Forces in Yoga, Part Deux

In true summer fashion, I had to produce a sequel. I caught up up with Janet Tsai, 26 year old engineer/yogi goddess to see what's new in her world...

Janet Tsai is a Ph.D.candidate in engineering education and mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Janet Tsai is also a Nicki Minaj fan. While writing her first professional paper for a conference recently, she listened to this song: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JGbpVcSyPk  

When I meet Janet at a bar in Boulder to watch Game 4 of the Bulls-Heat series, it’s with the intention of talking about her work. I'm curious about her newly acquired grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), undoubtedly the biggest change in her world since February (see Forces In Yoga). We get to it, but not before talking about the sex appeal of individual pro-basketball players, the awkward encounters she’s had with the guy at her neighborhood bagel shop and the likelihood that a pregnant woman’s single exposure to secondhand marijuana smoke will affect her unborn fetus. Janet says she’s been listening to the Sean Garrett/Nicki Minaj song on repeat. I vow to look it up.

The Heat are running away with it and we get in a few work-related words. Janet has been awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship. The NSF awards 2,000 of these a year, each of which affords its recipient a sizeable educational allowance, annual living stipend and networking opportunities galore. Its former recipients include the co-author of Freakonomics, the founder of Google and current Secretary of Energy. Janet’s plan is to use this upcoming year to develop her curriculum for her pilot program. The following year she’ll implement the curriculum in one school; the year after in multiple schools. She admits her fear that it might not work. Boozer and the Bulls completely fold in overtime and we part ways. 

***

Four days later I’m stuck in heavy traffic in the outskirts of Boulder, trying to make it to Janet’s Saturday yoga class by noon. I’m listening to a radio program about how psychopaths don’t feel emotions when they see pictures of dead animals or people--all the while screaming at every slow-moving/non-rushed entity with which I come in contact. If I were to “accidentally” hit someone/thing in this emotional state, would I be exempt from psychopathic branding? I sneak into Janet’s class thirty minutes late, welcome and invited to unwind. 

Janet’s theme for the day is sustainability--the importance of getting basic postures right in order to ensure overall better alignment and healthy structures. I’ve missed her introduction (which she designed over an awkward bagel at her  neighborhood bagel shop that morning) and am flopping through postures. She swoops in to correct me. She pushes my shoulders down to melt more. She pulls my saggy hip to be more powerful. Her cadence is low and the lights dim. The whole setting is incredibly relaxing. 

Afterwards we get coffee one bustling Boulder block away from the studio. I ask her more about her teaching style. Janet admits that she‘s not sure she always connects with her students, though she is confident that she’ll grow into her individual style over time. She stays on this subject of connection, drawing similarities between her worlds of engineering and yoga. Both, she says, encourage students to be in constant search of connectedness. She uses tetanus--sustained muscle contraction--to flesh it out.

“The nerve signals are what are controlling the rate of the muscle fibers‘ firing,“ she says, describing a scenario in which muscles are shaking to stay in a pose. “The idea with yoga is that we train our muscles to act together to such a great degree so that even the neurons, the signals beings sent, are totally cohesive." As in, those shaking elvis legs will eventually steady as each muscle fiber within the large muscle learns to act in tandem with each of those around it, increasing strength and dexterity. 

“I think common questions in any yoga class are how engaged can we be, and how can we participate fullest in this moment? A lot of yoga is being in the moment. Engineers talk about it too.”

She shrugs. She’s got a lot of work before her, but also a whole bunch of moments ahead to figure it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks3_kuRAzHs&feature=relmfu 

Follow Janet’s cool projects, including her Forces in Yoga teaching research, on her blog: http://www.forcesinyoga.com/pa/Forces_in_Yoga.html 

Love Brain

I once worked as an assistant to a general contractor dude in his late thirties. When I started, I had little experience that could be of use to Tom (name changed to protect the uh, innocent) other than enthusiasm, which he assured me was more than enough. Tom had been the landlord of my last apartment. I knew enough of him to surmise that he was laid back (smoked copious amounts of weed), had enough work to keep an assistant fully employed, and though a little creepy, was just a dude who loved his family, job and weed.

From the start, Tom and I had good friendly rapport. I made him laugh; he made interesting philosophical points; I proved to be great organizational assistance because he was perpetually stoned. Life was good. Eight hours a day in close proximity, however, had its affect on Tom’s blurry subconscious. My job description expanded from installing drywall, plumbing, and painting to include deflecting sexual advances. The increased workload made for increased discomfort.

On the day that would be my last, Tom gave me a book and confessed his “crush.” The whole ordeal was laughable considering how many passes he‘d already made at me. I tried to redirect the conversation to my current boyfriend (a tactic to thwart attention that I’m not sure ever really works), and when I mentioned that he was the second person I’d dated seriously, Tom got visibly uncomfortable. He paused. “Honey, I thought you’d been around the block a few more times,” he said anxiously. He told me he couldn’t do it after all--the emotional drama that I would create would “wreck” him and his family. As if to twist the knife of absurdity, he said he’d known from the start that I was afraid of falling in love with him and though he couldn’t be with me, he still needed me to come in early on Monday to finish this bathroom job.

My head was spinning as I left the job site. What the fuck was wrong with this guy? Where did he get off telling me I was afraid of falling in love with him? The outburst was the last straw. I quit in person, in front of his wife, two days later. Though I was finally off board the emotional rollercoaster, I couldn‘t shake from my mind his assertion that I was afraid of falling in love with him...

It was true.

In my case with Tom, I knew I was dangerously close to being seduced. I was too vulnerable and he was too in touch with my emotions. Any extended duration of employment would have led to either sex or insanity. We both caught wind of this before it happened, but the looming power of lust muddied our attempt to maintain a functional fellowship.

As it always seems to these days.

Casual sex for twenty-somethings is an easily addictive and attainable high. We mourn having fewer non-sexual friendships with the opposite sex, but then we keep indulging in the same behavior. Lust is a persistent and influential instigator.

