became popular on an episode of 60 minutes in 1991 with the incorporation of research supporting, red wine as the reason for the decrease in heart disease. Shortly after the show aired wine sales went up 44 percent.

Mood—itude

Mood—itude

Jul 23 2008 | comment(s)

On July 18, “Naked Nelson” was detained for stripping off his clothes and trying to open an emergency exit on a flight from Boston to Oklahoma City. Athletes from the New England Revolution, a Major League Soccer team, helped apprehend the man and detained him until officials arrived at the scene. Yet it is unclear what sort of mood “Naked Nelson” was in to drive him to such extremes.

Robert E. Thayer who is a professor of psychology at California State University Long Beach has written several books regarding moods. In his 1989 book "The biopsychology of mood and arousal" he defines a mood simply as a relatively long lasting, affective or emotional state. The state of mind of the nude man on the airplane therefore qualifies. Yet his mood, like an increasing number of other mental states, from attention deficit disorder to social anxiety disorder, would be classified as other than normal.

In a world in which such classified moods are often medicated, understanding factors that contribute to certain degrees of emotional states may be helpful in dictating a more positive mood. In the hunt for contributing factors that influence the mood food, sleep and exercise are among the most commonly referenced.

The ten male soccer spectators who were struck by lightning in the Boston area on Sunday had taken refuge under a tree when a storm hit and were a great example of a rare phenomenon.

Living on a desert island may not even be a mode of escape from Lyme disease because birds can also be a carrier of infected ticks. Dorothy Leland, who is an advocate with the California Lyme Disease Association and has a daughter with the disease used to love the outdoors a lot more. Since her daughter contracted Lyme over three years ago Leland has taken a different perspective on life in the great outdoors.

Ticks that carry the Lyme disease infection, which causes a rash that looks similar to Saturn rings, is a very complex disease to spot, prevent, and cure. Lyme disease associations like lymedisease.org that Leland is a part of aid in the education and prevention of Lyme. Leland says there are three main things one should remember when setting out for an expedition in nature: Be aware, choose spots carefully, and wear repellant.