Tag Archives: science of us

Sunday Reading 12-05-16 #78

December 5, 2016

078

Vegan MOFO is over, and I feel like I can relax a little. This weekend was filled with fun as my husband and I got our Christmas tree. Then the next day I had Alexa and Justine over to decorate it and eat lots of vegan sushi. I thought today would be pretty laid back, which is has… but I am trying to tie up any loose ends since I am at week 39. In many ways this took forever and snuck up on me all at the same time.

Since Vegan MOFO took up so many of the posts last month, I have a little bit of a back log of articles to share (and read.) So sorry if these articles are pretty old. And I am trying to catch up on blog posts, which I may or may not get done before I go into labor. Who knows. Anyways, enjoy these reads.

7 Stunning Places Travelers Can’t Visit Because Of Politics

This was just a little light reading for fun. This is a short list of interesting places that look like they would be amazing to visit. I do think it is funny that I can’t visit it because of politics, when realistically my bank account wouldn’t allow it anyways. XD

Vegan Cheesemaking Guide – Vegan MoFo Day 6

Nichole from Vegan Nom Noms put together a vegan cheesemaking guide on her blog. I have to say, these new choices for fermented vegan cheeses have been amazing. For Thanksgiving Jon and I splurged and got a bit of Miyoko’s smoked cheese for an appetizer. We served it yesterday, and Alexa seemed to really like it as well (Justine can’t have cashews so she wasn’t able to taste it T__T) I would like to try making some, but right now isn’t too great.

pms

Of course PMS is “real.” The real question is why we don’t have a cure.

Another great article talking about how women’s health is ignored by the medical industry. Clearly PMS is real, and it is funny because I had less common symptoms and thought I might of been crazy. As gross as it is, every time I get my period I have major digestive issues and thought it was just in my head. Then sure enough one day my OBGYN asked if I get diarrhea as a symptom during my period it was a little bit of a sigh of relief. It wasn’t in my head and it wasn’t weird. Some symptoms might not be talked about in other cultures because they are simply taboo and not talked about.

I’ve heard some article posing that mood swings are not an actual symptom of PMS, and I can see that. I personally don’t get moodier but it makes sense that it would be a side effect from physical symptoms of PMS. If you cut your arm and it hurt, surely you would be irritable. So if you have cramping, why wouldn’t you be more emotional in the same way? I’ve talked about how some studies are showing that “pregnancy brain” might not be real, and honestly I think it is a way to play down any stress that a woman might have from a major life change. Same goes with saying mood swings are just part of PMS, whether real or not, it is used as way to ignore a person.

01-vegan-diet-w710-h473

Vegan Diets, As Long As They Are Well-Balanced, Are Good for Pregnant Women and Children

I was happy to see this article pop up on my news feed, especially because of the timing. I think many people forget how much of a omnivores diet is actually fortified with vitamins and nutrients. Think about mainstream cereals- lots of fortified vitamins. Milk has fortified vitamin D, and so on.

Has Hypnosis Finally Been Vindicated by Neuroscience?

This SciShow episode and Science of Us articles both came out relatively close to each other. It is pretty interesting and actually is slightly making me regret dismissing hypnobirthing as bullshit. I guess it could very well work, which seems crazy to me. I would love to find more scientific research on hypnosis.

SciShow: 9 Scientific Cooking Techniques

SciShow has released a series of food/cooking related videos and this one was a lot of fun. There are various techniques (mostly unconventional) to make food fun. Most are vegan, though there is a fairly weird and gross “meat glue.” But otherwise I would love to try out many of the vegan techniques at some point. Some I’ve seen already on other blogs.

Posted by Jennifer in Sunday Reads Tags: huffington post, science of us, scishow, sunday reading, sunday reads, vegan nom noms, Vox

3 comments

Sunday Reading 09-18-15 #74

September 18, 2016

074

These past two weeks…. oh man have they’ve been something. My blog was being hosted by my lovely friend Jamie. Sadly she decided that she wouldn’t be able to keep her hosting services since of various things including money and poor hosting service. I stress the poor hosting service because it has been causing a headache for me. The company she used is slow to reply to help requests, goes down often (which I think more international readers have been at the end of that stick), and general crumminess. The server went down, no big deal, except I freaked out that it was 100% gone forever since Jamie mentioned getting rid of the hosting service (I know I was being irrational, but couldn’t shake that thought.) Then when I came back up, I backed my XML posts, and tried to connect to the FTP… and just couldn’t get it to connect. Turns out, my password was wrong, and the program I used wasn’t compatible. So my IP was blocked, and I couldn’t see anything from my computer. Worse it seemed all Mac FTPs were being blocked as well. So weird. So I had to ask so many favors from Jamie about backing up my files, sending them over, etc. And I felt bad because I had over 2 GB of images for the blog!