There is science behind the madness. Sexual appetite is heightened by the release of the hormone testosterone. Though you’d think this release would occur in the sex organs, it’s actually happening in the brain (though the phrase “thinking with your dick” should definitely maintain its idiomatic stature). Testosterone increases in men often coincide with visual imagery (example, seeing a flash of leg). In women, words of affection or situational reminders increase levels of testosterone.

Studies have shown that female arousal tends to be sporadic and unpredictable. I personally cannot understand why you’d want to piggyback that biological trait with a clitoris piercing, but that’s just because the thought of having an orgasm while walking down the cereal isle terrifies me. Female arousal can be explained by the fact that the callosum--the fiber that connects brain hemispheres--is said to be larger in females than in males, which allows us greater access to both sides of our brain. This trait is both a blessing and a curse. We’re better with language (Dudes, stop making fun of us. We can’t help it, it‘s just how our brains work.) And we‘re aroused by a whole hiccup of things. Wait, which one‘s supposed to be the curse?

Men have more active parietal lobes, which integrate sensory information like that flash of leg. They experience lust most strongly in morning and in autumn. Women are horniest during ovulation. Both genders indulge in one-night stands, emotionally detached “hook up” partnerships and affairs. Both also settle for relations that are emotionally unattached when they want attachment. Humans are said to formulate their romantic ideals by age ten. At some point in our twenties, we throw them out the window.

Just like we do all kinds of things (I so wish I had been here):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJkhohR2-BA

We toss out the ethics, then chalk it up to being young and experimental. “Just trying to add notches on the bedpost” we say, patting ourselves on the back for sneakily masking our fears from outsiders. The fears, however, remain. We fear that our romantic ideals are too far-fetched. We fear that love isn’t real.

But sex is not just about lust. Even the most basic one-night stand can contain components of love, as sex releases more chemicals in our brains than just testosterone. After an orgasm, serotonin is released, which gives us feelings of relaxation and comfort. Later, when thinking about the person we had sex with, our brains release dopamine. Dopamine entices fantasies and love sickness (assuming it was all well and good). It is activated in the part of our brains associated with rewards and addictions, the mesolimbic reward system. Dopamine metabolizes into norepinephrine, which causes our hearts to beat faster and blood flows to increase (think of the last time you were on uppers, if you were ever recently on uppers). Phenylethylamine gives us feelings of romantic well-being, encouraging us to further sip the “chemicals of love” cocktail, whether we like it or not. This cocktail meddles with our intention to have strictly casual sex.

Moreover, sex releases chemicals of attachment (“the cuddle chemicals”) in both men and women--oxytocin in females and vasopressin in males. The release of each requires the necessary amounts of sex-appropriate hormones (estrogen and testosterone, respectively). These chemicals influence more than just post-coitus cuddling. People with varied or inadequate levels of these chemicals are said to have anxious attachment styles (crazy jealous girlfriend, for one); people with strictly low levels are said to have avoidant styles.

If you’re thinking this sounds a little too over-scienceified, I’d say I agree. People have all kinds of experiences over a lifetime that influence how they think about and respond to sex. The take home message is not that love is just brain chemistry and that everything we‘re feeling while in love/lust is a series of chemical reactions--it is that the whole business is cerebral. And that there’s a lot more going on during sex than just the act.

Rejection too is painfully cerebral. Getting rejected especially sucks (from my vantage point) when you’re a woman (who wants verbal closure because that’s how your brain’s wired) getting rejected by a man (who doesn’t see the point in talking about it). I used to think that that famous scene from “A Few Good Men” made good allegory of this point (Tom Cruise obviously embodying the female):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGvQtumNAY

I thought this because I am a girl, and girls like to think. We put a lot of thought into our relationships, our breakups, and our post-facto analysis of relationships and breakups (as in, I feel like I have been writing this article FOR EVER). We don’t necessarily know what’s going on in the brains of our male counterpoints, but we like to think we know. When they “don’t want to talk about it,” most men probably aren’t on some mission to protect the walls of their subconscious with honor, code and loyalty. Nor are they out to hurt us. But we’ll believe both are true. We’re women in love, we can’t help it.

After I quit my assistant contractor post, Tom continued to text and email me, alluding to how he didn't trust me anymore. In response, I played Nicholson--a role I wasn't used to playing. I guarded my walls. I cut off contact. “He can’t handle the truth,” I muttered obsessively while alone in my room.

Which was a lie. I was the one who couldn’t handle it.



Author’s note: This article (and brain-related articles that are to follow) is inspired by the very bomb third edition of The Owner’s Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications from Mind-Brain Research. It is by Pierce J. Howard and is really good.

Some Truths Behind Toxic Shock Syndrome

A couple of weeks ago, I began telling my female friends that I was considering writing a story about Toxic Shock Syndrome (or TSS). TSS is a fast moving bacterial-caused illness that can systematically shut down organs (kidneys and liver included) if not immediately treated. The syndrome is widely known among women as a morbid outcome of tampon mis-use. Leave your tampon in for more than eight hours and you are severely at risk, we are told.

My friends, who had long ago been familiarized with the facts and mythology behind TSS, each had the same response: “I don’t think it exists.” One friend informed me that she had recently lost complete track of her tampon use to no consequence, realizing three days into her period that one was wedged into the depths of her vagina. “Someone had just told me about when they forgot to take out a tampon once,” she said in a chipper voice, “and I was sitting there like, oh my god, I have a tampon in!”

None of my friends had had a TSS encounter of any type. Some of them had even fully forgotten about it. Having never have met a victim myself, I too considered the syndrome a sort of feminine urban myth. My friend’s disappearing tampon anecdote seemed to confirm its non-existence.

I began my research. Approximately 4 in 100,000 tampon users get TSS. Blanket symptoms include rapidly progressing fever and falling blood pressure, skin blanching, vomiting and diarrhea. As I read and wrote, I felt like an uninspired kid in Catholic school studying bible passages for a catechism exam. It was informative for a purpose, but no mind-blowing.

