It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Now that black Friday is over with, it's time to actually put thought into the gifts you're buying for the holidays – namely the ones for yourself. Go ahead and buy a nice, big present since everything is on sale. I don't know about you, but everything I bought on black Friday was for myself, as I, too, am a poor college student. Anyway, here are a couple gift ideas inspired by recent technology.

For those of you hooked on gaming, you no longer have to pretend to shoot your enemy... or your friends for that matter. A new vest, which can be hooked up to consoles from the PC to the Nintendo Wii, will actually cause pain in its wearer, at least according to Popular Mechanics. For you non-gamers, the Wii is a gaming console that has a wireless remote instead of a typical controller and is one of the most sought-after systems today. Fortunately for vest wearers, the impact they feel will be nowhere near as intense as if they actually got kneed in the abs or shot in the torso. The "pain" is generated by eight air pressure cells within the vest which react to the action on the television or computer screen.

If you do not want to invest in the vest – since it is $189 plus shipping – you could always push your opponent into a coffee table and blame it on the Wii*. Really, Wii-related injuries are not unheard of; take a look at the Web site Wii Have A Problem and see all the different ways people have been hurting themselves with this system.

Another gift you could give yourself is a tattoo – without the commitment of having it forever. Ink company Freedom-2 has developed a tattoo ink that can be removed from the skin with only one laser treatment, as opposed to the six or seven that it takes with the standard tattoo ink.

This new ink uses a microencapsulation method that will hold the ink in place under the skin. However, when gone over with a laser, the ink disperses and is absorbed by the body.

And in the ever-humorous words of Discover Magazine, these tattoos "work like scratch 'n' sniff," in that a chemical is held together in a little ball when left alone but disperses when agitated.

So go ahead: get your girlfriend's name on your arm or that tribal sun you know you'll regret tomorrow.** I don't recommend that you actually scratch and sniff it, though, especially when it's new – that could make the ink blotchy, and it probably won't smell like strawberries.

*Please, don't really do this, since I don't want to be held responsible for your moronic actions. Frankly, I don't even want to be responsible for my own moronic actions, but I have no one to blame but myself.

**See above.

Dissecting Your Meal

For many out-of-town students, Thanksgiving is one of the first opportunities to return home to the family. In an effort to cut down on some of the awkward conversations – like the ever-dreaded "what have you been learning about in school" conversations – here are some little-known facts about some traditional Thanksgiving food items that may help you change the subject.

Or, you know, make it look like you learned something this semester.

Food: Pumpkins
Who to target: Your grandparents and other diabetics
Pumpkin extracts may help prevent diabetes and may help current diabetics keep their blood sugar levels down, according to Science Daily. The extracts have been shown to help regenerate pancreatic cells in rats, which places more insulin into the bloodstream. Type 1 diabetics will still have to inject themselves with insulin on a daily basis, but the pumpkin extract may help cut down on the number of injections needed.

Unfortunately, eating a slice of pumpkin pie this year probably won't help you if you are diabetic. It goes without saying that if it is not sugar free, there is a chance that it may still spike your blood sugar.

Food: Cranberries
Who to target: The people who are afraid of germs (there's at least one in every family).
Compounds found in these little red berries are able to stop E. coli, the monster behind all sorts of food poisonings, before the bacteria becomes an infection, according to Science Daily. No one is really sure why, but the cranberry compounds prevent the bacteria from sticking to the cells in the body.

Now all you have to do is get over the taste of the cranberry sauce, although there is no guarantee that the canned kind has any cranberry content at all.

Food: Turkey
Who to target: The ones who seem mentally-unstable
Besides just making you sleepy, the l-tryptophan found in turkey can be metabolized into serotonin – the brain chemical we are always hearing about in those depression commercials. Serotonin essentially makes you feel less sorry for yourself and believe that life is worth living.

Unless you are a turkey, because then your life is for eating. Anyway, if there becomes a heated debate at the dinner table, you can tell them all to shove it – and by it, I mean their mouths – with turkey.

Visual Stimulation
Who to target: Everyone else
For those of you who prefer to look at pictures instead of words, Wired posted some neat photos of food under a microscope.

My favorite photo is the beer, and it's not just because I like to drink it.

Well, maybe it is, since beer also prevents awkward conversations.

It's Only A Day Away

I'm sure there's something important you could be doing right now, but chances are you are waiting until the last minute to do it. It's ok: 90 percent of college students are guilty of procrastination, at least according to LiveScience. And now, thanks to a 10-year study, science has finally determined why people put things off until tomorrow ... sort of.

According to professor Piers Steel of the University of Calgary, we procrastinate because we are impulsive, and we need that jolt of pressure toward the end of a deadline to actually get tasks accomplished.

And here I thought I was just more productive in the morning; turns out that I just need that extra push to get things done.

