Artificial sweeteners are rising in popularity, in part due to the influence of social media platforms like YouTube. However, YouTube commenters often repeat information about artificial sweeteners that is not supported by scientific research. To investigate how misinformation about sweeteners spreads through social media, Kim and Yoo conduct a content analysis of YouTube comments to reveal how many comments repeat misinformation about artificial sweeteners' effects.
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Studying habitability of the exoplanents Kepler-504 b, Kepler-315 b, and Kepler-315 c
The authors explore how similar exoplanets are to Earth and whether they could be inhabited by humans and other living organisms.
Read More...Reddit v. Wall Street: Why Redditors beat Wall Street at its own game
Here the authors investigated the motivation of a short squeeze of GameStop stock where users of the internet forum Reddit drove a sudden increase in GameStop stock price during the start of 2021. They relied on both qualitative and quantitative analyses where they tracked activity on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit in relation to mentions of GameStop. With these methods they found that while initially the short squeeze was driven by financial motivations, later on emotional motivations became more important. They suggest that social phenomena can be dynamic and evolve necessitating mixed method approaches to study them.
Read More...Awareness of plastic pollution and adoption of green consumer lifestyles among students from high school
In this study, the authors test ways to increase knowledge of green consumerism amongst high school students. Their knowledge was measured based on the New Ecological Paradigm Scale.
Read More...Exploring a Possible Link Between ADHD and Inattentional Blindness
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is characterized by impulsivity, hyperactivity, and inattention. The authors hypothesized that people with ADHD would display more inattentional blindness in perceptually simple tasks and less inattentional blindness in perceptually complex tasks. The results indicate that there is no significant correlation between ADHD and inattentional blindness in either type of task.
Read More...Ladder Fuel Treatments Effect Burn Area of Forest Fires in Semi-Arid High Elevation Climates
In this study, the authors investigate a timely and important topic: forest fires. More specifically, they use a wildfire simulator to test how ladder fuels effect the burn area of a forest fire. Ladder fuels are fuels that cause a forest fire to rise up from the forest floor to the canopy, which may affect the overall spread. They simulated fire spread with different levels of ladder fuel treatment and found that the spread of a burn area would indeed decrease with increased ladder fuel treatment. These findings have important implications for forest and forest fire management.
Read More...Bacteria and Antibiotic Resistance in School Bathrooms
Since school bathrooms are widely suspected to be unsanitary, we wanted to compare the total amount of bacteria with the amount of bacteria that had ampicillin or streptomycin resistance across different school bathrooms in the Boston area. We hypothesized that because people interact with the faucet, outdoor handle, and indoor handle of the bathroom, based on whether or not they have washed their hands, there would be differences in the quantity of the bacteria presented on these surfaces. Therefore, we predicted certain surfaces of the bathroom would be less sanitary than others.
Read More...The Effect of Concentration on the Pressure of a Sodium Chloride Solution Inside Dialysis Tubing
In this study, the authors investigate the effects of sodium levels on blood pressure, one of the most common medical problems worldwide. They used a simulated blood vessel constructed from dialysis tubing to carefully analyze pressure changes resulting from various levels of sodium in the external solution. They found that when the sodium concentration in the simulated blood vessel was higher than the external fluid, internal pressure increased, while the reverse was true when the sodium concentration was lower than in the surrounding environment. These results highlight the potential for sodium concentration to have a significant effect on blood pressure in humans by affecting the rate of osmosis across the boundaries of actual blood vessels.
Read More...Bacterial Richness of Soil Samples from Southern New Hampshire
Advancement in DNA sequencing technology has greatly increased our understanding about the role of bacteria in soil. The authors of this study examine the microbial content of soil samples taken from three locations in southern New Hampshire with varying pH and plant composition.
Read More...An in vitro comparative analysis of the growth factors present in FBS vs PLAY®
Here the authors performed a comparative analysis to investigate the viability of using PLAY® instead of fetal bovine serum (FBS) as a growth medium to culture cells with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.
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