Then I read a personal account. A woman whose daughter had died from TSS posted an entry on a fact site. Her writing was honest and informative. Something about this woman masking the pain of losing a daughter with a desire to help others evade the same fate zapped me from my state of indifference. I was again the wide-eyed fourteen year old checking my watch every thirty minutes to see if six to eight hours was up yet. I called my 24hr tampon friend back. Hey, just double checking that you‘re okay. I asked her to repeat her story. As she spoke again, I felt phantom pain crawling from my cervix to my navel, then my rib cage…

If she was someone else, she could have died.

Although 4 in 100,000 is obviously a small number, the fact that TSS was practically unheard of before 1980 is not insignificant. In 1978, the company Procter and Gamble introduced the first super absorbent Rely tampons, which could contain an entire menstrual flow without leaking or needing replacement. Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and polyester fibers provided the mega-absorbency. Within two years, the Center for Disease Control determined that increased Rely tampon publicity had led to increased cases of toxic shock syndrome. The fibers could not filter Staphylococcus aureus, the toxic bacteria that causes menstrual-related TSS. Rely tampons were recalled, and the number of cases reported to the CDC began to decline.

Though it did not entirely disappear, TSS went off the radar. Then, in the late ’90s, Proctor and Gamble returned to the tampon scene (the company purchased Tambrands, the tampon giant that makes Tampax) and the syndrome again received a flurry of media coverage. TSS related rumors, as well as scientific evaluations of the current safety of tampons, spread quickly. Case numbers stayed low. The early 2000s did see a slight spike (one study considered it to be a result of earlier menstruation in girls), but Rely-like scandals were no more.

Toxic Shock Syndrome is caused by toxin that comes from one of two types of bacterium: either Staphylococcus aureus (think staph infections) or Streptococcus pyogenes (think strep throat). Strep TSS has nothing to do with menstruation, and not all of staph cases are menstrual-related. Strep TSS can occur in people with infected surgical wounds or respiratory infections, or in women who recently gave birth. Some Staph TSS cases can also be caused by surgical wounds. Staph bacteria can be found on the skin and in the noses of about a third of the population. Most people have antibodies that protect them against the dangerous strands of the bacteria that cause TSS--95% of women have the antibodies by the time they are thirty. They are then immune to it. People who get it once, however, are more likely to get it again.

Here I feel that I could go into more precise details of what is happening scientifically in TSS, but I’d rather hand the microphone to the mourning mother:

“The truth is, the deadly toxins begin to multiply within 2 hours after inserting your first tampon. Regular, or Super! When you change a tampon after even just a few hours that toxin remains inside just waiting for you to put in a new tampon. It takes up right where it left off when it comes into contact with the viscose rayon [a fiber often used in today’s market] in the tampon. The longer you continue to use tampons even while changing the more concentrated the toxin becomes, Once this toxin gets into your blood stream, (it can enter with only a couple of scuffed off cells from changing a tampon) it's 10,000 times more deadly than sepsis alone.

“The reason you need to use a pad at night for at least 8 hours is, you remove that rayon filled tampon and the toxin takes that 8 hours to dissipate, (die off) then in the morning you can start the deadly process all over again. Providing your tampon isn't leaving fibers behind..…”

As I reread this woman’s account, it gives me the same feeling of uneasiness it did the first time. I use tampons. I leave them in overnight. Sometimes all day. I am very much alive and this woman’s daughter very much dead. Why her instead of me? My body contains antibodies that hers did not. It is neither of our faults, it just is.

The real truth behind TSS cannot be found in the paragraphs containing the tampon industry’s shady history or the science behind the syndrome. The real truth is that people get it and people die. Medical discoveries do not have to be earth shattering to be real.

Antibiotics Files, Part 1

Every person on earth tells lies, excluding maybe yet-to-be canonized saints and Al Franken. We say things we know are not true, things we think are true that are not, and things that that just pop into our head, their truthfulness unimportant. We say things that are off-base and misguided. Not all these are equally abominable, but all require some sort of recognition of fault, in my opinion.

My Confession:

In my last post I wrote in my “Quick Facts” section: “The common cold is a virus, not a bacterial infection. Antibiotics cannot cure your cold. You know this; stop playing dumb and asking your doctors for them anyway.”

This was off-base and misguided. People are not asking doctors for antibiotics. Doctors are shoving them down our throats.

Last week, I made my own doctor visit for a sore throat I had had for ten days. I sat on the paper covered bed, opened wide as the Physician’s Assistant cocked her lit magnifier towards my throat and nodded, zombie-like, when she said “That looks bad. Let’s get you on antibiotics.”

Six days into antibiotics, my throat looks EXACTLY THE SAME AS IT DID WHEN I STARTED. Swollen, discolored and helpless.

So why did I fall for it? Why, even after her rapid strep came back negative, did I not say “Um, are you sure, lady?” Why was I able to say that so confidently to my roommate when she offered me her unused Amoxicillin pack, but choke when the PA prescribed the same thing? Why?!? Because although my P.A.’s answer to my question of whether or not this would work was not a definite yes, it was a definite “I hope so and am banking on it.” Her hope rubbed off on me. I abandoned my wariness of the drugs. I was on board the antibiotics train because she was. I wanted to go where she was going.

In fact, the rail attendants shoved me off in "antibiotic misuse hatred" land, which is a far cry from "fully healed thanks to antibiotics!"-ville, but really not that far from where I started. A week into antibiotics my sore throat pain is just as intense as it was before. With my Ibuprophen supply dwindling, I decided to finally go homeopathic; (my inability to do so earlier is probably why this thing mutated so severely in the first place). I did a few salt gargles, but they reminded me too much of accidentally lapping sea water while trying to soothe an expanding sunburn at a crowded beach. I tried an apple cider vinegar gargle. That one led to seething pain and a whole bunch of extra swollen-ness. The morning after apple cider, I wondered if my throat would ever feel normal again.