Good news? We are moved to our server, and has given my husband a boost in interest to help my blog out more. He is helping me compress my photo files, which means faster loading times for you guys. I am also hoping to improve my search engine crap and work on a new layout that won’t be too boring, but a little more mainstream. Bad news? If you go into our older posts you might find some broken images. I am slowly fixing that

But since it has been so long, I have a bunch of links to share. Some are quick reads, some are opinion pieces, and some are total fluff. Hope you guys enjoy them and I will have more new posts coming up soon next week.

laura-izumikawa-joey-instagram-uyurken-cosplay-750x400

Laura Izumikawa on Instagram

Let’s start with the fluff! I am not going to be one of those people who will flood you with ooey-gooey Mom stuff, but I need to share this. Even if you don’t like kids, you’ll love these photos. Laura Izumikawa takes photos of her cute baby while she’s asleep. There are some athletes, cartoon characters, anime, nerdy stuff, and pop stars. If you haven’t already seen all the news articles featuring her photos, check out her instagram.

Black Health Matters

Nothing makes my blood boil more than hearing people make gross racist remarks like “oh black people don’t exercise” or “people on welfare just eat garbage.” What makes it worse is they never seem to care to make a change about that. So when I read about grassroots movements of trying to get free exercise and wellness programs for low income or people of color, I get really excited. If you want more inspirational reads you can check out this Mosaic Podcast episode about the diabetes epidemic in Harlem.

there-will-be-blood-e1471963640267

The best 100 films of the 21st century, according to 177 film critics around the world

I don’t talk too much about it but I am a film nerd. I love movies, and I rarely get off my butt to watch them. Why? I am not interested in blockbusters… like at all. In fact my husband and I have lots of debates over stuff because I think his “greatest films” are kind-of just fluff. *cough* steven spielberg *cough* If you didn’t already picked up that I am pretentious art school ~~student~~ graduate, you now officially know. Anyways, even people who love blockbusters are getting sick of all these sequels and “reboots.” So if you are looking for something new but different, check out this list. I am wanting to watch the ones we haven’t seen before… which is a lot. I’ve only seen about a quarter of the list but here are the films I think everyone should check out (when you have night to really watch a movie) Note- these are my favorites from the list or ones I think that are a little less known, so you know keep that in mind.

Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, 2012)
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)
Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)
A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2009)
City of God (Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, 2002)
Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2013)
No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)

1mofo16

Vegan Mofo 2016 Returns

Vegan Mofo will be returning this year! The announcement was made while I was blocked from my server and transferring files so at first I was overwhelmed with the thought of doing it again. I think I will be trying it out again this year with Alexa’s help. But truthfully we will see how often a post since it will be during the 9th month of pregnancy (yikes!) But I had so much fun doing it in 2015 and 2014 that I just had to.

veghomefounders_wide-c0cf7a1ca2d40a587b43daffaa7045659f093edc-s800-c85

These Folks Went Vegetarian Back When It Was Way Uncool

This is a brief look at the first vegetarians restaurants in the world. It is interesting to see how vegetarianism have evolved over the years, and how Hitl has stayed the same. I would love to visit it sometimes, but I wonder if they have many vegan options (it seems to have a lot of eggs and dairy in the recipes). Still a fun slice of history.

08-workout-class-w710-h473-2x

Exercising Regularly Saves You Money, Assuming You Don’t Have ClassPass

I’ve always been one to recommend people go out and get some exercise. I don’t think you need to go to a gym, but I know some people thrive with the direction (especially early on.) This study shows that maybe health insurance companies should cover gym classes. It does show to save some money. Even still, walking 30 minutes a day still does the body some good.

08-yogurt-bowl-w710-h473-2x

Women Who Eat Full-Fat Yogurt Are Happier, So Don’t Believe the Smug Lady in Yoplait-Light Commercials

Okay, so I find the title of this article more interesting than anything else. A quick summary is that women who eat full fat yogurt have less depression than women who eat the light stuff. There isn’t any direct correlation with fat consumption and depression. It could be because there is more sugar added to the low-fat stuff or could be that women who are depressed are more concerned about weight gain. I take it as better body image equals better mind.