Anyway, college students are impulsive by nature - really, how many times have you crammed for a test - so it makes sense that we are the largest contributors to the procrastination population. Out of the total population, procrastinators only make up 15 to 20 percent, which shows that we may eventually grow out of this awful habit.

Or it could just be an indication that 80 to 85 percent of the population doesn't use the Internet, which is the greatest procrastination tool since the television. It seems like we procrastinators thrive on instant gratification, and apparently Steel agrees.

"[Procrastinators] are the type of people who choose short-term gain and incur long-term pain," Steel told LiveScience.

Yep, that sounds like college: the land where the short term goal of having an active social life sometimes trump the long-term goal of graduating on time.

Granted, this is FAU. I'm sure there are plenty of students who don't get to graduate on time for reasons beyond their control, such as the small class sizes of many required courses and having to fight for department permission.

Anyway, for all you math people, Steel also says that procrastination can be described using the following formula:

U = E x V / I x D

According to Scientific American, U is a person's desire to finish the task (e.g. homework), E is the person's expectation of success, V is the value of the completed task, I is the immediacy in which the task needed to be done, and D is the person's sensitivity to delay.

I think the formula's just another excuse to waste time. I'm sure Steel used a considerable amount of time coming up with the formula when he could have been doing other things. I know I spent a considerable amount of time looking at the formula when I could have been doing homework.

Or, you know, surfing Facebook.

Under the Sea

Here at FAU, we all live within driving distance of the ocean - some of us are even within walking distance. In fact, we even have a campus called SeaTech with an ocean engineering department. Whether or not you enjoy the beach, there are some fascinating creatures that live under the sea.

For instance, scientists discovered the oldest living animal at the bottom of the ocean - that is, until they killed it. The approximately 405-year-old clam was just, well, doing whatever clams do off the coast of Iceland when it was picked up by researchers and killed. In their defense, it looked just like any other clam.

Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed that the oldest living animal turned out to be a clam. I was hoping that it would be a tortoise or, by some stroke of luck, a giant gorilla; maybe I'm just strangely partial to land animals. (I'm not going to lie; fish freak me out a little bit.)

Anyway, besides just being good for a photo op, the scientists plan to use the clam to track climate changes in the past by analyzing the rings on its shell; that's also how the scientists figured out the age of the clam. I'd hate to be the researcher who had to sit down and count all the lines on the clamshell. That has to be the most tedious job in the world, but I guess someone had to draw the short straw.

Another magical creature we've found at the bottom of the ocean is the ever-vicious cone snail. Apparently there's a deadly snail and its venom can paralyze a person, according to LiveScience. Fortunately, the venom also has benefits, such as possible treatment for strokes and chronic pain.

I still think it's neat that we can turn components of lethal venom into a treatment, especially from a creature as ugly as a snail. Granted, the treatments are still in the laboratory, but it's a step in the right direction.

If you would like to learn more about the killer snails, Frank Marí, an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry here at FAU, is giving a presentation on the snail's benefits on Thursday, Nov. 8, at 3:30 p.m. The presentation will take place in the Charles E. Schmidt Biomedical Science Center in room 126 on the Boca campus.

Or you could skip the presentation and just go to the beach instead.

Dead Man Walking

Many guys don't like to be tied down in a relationship during their college years, but science has recently determined that this behavior may cause them to die before their female counterparts. Apparently, species which are not monogamous, also called polygynous species, tend to age faster and die earlier due to the constant competition for sex. This wouldn't be a problem for people if they weren't so afraid of death, but we intrinsically fear the unknown and death is the ultimate unknown.

The current definition of death is the point at which the brain stops functioning, and it often occurs when the brain spends a considerable amount of time without oxygenated blood. According to New Scientist, the average person has about 10 seconds between when the blood stops running and losing consciousness, which will probably be the scariest 10 seconds of our lives. Granted, we won't be around to remember it, but I think it's the fear of physical pain that makes us fear death, as none of us know just how much death hurts.

Given that we live in a society full of the delicious, artery-clogging goodness that is fried food, it isn't surprising that heart attacks are among the most popular ways to die. Although some heart attack survivors claim to have felt pain and pressure in the chest, others say "it felt more like indigestion, tiredness or muscle cramps than a heart attack," according to New Scientist. So while you think you may just be experiencing gas from eating at a hole-in-the-wall burger joint, it might turn out to be a heart attack — not to freak you out or anything.

Probably more common to our demographic — the Florida college student — is death by drowning: drowning in the ocean, drowning while drunkenly swimming and drowning in your own vomit. According to the National Safety Council, 3,718 people died from accidental drowning in 2003, and only 412 of these cases involved boating accidents. The survivors claim that there is a "tearing" and "burning sensation" as the water goes into the lungs, and they are ultimately overwhelmed by a feeling of calmness, says New Scientist. People can typically only hold their breath 30 to 90 seconds, after which the water that the victim inhales blocks the gas exchange in the lungs, which leads to death.