Then I tried a cayenne pepper gargle. Its slight sting, lingering tingle and subsequent numbness was the trick I was looking for.

I have since adopted the cayenne as my pain-reliever of choice. I carry my concoction around in a pink travel mug, to work, the movie theater, friends’ houses. My mug has become my own version of an a smoker's cig pack. I always have it within reach. When feeling slightly detached from conversation I catch myself drumming it with my finger nails, my gaze drifting as I compute the shortest distance to a location socially acceptable for me to gargle and spit. It has truly become the only source of relief I’ve found in this seemingly endless infection.

As I trudge it out, I continue to take my antibiotic pills three times a day. They are like the placebo pills of a birth control pack, except that the introduced antibodies would mutate into suberbugs if I didn't take them.

I will take them all. I will not let them beat me, and I will not board that train again.

Insane in the Mucus Membranes

Here in Colorado in February, we’re experiencing the typical blackoutdrunkepileptic winter, which is to say that the season of "winter" is too mentally unstable to chose between springy and frigid cold weather, so it just oscillates between the two for about six months. Though it’s not scientifically proven that cold weather makes the human body more susceptible to the common cold, catching a cold seems to go hand in hand with drastically changing temperatures. And with the cold, comes the snot.

Mucus, like everything in the human bod, can be disassembled at the cellular level, where mucus cells are produced in mucus glands in the mucus membrane. Mucous membranes are numerous in the human body, lining areas including the stomach, mouth, lips, eyelids, ears, genital area and anus, though not all secrete mucus. (Or at least not all the time). The cells are rich in proteins and water. The wet, sticky texture of mucus allows it to trap infectious agents including fungi, bacteria and viruses from damaging the protective tissue, or epithelium, in the aforementioned areas. In the nose, mucus traps the agents and holds them there in booger form until ejection.

A runny nose is often a reaction to a sort of ice/heat pack effect on the nose. The nose contains cilia, which are sensory organelles that sweep mucus toward the back of the throat. During cold weather the cilia become sluggish and the mucus becomes thicker. When reintroduced to warmblooded-friendly temperatures, the mucus thaws and runs out the nose until the cilia can shake it off. As for the heat pack effect, spicy food numbs the cilia temporarily useless, causing the should-be medical condition “spicy food nasal drip.” (Author’s note: I am writing this next to an empty bowl of spicy green chili and a resultant mountain of tissues. I‘m not just getting this stuff from wikipedia, I swear.)

Quick Facts on Mucus:

-Mucus is spelled "mucus" as a noun and "mucous" as an adjective. Sounds like Mufasa or Moukassa.

-Your body makes 1 litre of mucus a DAY! Sick!

-People with strong immune systems are more likely to develop symptomatic colds, as the symptoms of the virus occur because of a strong immune response. People with weak immune systems become asymptomatic carriers who unknowingly spread it to others.

-The common cold is a virus, not a bacterial infection. Antibiotics cannot cure your cold. You know this; Stop playing dumb and asking your doctors for them anyway.

-Attempts at creating a common cold vaccine have also been proven futile, as viruses are varied and rapidly mutating.

-If you're experiencing mucus overload, best to just let it ride.

Moussaka--sounds like mucus, tastes totally different

Is it Love or Heart Failure?

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire Elizabeth Taylor was hospitalized last Friday for Congestive Heart Failure. She has officially been suffering from CHF since 2004. My unofficial theory is that she has been showing symptoms her entire life. The symptoms of CHF are strikingly similar to those of being in love, which Elizabeth Taylor did a lot.

CHF is when blood can‘t make it away from the heart and into the far reaching nooks of the body. Causes include high blood pressure, narrowed arteries, a past heart attack, congenital heart disease or a past heart valve problem. Meanwhile, Phenylethylamine (PEA, or “love chemical”) is an alkaloid, or chemical with a nitrogen base, that occurs naturally in the brain. It is released with highest frequency during the early stages of a budding romance, the first 6 months to three years.

A symptomatic breakdown:

CHF--Rapid/irregular pulse. Blood is flowing into the circulatory system at half its normal rate (35% verses 65%).
PEA--Running pulse. You’re thinking about sex.

CHF--Shortness of breath. Not enough oxygenated blood is making it to the lungs.
PEA--Heavy breathing. Still…thinking about sex.

CHF--Weight gain. Your metabolism is slowing with the lack of blood flow.
PEA--Heady emotions. “Do I look fat in this dress?”

CHF--Swelling of feet and ankles. The blood is just not flowing there.
PEA--Sweaty palms and shaky knees. Um, it’s a stretch.

CHF--General restlessness. Your heart is sick!
PEA--General restlessness. Your heart is sick!

What can we take away from this? Very little, if anything. Happy Valentine's Day. And shout out to the single ladies.

Life with Camry

Humans can’t get enough of longing for the unobtainable. If only--the ubiquitous phrase. If only I had cable, I could waste away more hours watching the NBA’s ridiculously long season. Or a smaller waist line, then I’d definitely get a man worth keeping! My personal favorite: if I could only get this girl/guy I’m obsessed with to notice me, I’d stop being such a douche bag to my friends. Life is deemed imperfect and empty until the next obsession comes along, creating a cyclical pattern of lust, greed and insecurity.

This winter I’ve developed one of my own. If I could only I could speak the language of my 1995 Toyota Camry, life would be a lot easier.

We haven’t been in each others’ lives that long and I’m really trying to understand her. I try to drive carefully and check her oils regularly. I even dropped a couple pay checks to get her rear struts replaced. Still, she locks her rear tires when I brake, spins them when I accelerate. She encourages unknown men to break her rear window and feel around her insides when I’m not there. Recently she locked my key in the ignition and instead of just telling me to reposition the mug in the cup holder so she’d be fully engaged in Park, she laughed at me.