14physed-master768

Why Fidgeting Is Good Medicine

And if you made this far- congrats! This is a surprising article about fidgeting. We all know sitting down for long periods of time can be bad for our bodies. So scientists wanted to see if fidgeting would help counter the negative effects. And it kind-of does! Sure it better to not sit down for several hours, but it is a great way to counteract it if you have no choice.

Posted by Jennifer in Sunday Reads Tags: laura Izumikawa, new york times, npr, quartz, science of us, sunday reading, sunday reads, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2016

9 comments

Sunday Reading 06-05-15 #65

June 5, 2016

065

Hey everyone. I would love to say I had a busy week, but it is was mostly spent trying to stay cool or me trying to get over headaches all week. Since the weather has been all over the place this past week, my body just isn’t digging it. Luckily the temperature seems to be mellowing out a little more (keeping between 70 and 80) so I won’t be roasting all day. Though I am not sure if the humidity will be going down this week.

I am sure there was fun and exciting things I was going to share with everyone today, but I am more concerned with trying to get my to-do list done for today. So I will just jump into the links.

MalePeacockSpider

A scientist’s love story with the eccentric and largely unknown peacock spider

This was a pretty interesting story about a man who has been filming and photographing the peacock spider, bringing it forward into popular science. He has even discovered new species, but isn’t being formally paid to do the research, talking about doing what you love.

metab

Most of us misunderstand metabolism. Here are 9 facts to clear that up.

I think these are great facts to commonly misunderstood concepts about metabolism. Some of which falls under the whole “speed up your metabolism” section that we hear often in blogs and fitness books. I am not going to say these are bad suggestions, like building more muscle, or eating more raw foods, but it isn’t altering your metabolism.

sugar

The FDA just made the most significant changes to the nutrition label in years

I love the idea about listing sugar in two ways- added sugar and natural sugars. I hear so many people who get confused about the idea of sugars, like me explaining to my boss on several occasions that you don’t need sugar for bread to rise since there is natural sugars in the flour for the yeast. I don’t eat too many pre-packaged foods, but it is always something good to be paying attention to.

exercise

Exercise Research is Ignoring Female Athletes

Add this to stats I just don’t get. I feel like women are more likely to fit exercise in their daily routines than men. But I guess when we look at athletic research we think the people who are going to benefit are professional athletes, which makes majority of the population think of men. This is bad.

11 Angriest Cities in America

Okay so this is a fairly click-baity article but I couldn’t help but love it. I just that I am from New Jersey so I have a lot of anger, or that my humor is fueled by irritability. My life has centered around two major cities- New York City and Philadelphia and surprise! Both cities have ranked on this list. I do have to say the “anger” is different from both cities, though I feel like Philadelphia is clearly the worst as it seems almost completely sports based (hello Phillie riots!)

Posted by Jennifer in Sunday Reads Tags: metabolism, New York Magazine, peacock spider, quartz, science of us, sunday reading, sunday reads, thrillist, Vox

4 comments

Sunday Reading 05-16-15 #64

May 16, 2016

064

Hello everyone! I am a little late for posting my Sunday Reading post, but oh well. I am good at ignoring self made schedules. I’ve slowly gaining some control in my life again. The last two months have felt a little bit like I had been running in slow motion. I would try my hardest to get certain things done but next thing I would know, hours would go by and I didn’t seem to get much done. But I am finally working on some posts that I started drafts of a while ago, and reading tons of books that has been on my to read list for awhile.

Tomorrow is my birthday and this weekend my Mother and Father in Law invited my husband and I over for dinner. I might of specifically requested for certain vegan meals, and my Father in Law made me the pad thai dish from The PPK. It was pretty yummy, and made the perfect amount for 4 people. My Mother in Law surprised me with vegan chocolate cupcakes. Apparently she found out of the recipe from Mayim Bialik‘s appearance on The Rachel Ray Show. The cupcakes were pretty yummy, and what I like about them is that it is easy for non-vegans to make. You can check out the recipe over here. There was some confusion from her end of which tofu to use (which took awhile for me to figure out too) but the frosting still worked out.

Crist-Olm1-690x464-1461360605

What’s Behind Slovenia’s Love Affair with a Salamander?

