As a blog upholding ethics:

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The Logical Science blog would like to release this statement on the execution of John Allen Muhammed:

The State of Virginia, prosecutors who worked on the John Allen Muhammed case, and all of those people who have stood up in support of capitol punishment, murdered a man tonight. These people stood, as if ordained by God or some higher power, pointed their finger at a man, evil, deranged, twisted as he may be, and said “You deserve to die.”

Tonight, the American justice system failed. Tonight, justice wasn’t served, rather, the perpetuation of mindless violence and killing was preserved as acceptable and ethical in our society, when nothing could be further from the truth. Tonight, the state of Virginia, prosecutors, and capital punishment supporters gave John Allen Muhammed exactly what he wanted. They gave him the status of a martyr. A martyr for his cause.

Tonight, all these people should be held accountable for murder. These people stand and say, “Killing is wrong, so we’ll kill you.” Those that derive some form of twisted justice from capitol punishment are as deranged as those sentenced to endure government sanctioned murder.

Tonight, justice wasn’t served. And now, it never will be.

30 Day Workout Challenge Week 1 Recap

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It’s been one full week since I started my latest 30 Day Challenge.  In this post, I’ll recap how I’ve performed the past week and how I’ve felt after doing so.  I’ll also be discussing my new maxes for the upcoming week, as well as the new workout schedule.

To review what I did each day this week, I alternated days focusing on strength training and cardio.  After maxing my pushups, situps, and crunches last Sunday, I focused on cardio Monday, running a mile in 7:53.  Wasn’t too shabby for my first mile in a couple years.

Newborn Babies and Language

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Yes, as crazy as it seems, new studies have shown that the cries of newborn children in the countries of France and Germany (where the study was done) match melodic patterns the children have heard in adult conversations.  According to Kathleen Wermke of the University of Würzburg in Germany, the programming of the child’s brain to recognize the melodic nature of their mother’s language begins even while still in the womb.

Wermke and her colleagues found that 2-5 days after birth, the babies match the tuneful signature of their parents’ native language, a sign that language learning has already commenced, the researchers report in a paper published online November 5 in Current Biology.

30 Day Challenge: Workout Update

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Yesterday I maxed out my pushups, situps, and crunches.  I managed 50 pushups before my arms felt like Jello.  I then brought out my Perfect Pushups for the first time in several months, which cut me down to twenty-five.  For situps, I manged 50 with good form, and I managed to get another 25-30, but they were sloppy, so I decided 50 was a good start.  Crunches I managed 100 before my abs started burning like hell.

On day two, (today), I ran my first mile in two years.  I managed to finish in 7:53, which is a lot slower than I used to be able to run a mile.  However, I was surprised at how I was able to immediately start and stay on a good pace and not wear myself out too much.  I was certainly very tired by the end, so I need to increase both my endurance and speed.  Overall, however, I was pleasantly surprised with my ability to still run a mile in under eight minutes.

30 Day Challenge: Workout

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Scientifically speaking, the average person develops or loses a habit in ~30 days.  Of course, this isn’t the same for everyone, and one could ask how one defines the “average” person.  One could further point out that there is no average person when it comes to our psyche.  Ranty as that may be, I’ve decided to start a new 30 day challenge.

I began being interested in 30 day challenges from this blog.  I do believe he participated in a 30 day workout challenge himself.  It’s not my intention to steal his idea, rather, I’m hoping to be putting my body on the line for science, as well as develop a healthy habit of working out frequently (given I do not work out at all as of now).

Dark Matter and WIMP Catchers

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WIMPs, which is an acronym for weakly interacting massive particles, are thought to be potential particles born of the big bang that pass through us billions at a time per second.  The exact function of WIMPs?  To keep our galaxy and other conglomerate areas of the universe from flying apart by providing the necessary mass for balance.

Tom Shutt, who holds the Agnar Pytte Chair of Physics at Case Western Reserve and is the principal investigator for the project, uttered the words we hear often from physicists, “We know there is dark matter, we just don’t know what it is yet.”

Logical Science on Twitter

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Thanks to the fine people here at WordPress, Logical Science can now use Twitter much more easily.  If you haven’t noticed the Twitter feed on the sidebar, you can follow LS by clicking that link (@logicalscience).  Now WordPress offers an immediate method of posting updates to Twitter whenever a new post is made.  That means anyone following @logicalscience will receive updates immediately!

Be sure to include @logicalscience during #FollowFriday’s!

Psychiatric Medication Linked to Weight Gain in Kids

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“Drugs that alleviate severe mental disorders can also result in troubling metabolic changes,” says ScienceNews.org in an article released today.  According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, children who are on psychiatric medication often gain a substantial amount of weight and may have high levels of cholesterol and triglycerides.

It’s worth mentioning that this data is in the early stages of study, and it must be replicated over a larger area of study until results can be completely conclusive.  However, the information provided in this study has certainly raised some worrisome thoughts.

Junk Food Junkies

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A recent study has determined that junk food turns rats into addicts.  Junk food elicits addictive behavior in rats similar to the behaviors of rats addicted to heroin. 

Pleasure centers in the brains of rats addicted to high-fat, high-calorie diets became less responsive as the binging wore on, making the rats consume more and more food. The results, presented October 20 at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting, may help explain the changes in the brain that lead people to overeat.

How Neurons View the World

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By eavesdropping on the activity of single neurons in the human brain, scientists have figured out which brain cells go wild for superstars such as the popular actress Halle Berry, leading to the nickname “Halle Berry Neurons.” And the newest research shows that people can activate those cells selectively.

The results of the experiments were made public at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting by Moran Cerf of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena on October 19.  In summary of the study, researchers wrote, “This study is the first demonstration of humans’ ability to control the activity of single neurons.”  The results may aid researchers in understanding how each individual cell in the brain sees and responds to the world.