She’s kind of a tease.

Okay, but is she suicidal? See she's does this thing with her gas pedal a couple times…I’ll let off and she’ll just hold it there for a second. And another second. Aaaand, there are break lights in front of us, COME ON, STOP IT, IS THIS SOME SORT OF A SICK GAME TO YOU?!? To which she’ll finally let off with a mocking rumble rumble.

The U.S. Department of Transportation says it’s not an electrical flaw. Nope, nothing wrong with her noggin ma’am, just her floor mat and/or her sticky gas pedal. SURE. Me, I think she's bat shit crazy and wants to go visit her Camry friends in recall land. I can picture them having planned this on the assembly line, exchanging VIN numbers and washer rings, “Guys, if we aren’t already totaled in 15 years, let’s all start sticking the gas pedals, okay?”

Me, I'll play along. Take her to the dealership, then maybe give her a little wax rub if she starts behaving. Maybe I'll never speak Camry, but who doesn't like to get rubbed down?

Forces in Yoga

When Janet Tsai steps in front of her Saturday morning yoga class, she's got a different vantage point than most instructors.

Instead of seeing her students like this...



She sees them like this...


Janet is a Ph.D student at the University of Colorado; her focus is engineering education with a twist (er, ardha matsyendrasana). Janet studies forces in yoga, or how fundamental laws in engineering can be identified in basic yoga poses.

An example: Janet shows Newton’s Third Law in sukasana, or the "easy sitting pose".

“Your sit bones contact the earth as your mass is pulled down by gravity. At the same time, you can feel the equal and opposite reaction of the earth as it supports your weight, pushing back up exactly equally and oppositely. Notice that your bones do not actually sink down into the earth, and the earth does not actually lift you up — instead, it’s exactly equal and perfectly matched.”

Janet breaks her research down further to show physics concepts happening in isolated body parts: torsion in a twisting spine; torque and lever arm in a bent arm. She says this example of torque is more universally accessible than, say, the infamous wrench and pipe.

“What if I’ve never used a wrench, what if I don’t know what (torque) feels like. That’s what everything else is based on. If you don’t know that first step then the rest of it’s going to be shaky. If we make people tangibly feel (torque), then they’ll have a sort of self-reliance.

Janet once counted how many free body diagrams in an introductory textbook related to structures such as cars, rockets and airplanes, then noted how many men verses women were pictured in the book. “Six women in the entire book,” she says. This is what Janet, through yoga, is trying to change.


Engineering & Yoga’s Hot Asian Lovechild

As a high schooler in Fort Collins, Janet was far from turned off from the supposedly masculine career of engineering. She was big into robotics club--“I loved creating things“ and “Guys made fun of me sometimes but it was no big deal because I was the smart Asian kid”. She proceeded on to the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, where she was part of the program’s first graduating class of 2006. The school has a unique 50-50 male to female ratio, something that Janet took for granted at the time.

When she landed her first job “laying out the curves” on robots for the company I-Robot, the lenses were abruptly removed. The company sent her to supervise factory production of their products in Shenzhen, China. “Literally, I was the only woman always,“ she said. “I was frequently mistaken for an escort.

“I felt like I was between masculine and feminine because I had to be ‘manly’ all the time.”

Janet found release in yoga. She began doing yoga constantly--in her room; her hallway; the massive seven studio center she belonged to in Hong Kong. When the year was up Janet was sent to Boston, where yoga got smoother and engineering got rough. Massive recession lay-offs in Janet‘s department meant endless work on her desk. After two years she abandoned her robotic dream job and moved back to Colorado.

In Boston she had taken a yoga teacher training course in Ashtanga-based Vinyasa, which is a classical yoga philosophy that guides its practitioners through eight steps of separation with the impure before achieving bliss. When she settled in Boulder, she began to experiment with different studios and styles. She learned the more flow-based Colorado (er, California) style, as well as Anusara, a form of yoga grounded in the Tantric philosophy. Tantric is a “heart-centered" philosophy--instead of realizing a separation of mind and body, the mind and body are connected. "It teaches you that everything you need is within," Janet says.

The practice helped her put her engineering experience into perspective.

“I realized that I can actually see things in a different way than most of the people I work with in engineering…and maybe I can try to change it.”

Janet applied and was accepted into the engineering education PhD program at CU Boulder, just as she broke into the heavily saturated Boulder yoga community and landed a teaching position. The forces of yoga became stronger (or, the arrows on the free body diagrams became more defined).

Though Janet is still trying to get monetary support for her forces in yoga research, she believes in her cause. "We can empower these students," she says. "We can give them mechanical intuition." Still, the department doesn’t traditionally fund the unconventional, so it’s been an uphill battle.

One thing CU Engineering does offer in no short supply is men, many of whom Janet insists interact with no women outside of their families.

“I try and wear a skirt once a week,” she says, smiling.



Janet‘s site: http://forcesinyoga.com/pa/Home.html

*CALLING ALL ENGINEERS: What are your thoughts? Related experiences/ideas to share? Nerdy jokes to replace "forces of yoga getting stronger"? Please comment!

Upset Stomachs in the NBA

This is the story of two NBA point guards. Both were drafted the same year, both were contenders for Rookie of the Year (guy on left got it), and both are blaming food and drink for current bodily woes.

Beast

There he is, point guard of the hour #1. Thursday Derek Rose announced that he had stomach ulcers caused from eating too much spicy food. Friday night he played anyway, for 38 minutes and 22 points.

Did he really have stomach ulcers or was he faking it? And if so, were they really caused by spicy food?

He probably wasn’t lying. He’s just a beast. There are three main parts of the intestinal track in which ulcers originate—the esophagus (called an esophageal ulcer), the stomach (a gastric ulcer) and the most common, the duodenum (a duodenal ulcer). The duodenum is the upper part of the small intestine. Most often, a bacteria called helicobacter pylori colonizes the duodenum, over-stimulating the production of gastric acid. Gastric acid is necessary for digestion, but too much of it causes a depletion in the duodenum’s protective mucus layer.