I forget where I’ve first heard about the olm, but it is a cave dwelling salamander that has no eyes, and is only found in a cave system in Slovenia. They are really interesting and beautiful looking. So when I saw this article on my news feed I got pretty excited. The New Yorker talks about the cultural investment the Slovenian people have with this salamander, along with their folklore.

ap_649372126960_wide-daeb18ac7e85f3ed2217f21768a006eae5a916ac-s800-c85

33 Rescued Circus Lions Airlifted from Peru to South Africa

Here is some happy vegan news! A lot of people argue what would happen to all the animals if we adopted a vegan diet. Although it seems unlikely that the world would go vegan overnight (causing an over population of farm animals) some more complicated cases are wild animals bred in captivity. It is nice to see wild animals get closest to living in the wild that they can. It takes time, money, and effort from humans, but I think the results are worth it.

27-thinking-chimpanzee.w536.h357.2x

Are Humans Smarter Than Animals? Honestly Who Knows?

I love this article. I get very frustrated when we talk about animals and intelligence, because it gets complicated. I remember joking about my cat was smarter than my nieces when they were little tiny babies. Yeah humans are suppose to be smart, but my cat has object permanence, does your baby? Joking aside, there are many things that animals do everyday that is amazing. There is even a squid that can change it’s color AND control it’s shadows. We might not be able to comprehend what that would feel like, how much active thought process does a squid go through to control it’s color changing? It is hard for us to think of walking as something we need to learn since we learned it at such a young age, but it is part of our intelligence.

30BIGGESTLOSER5-jumbo

After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

This article is one that sums up most of the body love movement. I have heard some crazy fat-phobic people say things like “just eat less food,” and hey I understand where some people come from. Weight and health are two things that are deeply embedded in our minds. But one thing is for sure, weight is more complicated than we think. We are finding that weight can be controlled by more than just calories, including epigenetic, gut flora, and much more. We get so set into the mindset that our weight is “our fault” that when I tell some people about these studies they defend their original thoughts on other things. I remember citing a study that said that people from the 80s were thinner with the same amount of exercise and calories than people today. What did I hear? About whole fucking grains. Really? I then asked that person if they ate more whole grains in the 80s than they do today, answer no. So this is a much more high profile study that shows that rapid weight loss might be more complicated than “sucking it up” and having lots of willpower.

Messina-Plant-Plate

Making an Informed Transition to Veganism

I am a little bad about helping people with nutritional information. Veganism is easy, really, but it does require us to rethink the rules of nutrition. We have so much programed in our minds as kids- x amount of protein (meat), x amount of grains, x amount of dairy, x amount of fruit, etc. But things get really complicated with a plant based diet. This might partly because a lot of these foods merge into the different categories. And I think since long time vegans get so use to this new way of thinking we tend to ignore newbies, who might not know all the basics. I am always stressing that I still taking vitamins, largely vitamin B12, but still pointing out that meat eaters can be low on the vitamin since animals don’t make the vitamin. It’s created by bacteria.

Gena has written a great outline of things to look for in a vegan diet. You might need to think about your protein sources for the first year, but it’ll become second nature. Concerned about calcium? Pay attention and you will eventually learn enough information that you won’t need to think twice about your daily choices.

Posted by Jennifer in Sunday Reads Tags: New York Magazine, new york times, olm, science of us, sunday reading, sunday reads, the full helping, the new yorker

8 comments

Sunday Reading 03-13-15 #60

March 13, 2016

060

So our computer turned off and wouldn’t turn back on last week. So my husband was extremely stressed by this since we could technically afford a new computer, but it wouldn’t be the best thing for our wallets. Not to mention the computer we currently have is really sweet. Luckily it wasn’t that bad, we just had a bad memory stick and the wonderful Mac Store scanned all our memory to find out which ones were the bad ones. So we have half the RAM… but we still have 16 gigs, and I don’t notice any difference in speed. So I’ve been spending most of the week trying to catch up on blogs and articles that I’ve been wanting to read from earlier.

I am also starting to feel the spring cleaning bug. I am cleaning out my garden of all the stones so we can start planting some flowers. It might take awhile though, we have SO MANY stones in our small garden space. I am also wanting to start painting out bedroom. It was suppose to be the first room we redo along with our powder room. And now we have settled down and probably will have the time to actually start making our house FEEL like ours. And maybe even start to organize our framed art in a manner that makes sense. Most of the stuff is just smacked on random walls, partly because I was trying to wait until we painted the rooms. So maybe there will be pretty pictures of the newly decorated house in the future.