No one knows for sure what happens after that, but common beliefs are that our souls go to some faraway land, that our souls walk the earth for all eternity or that nothing happens at all. Given that today is Halloween, though, you're sure to see many ghosts and other "dead" people — albeit fake ones — walking the streets.

Costume Ideas for the Mad Scientist

If you're still scrambling for a Halloween costume, I suggest dressing as a mad scientist with a real live brain as a prop - which you can make yourself. Scientists at some other Florida school have developed a functioning brain using electrodes (electricity conductors) and rat neurons (brain parts), which could help figure out what causes neurological disorders, such as epilepsy, and how brain function evolved over time. Granted, the brain is quite small for an accessory, and it probably can't go outside for trick-or-treating, but it is impressive nonetheless.

And what do you do with the brain once Halloween is over? Train it to fly a plane, of course; I'm being completely serious. The scientists hooked up the mini-brain to a flight simulator and it slowly became better at flying the virtual aircraft. These brain-makers hope this technology could one day be used to fly unmanned aircrafts, such as fighter planes.

Still, I'm not sure how much I'd trust a "living computational device" to control a major aircraft, since it doesn't have any eyes. Luckily, this reality is still a far way off, according to a biomedical engineer at the Georgia Tech. The brain is far from having the capacity of a human brain, as it's made up of significantly less neurons. But since the brain is capable of learning, it can help create the next generation of computers, which will hopefully be able to do more than simply recall pre-programmed information.

If you don't have the time or energy to grow a brain, which is the major component of the costume, you can dress as a Jesus-doctor - one who can perform miracles by bringing damaged limbs and organs back to life. Earlier this month, scientists over in the United Kingdom came up with a plan to develop a "bionic" nerve, which will be rolled into a tube-like structure and placed between the two ends of a severed nerve. The nerve will then re-grow over the bionic structure, and supposedly, patients will regain complete use of the limb or organ that was damaged.

Granted, this costume would not be as impressive as the one with the brain, but you should be able to fake it pretty well for one night. Then again, I am not sure if nerds still get beat up in the school yard, so dressing like one for Halloween may be hazardous to your health. You could always take the easy way out and dress as Doctor Frankenstein, since there are plenty of costumes of his monster (also referred to as Frankenstein) floating around in retail stores. How close are we to building a real creature out of left-over parts like Frankenstein did in Mary Shelley's book? Not very, but are getting closer to fixing the parts we already have.

Color Me Bad

Throughout life, we learn to associate colors with different tasks: red means stop, yellow means caution, and red and yellow together mean McDonald’s. I learned my senior year of high school that green and pink together induce nausea, but only after we chose them as our class’s Homecoming colors. Oddly enough, though, not everyone sees color the same way you do.

Apparently some women can see more colors than the rest of us, which may cause them to spend more time comparing shades of lipstick and picking out the perfect outfit. Thus, scientists have finally discovered why women take more time to shop than men. Called tetrachromats, these people can see four different channels of color, instead of just the red, green and blue variety that most humans can see. Unfortunately, there is no way to describe these other or more intense colors; if you've read The Giver, you probably know what I mean. For those of you who haven't, most of the people in the book see in black-and-white, except for a select few who can see red. Those who can see red in the book cannot describe why the red objects look different, since no one can conceptualize the color. Anyway, there's also no online vision test for these extra colors, since computers monitors tend to use three colors.

Of course, there are people who can't even see all three colors, in a characteristic that is more common in men than women: color blindness. Many mammals are color blind, but, thanks to science, there are now three mice that can see color. This was done in an effort to figure out the evolution of our eyes -- or play God, if you're of the Brother Micah variety. The researchers bred "genetically altered" mice (whatever that means) into passing along a gene which allows the mice to see the color red. If the scientists wanted to get really fancy with the human-rat vision evolution, they could've also given the mice a nifty pair of contact lenses, since mice are relatively nearsighted, or a pair of glasses for those that are stuck in the 1980s.

Nearsightedness, or the inability to see distant objects clearly, is caused by light not quite reaching the retina while remaining in focus. It's almost as though your eyes are too big for the amount of light they let in, and thus the light cannot reach the back of the eye. Farsightedness, the inability to see close objects clearly, is caused by too much light hitting the retina before the object comes into focus. You could also pretend that I said your eyes are too small for the amount of light they let in.

Anyway, besides just seeing colors -- or not seeing them, in some cases -- there are also people who feel colors. No, this isn't some sort of New Age philosophy, but an actual neurological condition. Called synesthesia, people with this condition can not only feel colors, but also hear, smell and taste them. There are variations of synesthesia, such as seeing time, and there is no explanation for any variation. While it would be neat to experience this condition without the use of illegal drugs, I am truly glad that I do not have it; pink is my favorite color, and I would hate to feel nauseous every time I see it.