GROSS, RIGHT? Here’s a friendlier image of what's happening:



So, Rose’s ulcer could have been duodenal and caused by the cutie at left. Awww.






HOWEVER, he’s a professional athlete…under a lot of bodily stress…couldn’t NSAIDs (non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs) be partly to blame? Yes. NSAIDs such as asprin or Ibuprophen can inhibit the the stomach’s secretion of its protective mucus lining. The ulcer would be gastral, not duodenal. The likelyhood that NSAIDs were to blame depends on whether Rose has chronic pain.

There’s always a chance it could have been the spicy food. I’m not his doctor.

As for the other bballer: O.J. Mayo (O.J. jokes withheld) was recently suspended for ten games for testing positive for the performing-enhancing drug dehydroepiandrosterone, or DHEA. Though he was drafted the same year as Rose, Mayo’s career has not launched in the same fashion. This season in particular has been riddled with off-court drama and the loss of his starting position.

The NBA suspension announcement came Thursday (about the same time Rose was in the worst pain); Mayo announced Saturday that the performance-enhancing drug must’ve been in an energy drink he bought at a gas station. Is this possible? And/or likely?

No idea. DHEA exists organically in the human body; it is secreted by the andrenal glands (part of the hormone-information-sharing endocrine system, located above the kidneys) and the brain. Studies have shown that supplementation of DHEA doesn’t have too significant of an impact on performance and sometimes even elevates the levels of estrogen instead of the intended testosterone.

Thus, it is entirely possible that he did just get punked by the energy drink people. God knows those things contain everything under the kitchen sink…



Parties like a rock star. (Especially during his USC years.)

A Sperm's Tale

I’m not sure whether or not my Irish Catholic grandparents would approve of their unwed granddaughter writing two sex-related articles in one week. Alas, my cousin, a nanny (a.k.a. a “mother without having messed up her vagina”), just gave me the scoop on the Shettles Method and I can’t help myself.

The method is named after Landrum Shettles, author of the 1971 book How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby. The book breaks down male verses sperm traits in relation to the timing of the menstrual cycle, identifying how to conceive a baby of each gender. Experts have claimed that the Shettles Method is a load of crock, but people have been swearing by in since ‘71.

The female menstrual cycle is an epic event with many players. A woman’s eggs are stored in sacs in her ovaries called follicles. At birth females have somewhere in the range of half a million of these follicles, which is way more kids than even Jesus reincarnated in a husband could ever help raise. In the menstrual cycle, the follicles mature over seven days, all the while causing the release of the hormone estrogen into the bloodstream. When the estrogen reaches a certain level, it signals the hypothalamus (the gland in the brain that controls hormones) to burst open the most mature follicle by releasing even more hormones. The egg that emerges from the follicle finds its way into the Fallopian tube, where hair-like “cilia” push it toward the uterus. Fertilization can occur if sperm and egg hook up in the Fallopian tube as the egg is in transit.

There are two hormones involved in all of this—estrogen (aforementioned) and progesterone. If the egg and sperm can hold onto each other during the long and treacherous journey to the uterus, then get the necessary amounts of estrogen and progesterone, the woman is likely to get pregnant. In joyful preparation, progesterone will cause a bunch of mucous to build up on the surface of the uterine lining. If the sperm/egg combo isn’t implanted in the uterus after ovulation, the arteries of the uterine lining actually close off (I picture these tubes bending in a sort of turning-up-the-nose fashion), which stops blood flow to the surface of the lining. The blood that should have been flowing pools up until it bursts, and, carrying the mucous lining with it, flows over and out.

Thus, the most fertile period is when the egg is in transit. If followed correctly, the rhythm method indicates when a woman should have sex in order to conceive and when she can go wild in the sack without becoming a weathered-looking mother of twelve. Unless you’re hyper-aware of this method’s nuances, however, you’re likely to mess it up.

Before learning of Shettles and his Method, I thought that was it. Family planning meant following the rhythm method which meant searching Craigslist for used Aerostars and free kids clothes. Now I know it includes application of doggy-style sex and baking soda douches.



(noice braids)

Sperm carrying the Y chromosome (boy sperm) are small and weak and really speedy. Sperm carrying the X chromosome (girl sperm) are big and strong and kind of slow. If sex is had three days before ovulation, the Y sperms are more likely to die off because they’re too weak to survive the fallopian tube journey. Sex at ovulation or right after it, however, favors Y sperms because they’re fast enough to get to the egg before the slow-moving Xs.

Alkalinity can also determine whether or not the girl or guy sperm survive. Girls are more likely to survive in a more acidic environment, as opposed to guys, who thrive in one more alkaline. Thus, a vinegar douche right before sex will provide the acidic environment girls need to thrive; a baking soda douche will give guys the alkaline advantage.

Doggy-style helps boy sperm dodge the acidy entrance to the female vagina, while the more shallow-penetrating missionary position exposes boy sperm to the elements. Another aid for the tiny guys: mom’s orgasm. Female orgasms release a substance that makes the whole place more alkaline. If a woman is to not orgasm before the sperm are released (SURELY an inconceivable event) the girl sperms have the advantage.

Shettles has more tricks up his sleeve to aid couples in producing offspring of the gender of their choice, but these are the basics. It is also recommended that couples do further research into douching before attempting one, as the vinegar scent may knock one of the two partners unconscious and completely botch the whole thing.

Win/Lose/Tie? You'll Still be Sore.

best sport EVER

WARNING: This article contains information that may trigger muscle contractions in readers who participated in the Phoenix Cactus Classic Field Hockey Tournament this past weekend. Read with caution.

In mid-December, I played a pick-up field hockey game in Fort Collins, Colorado with friends. We played for about an hour and half—a rewarding workout but not overexerting. I wasn’t tired the next day, nor was I nervous about participating in a two-day tournament in Phoenix six weeks later. Field hockey, yay, field hockey, my muscles were telling me.