I also was able to hang out with Alexa last Monday and we will be having THREE new vegan restaurants to feature. Two in central Jersey and one from Delaware. And I just found out of a new all vegan restaurant in Collingswood, so I am pumped to try that out sometimes soon with Alexa or my beau. But Alexa started talking about how she is trying hit certain macros and I thought I would try as well. Well, I am never as close to the protein requirements that the one website calculated for me, but it has been getting me thinking about my calorie intake and protein intake. I definitely do not think this is a way of eating I would enjoy continuing, but it is an interesting way to think since I know there are some people trying to hit a large amount of proteins.

Anyways, I’ve been keeping all these articles in the same post draft to share with you guys. I hope you’ll find them as interesting as I did.

3594426410_b849c6ee75_o.jpg__800x600_q85_crop

Mermaid Ivory Stirs Controversy Over How Extinct Species are Studied

This is an interesting article talking about how a scientist who could of possibly discovered expanded territory of an extinct species. How? Well he used DNA from a knife handle that was made from mermaid ivory. I found this article really interesting as it talks about a old animal product that I’ve never heard the term for. Mermaid ivory is the tusks and bones of sea mammals like walruses and the like. It is an interesting article about the flaws in this man’s methods.

fungicutlery_roundchops_cparistsitsos_for_livinstudio2014

Chow Down on a Plastic Eating Fungus

Part art insulation, part science. This is an interesting look at a potential answer to the question of what to do with all the plastic. This fungus breaks down the plastic, but the scientists took it a step further, they make meals from them. The article has two videos but has a link to their website to show some of the special tools they made to eat these fungi eggs.

Mark-and-Jennifer-Soukup-New-Sugar-House-1024x672

Gastropod: The Maple Boom

Gastropod is starting to become my favorite podcast. Yes, I like many others but I love how much research and technical skills go into their podcasts. But remember that review of maple water I did in the past? I wasn’t a huge fan of it, but I wouldn’t help but think there IS a bunch of benefits of maple water over coconut water (mostly economical and environmental). But at the end it made me want to pick up some more for a cocktail! This is a great episode about the all American maple tree with interesting insight for the future of the maple industry.

flint2_custom-9129ed2fca45c86fcabb52326c1b7510e18dea13-s800-c85

In Flint, Mich., Moving The Farmers Market Drew More Poor Shoppers

A great NPR article about how a farmers market moved in Flint. It moved to a lower income area that was closer to a bus stop and surprise, people started to come. I hear a lot of people complain poor people eat garbage, and that is an unfair judgement. I’ve been to low priced markets, and sometimes they just don’t have many fresh foods. This is proof that lower income families are happy to get healthy fresh foods.

17-animal-anthropomorphism.w536.h357.2x

Maybe It’s Time to Take Animal Feelings Seriously

I would say I am very interested in science. In fact sometimes I wonder why I didn’t try and study more biology, then I remember it is because I just didn’t feel like dealing with animal poop. Granted there are lots of questionable way to deal with animals to research them, but this opinion piece is pleading for scientists to start accepting animals have feelings. It seems pretty silly but I am always a little shocked to hear scientists dismiss animal behaviors, saying it is naive to assume animal think like humans. I always think it would be naive to think they are completely void of feelings.

pinktax

Women’s products cost more. Here’s how to avoid the “pink tax.”

There is a lot in this article I already knew, but it introduced me to the term “pink tax.” I do get comments from my husband how some of the things I buy are so expensive, which is funny since I don’t think I buy particularly expensive things it is just expensive compared to what he gets. It is a great article that makes you stop and think before you buy something.

Screen Shot 2016-03-13 at 5.18.42 PM

What no one talks about when they extol the benefits of fasting

Love, love, loving this article! If you are half aware of the body love movement or are aware of various eating disorders you might of read a bunch of people who are totally against fasting. And I know where they are coming from, and mostly agree. But there are various studies that show that fasting limiting calorie intake could be good for our health. This article does a great job explaining what fasting is, what type of fasting they are talking about, the short comings of the studies. A nice read for anyone who is interested in dietary health but don’t want all the worthless hype of fasting.

FullSizeRender

SNAP Challenge Recap

Gena from The Full Helping had to take the SNAP challenge for her nutrition class. The SNAP challenge is to live off of $40 for a week per person to simulate relying on food stamps. Gena does a great job talking about the challenges other people faced, and talks about how the challenge isn’t accurate. It is very much worth the read and it thoughtfully written.

Posted by Jennifer in Sunday Reads Tags: gastropod, npr, NY Mag, science of us, smithsonian magazine, sunday reading, sunday reads, the full helping, Vox