Savanna+Shaw

Savanna

= Dark Chocolate Consumption Reduces Stress and Inflamation = = = =Media=

News Article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180424133628.htm

=Summary=

With the help of two new studies, findings found that there are benefits to eating certain types of dark chocolate. The type of dark chocolate that supports these results has to have at least 70% cacao and 30% organic cane sugar. The key to this finding is in the cacao! Cacao although sounding like cocoa which we are all familiar with is a slightly different. Cacao is a bean like seed which can be made into cocoa, cocoa butter and chocolate. Cacao is known for being a major source of flavonoids, phytonutrients found in fruits and vegetables. Flavonoids provide many benefits and were already known for being beneficial but these studies were the first to see how cacao can support endocrine, cardiovascular and cognitive health. It was shown that the higher the cacao concentration the higher the immunity and cognitive ability as oppose to other previous studies suggesting that sugar content played the lead role in these health benefits from chocolate. Something really cool that was found from the study looked deeper into the cacaos impact on immunity and specifically gene expression in immune responses. Studies showed that cacao consumption of 70% or greater results in multiple intracellular signaling pathway that are involved in T-cell activation, cellular immune response and neural and sensory signaling. More studies still need to be done to fully support dark chocolates role in the immune system but from this study dark chocolate is supported in health benefits more then ever before!

=Connection=

This weeks theme or topic is resources. There are many things that come to mind when the word resources is mentioned: energy, food, clothing, nutrients, water, etc. The connection I'm making from my article to this week is the resource of food. Dark chocolate is a food that many consumers enjoy and buy. With new benefits coming to light the consumption of dark chocolate has a likelihood of increasing. This week we also talked about how resources are diminishing and we need to a way to find new ones or replenish old ones. Since dark chocolate has now been found to have great health benefits this could be a food that people turn to to eat instead of eating the same nutritious foods that everyone eats. This is just another way to spread out and make the most of resources before they become to scarce.

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= = = = Do Animals ever get sun-burned? = = Media = Overview article: https://www.livescience.com/62677-do-animals-get-sunburned.html

Overview of study on animal self-produced sunscreen: http://today.oregonstate.edu/archives/2015/may/no-lotions-needed-many-animal-species-produce-their-own-sunscreen

** Connection ** The topic of the week is Meet your Meat and we talked a lot about what the impact meat industry and factory farming has on the environment and health. The connection with my article and this week is if sun burn comes into play with factory farming. Factory farming is known to have unethical means of dealing with animals. They make the animals sit in there own filth and also don't allow any room to roam or move causing fights and a vast spread of diseases. I know that pigs are a main type of meat in these farms and that since these farms are used to sell the meat for consumption that the farms want pigs with little to no hair. Referring to what I said in the summary section before, this causes the pigs to be more subjected to sun burn then other pigs. If these factory farms are unethical in so many other ways I assume that they care little for the sun exposure of their pigs and other animals they might have. == = = = = = = = = =
 * Summary ** The article I chose is great to talk about now that summer is coming up and because the sun is out! I had never thought about this question but after seeing the article is was something that I found interesting. Do animals actually get sun burnt? I have never seen an animal wear sunscreen before and I don't even put sunscreen on my pets so this was a newfound question for me. Through this article I was surprised to find out that the answer was yes but I was more interested to find out the mechanisms many animals have in place so that it isn't a common occurrence. One mechanism is fairly obvious... fur/hair. Animals, especially pets, have hair and fur which provide a layer of protection to the animal so that it is a barrier that the sun finds hard to penetrate. One problem with this is when humans get involved. For example, humans selectively breed pigs so that they have less hair for consumer purposes. When this is done those pigs are more sensitive to sun damage rather then the normal/wild type pigs. Another mechanism has to do with genetics. There was a study done that found genetic traits in fish, reptiles, amphibians and birds that enable them to produce a compound that protects against UV rays called gadusol. Most vertebrates have this trait except for mammals a molecular biologist stated from Oregon state University. He thinks this is something that happened evolutionary because earlier mammals were believed to be nocturnal so they didn't need this trait resulting in it not being important if it was deleted or mutated. From this study questions are now being proposed if this genetic mechanism can be transformed and used on humans to protect human skin.

= = Autism is not Linked to Eating Fish in Pregnancy =

Media
News Article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180521131707.htm

Summary
The article I chose is very interesting to me at least because it discounts a former belief during pregnancy. This article talks about how eating fish during pregnancy has been researched and has not been linked to the autistic trait. It is not necessarily the fish as a whole that was believed to cause the autism but the mercury in the fish. When the study was done they analyzed blood samples of woman who had eaten fish and those who hadn't while pregnant and found that there was no link between the levels of mercury and autism in their children. Interestingly, they actually found an adverse effect that woman who ate no fish had children specifically girls that had poor social cognition. Now scientists and research support that woman should eat fish during pregnancy for nutritional benefits now that mercury's connection with autism has been supported by research that it's not linked. Still researches say fish have traces of mercury but the benefits of fish outweigh these traces.



Connection
This connects to this weeks topic with the trip to Robbins Park. While at Robbins Park each group was given a site to evaluate and take data from. While at my site I did see some fish, not anything that was big but some little minos and such. My article is about how mercury in fish affects pregnancy so there is a fish connection made. Another connection that could be made is water availability! This is a bit of a stretch but fish live in all different types of water sources such as lakes, rivers, oceans etc. and this ties in with the fact that when we try to filter water these fish can be affected. There is an extremely low percentage of accessible drinkable water and we are looking for a way to raise this percentage. One way is to filter unclean water to make it drinkable. The excess salt and other dirt in the water has to go somewhere and sometimes it gets dumped into these water sources of fish. This can change the osmolarity of the water and have drastic impacts on the fish.

My Top 5 Sustainability Themes 1. No Hunger 2. Good Health 3. No Poverty 4. Quality Education 5. Peace and Justice Reason behind No Hunger: I feel that hunger is an overlooked problem in America and does not get enough awareness. Hunger affects many aspects of life not just physical health and it affects some of the other sustainability themes. Hunger can affect education in children. If children are hungry the urge and want to learn are overlooked by the need for food. Also economics could be affected by this. If people are hungry its because resources are not made available to them or are not attainable which means that the economy could suffer. An emphasis on food out weighs the need to buy or pay for other resources causing the economy to be impacted. I feel that ending hunger would benefit the planet in a greater way then people realize the issue is. Reasons behind Quality Educations: Education and awareness are necessary for change. If children are not able to have an education they are being denied the right to have a say and make a difference in the world. Through education people gain knowledge and create opinions in which they can act upon and use to get jobs to support themselves and also to benefit the world even if its on a small scale. A good education can also provide confidence and a sense of worth in a person. People who have an education are pushed to do more and to meet and achieve goals while those without an education don't have as much support for setting and meeting goals whether that's completing an assignment or applying to graduate school. I feel that getting a good education is an important factor to better the planet.