Fast forward those six weeks to the tournament. I’d tried to keep a base level of fitness in the in-between, running, biking, yogaing and/or swimming with some sort of regularity. I even ran five sprints across a goose poop covered field one day. Regardless, I failed to make it to even one field hockey session, and when game day came my muscles had all but forgotten how to contract and lengthen in field hockey fashion.

Still, I was feeling okay on Saturday. Slight Pain in the right IT band, but nothing big. By evening I felt tired, hungry, easily buzzed off the tournament party keg beer, but not too sore.

Sunday was an onslaught of pain.

I was far from pain’s only victim. One of my teammates walked onto the field with his legs and torso forming a stiff 90 degree angle, another had a dead-eyed look for the rest of the tournament. We all managed to regain the necessary amount of flexibility to play our last game, but there was a lot of “I never used to feel this way”/”Getting old sucks” chatter.

The name of this phenomenon is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and it’s far from unique to old people and/or field hockey players (though we do experience DOMS most acutely because field hockey is inarguably the most physically and mentally multi-dimensional sport in existence). There are three types of muscle contractions—those that lengthen muscles (eccentric contractions), those in which the muscles remain static (isometric contractions) and those that shorten muscles (concentric contractions). When you curl a dumbell into your chest, you are shortening your muscles. When you slowly bring the dumbell back down to your side, you are elongating them.

Eccentric exercises are the hardest because the muscles are working against forces. In the previous example, the muscles in your biceps are working against gravity and the weight of the dumbell, so they are decelerating the speed of the dumbell’s movement as they lengthen out to their original position. Eccentric exercises include any sort of muscle movement that requires breaking after a quick acceleration, including swinging and twisting motions, quick sprints and stops, squats, jumps and, eh, oh I just deconstructed the sport of field hockey. Look at that.

DOMS is worst in the 12-48 hours after a new bout of hard physical activity, meaning that if we were to play in a similar tournament this weekend we’d leave feeling pretty normal. Unfortunately for us, the next one isn’t until April.

Until them, keep it eccentric, field hockey gurus.

Message in a Pheromone

Last week a study was released that brought chemosignals (messages we send subconsciously to other humans through bodily fluids and scents) back into the limelight. Apparently men are universally turned off when women start to cry, which kind of sucks for all the emotionally-wrecked females out there. Male participants in the study were given female tears to smell and then had their brains scanned for lobal activity. Activity in the hypothalamus and fusiform gyrus (areas affected by sexual arousal) immediately dropped.



Sending signals through tears is an interesting concept, as were the results of another chemosignal-related study conducted in 2008, one relating to your girlfriend’s nightly cell phone alarm and that strange little calendar of pills she carries in her purse.

The birth control pill as a marketable contraceptive hit its fiftieth anniversary last year, causing cautious females across the globe to pat their pill pack and cross their fingers that they hurry up with the male version already. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/opinion/08collins.html) Though the pill’s positive contributions to society are widely noted, increasing awareness that birth control can cause adverse side effects has caused many women to drop it. One woman particularly susceptible to fear mongering told me she got off the pill because she was afraid she’d be infertile forever.

This particular study fuels the anti-BC fire: birth control, it concludes, may cause women to sniff out the wrong suitors. Men and women communicate their genetic compatibility through pheromones, subconsciously choosing those with whom they’d make the fittest babies. All humans possess what’s called a major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which encodes molecules that are an integral part of the immune system. Men and women are supposed to seek out partners of the opposite sex that have a different MHC coding than themselves, as breeding between two MHC-similar couples leads to less genetic variance and weaker immunity in future generations. Birth control meddles with everything, causing women to seek out suitors that actually smell more like their dads than their ex-boyfriends, making them choose men that are histo-incompatible.

Unnerving news, sure, but human relationships and successful child rearing are based on more than just a cocktail of scents. Besides, there are at least a billion and one other things out there that could adversely affect female fertility and the strength of their offsprings’ immune systems.



Was it birth control that made her say “l-l-lick me like a lollipop”? WHO REALLY KNOWS?

What the Quark is going on here?

atom smashing in pre-particle acceleration era

You may be asking, why should I care about the Tevatron shutting down? (see last post.) Or about particle accelerators in general? Here’s the thing: large-scale particle accelerators like the Tevatron & Large Hadron Collider are not far off from the microwave in your kitchen or the computer screen from which you’re reading this.

“Microwaves” heat up food by emitting a microwave at a 2500 megahertz frequency (FM radio bandwiths use 88-108 mhz) that is uniquely absorbed and converted into heat by water, fats and sugars. And “atom-smashing” occurs in computer screens every time you power them on: electrons stored in a cathode accelerate through a cathode ray tube, change direction at the pull of electromagnets and smash into the phosphor molecules on the screen, creating a pixel, or light spot.

Particle accelerators produce microwaves on which particles ride. Like computer monitors, they too speed up particles and then very suddenly smash them into targets. The difference between the big-time smashers and those small appliances is that their microwaves are one million times more powerful, and the max speed of their particles is close to the speed of light (approximately 180,000 miles per second).

Thus, the big guys are powerful enough to break down matter into subatomic particles, and we’re not just talking protons, neutrons, electrons here. I personally feel cheated for not having learned about quarks (the smaller components of protons and neutrons) in high school, as well as for not seeing quark as a commonly-used noun in the English language (“the building quarks of matter”, “the little quarky spider”; great opportunities wasted).

After speeding up and smashing particles, particle accelerators use detection devices to analyze the results, including liquid and cloud chambers that track the trail of the scattered bits (similar to cloud trails left by airplanes, which are formed by exhaust condensing in the atmosphere). Some of the subatomic-particles that can be observed include:

-matter including QUARKS (you already know) & different types of LEPTONS (sounds like: leprechaun. similarly speedy. electrons are one type).

-anti-matter including POSITRONS (essentially a positive-charged electron).

-some BOSONS, which are particles that carry forces. The four known forces are strong, weak, electromagnetism and gravity. There is still a lot that scientists hope to discover regarding BOSONS via atom smashing.


Perhaps the biggest aspiration scientists have for atom-smashing is to recreate the Big-Bang theory and understand exactly how the universe formed. The theory is widely-accepted but until it is proven, a theory it shall remain. Other questions left unanswered: what gives particles mass, and what really is the deal with quarks? Who really is that ugly guy from Star Trek? And what DNA manipulation do we need to do to get earlobe/eyebrows like that in the human species?



Quark the bartender from Deep Space Nine


So many questions for Tevatron to answer, and only seven more months to answer them…

Death of a Tevatron

Located beneath the Franco-Swiss border, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) gained international notoriety in Fall 2008 when its proton beams circulated its 17 mile track for the first time. It was officially the world’s largest particle accelerator—physics enthusiasts across the world cheered at “first beam” all-night pajama parties, calling it the beginning of a new frontier in particle physics.



lookin snazzy there, scientist

Chances are you’ve heard of the LHC, but unless you’re one of those pajama-wearing physics geeks (or a northeastern Illinois resident), you might not have heard of the Tevatron. The Tevatron is a smaller particle accelerator located at the Fermilab center in Batavia, Illinois. Its track is three miles long, which remained the longest in the world until 2008. It ran its first accelerated beam in July 1983. By October 2011 it will have run its last.

The Tevatron is named after the speed at which it is capable of accelerating protons and anti-protons: 1 TeV (see “Breaking it Down”). Though it continues to make significant scientific discoveries since the opening of the LHC (especially in the wake of LHC malfunctions), the larger particle accelerator ultimately renders the smaller obsolete. The Large Hadron Collider is designed to operate at 14TeV. Discover magazine has a great article that chronicles the race between Tevatron & the LHC in more depth (visit http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance and scroll down to January 11th’s “The End of Tevatron” posted by John).

Researchers at Tevatron still have hope that their track will see the Higgs boson before the LHC does. Higgs boson, aka “the God particle”, is a hypothetical massive particle whose discovery would legitimize the Higgs mechanism, which explains how elementary products become massive. Basically, its discovery would turn theories into laws, giving physics a whole bunch more street cred.

Despite the Tevatron’s contribution to that new frontier in physics, its demise is eminent and far from sudden. Congress voted not to extend funding beyond September 2011 way back during Clinton‘s term. The Director of the Office of Science at the DOE wrote a letter on January 6th confirming that the date has not changed. Even if its scientists were to discover Higgs boson this spring or summer, the Tevatron’s particle beams will still stop beaming come autumn.

Breaking it Down:

Particles in the Tevatron accelerate to near the speed of light (about 180,000 miles per second) but they get there via high voltage. Voltage is analogous to water pressure. The more water pressure there is in a pipe, the faster the water will flow. Electronvolts are thus markers for electron acceleration; an electronvolt is the amount of kinetic energy (energy of motion) gained by one electron when it reaches one volt. A TeV (ie TeV-atron) is defined as one trillion electronvolts. It takes the Tevatron approximately one trillion electronvolts to reach its top speed.

There are two types of particle accelerators: the linear particle accelerator (moves in a straight line) and the circular particle accelerator. Both Tevatron and the LHC are circular particle accelerators.

Both are also synchrotrons, which use synchronized electromagnetism to move particles. The particle beam is what moves; it is synchronized with a magnetic field (it keeps the particles circulating around the track) and an electric field (it accelerates the particles). Synchrotons have the best potential to reach ungodly fast speeds because of this carefully timed synchronization.

Another noteworthy type of circular particle accelerator is the one that paved the way for all other particle accelerators: the cyclotron. Ernest O. Lawrence invented the first in 1929 at 4inches in diameter. Today many cyclotrons are used to treat cancer. The technique is called proton therapy; ion beams are shot into the body to kill tumors without harming healthy tissue on the way. Because they can only move particles at a few percent of the speed of light, however, cyclotrons are not capable of making physics discoveries on the same scale as synchrotons.



rip Tevatron

Haitian Havok

This week Haiti solemnly marked the one year anniversary of earthquake destruction. Just two months earlier, jittery Haitians panicked at the small tremor of a minor earthquake under Port-au-Prince, which shook around the same time scientists concluded that the 7.0 earthquake of January 2010 wasn't caused by a strike-slip in the previously suspected Endriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone. No, that one was a new, lesser known fault. Conclusion? The built up tensions in the E-P G fault are still tense. Haiti's not out of the danger zone.

This unfortunate truth, coupled with the nation's failing reconstruction attempts, begs an important question: What is the breaking point for cities and states prone to national disasters? The question has been asked countless times in regards to Southern Louisiana, which endured hurricane and oil spill within four years. The area's history and zeal caused many to scoff at the question. Though the region is still one of the nation's most economically devastated, there is no arguing against the fact that its turmoil unleashed motivation in Americans--residents fighting for the city they call home and idealistic youth fighting for the city they call party.

America cannot save Haiti. Our residents can call in monetary donations during a Jay Z performance on a TV fundraiser, but we cannot collectively fuel the country's reconstruction (if we could, we'd probably botch it). Working under the assumption that the rich can't aid the poor here, the dilemma is whether or not Haiti is worth saving, considering its unstable structure and location over so many deadly fault lines.

whether Haiti is worth saving...

It's such an easy line to throw out when you're on the outside. Even as a visitor to New Orleans I had no problem saying it in 2007. Ultimately, there's no doubt that it is and it will. Haitians will not up and flee as a society, so their roots will remained grounded in this faulted, tense country regardless of whether they live in abject poverty or just pretty poor poverty.

Americans poured money into rebuilding New Orleans despite scientific projections that this very well could happen again. In Haiti, however, the same truth may have turned the faucet off.