Effect of Caffeine on Heart Rate and Calories Burned During Exercise

Four active collegiate level students were asked to participate in a 3 day study, conducted in a strict environment. These students were required to perform the same exact exercise each day at the same time upon waking on an empty stomach following a fasted sleep. All individuals performed the exercise at 7:00 AM. On day one, the participant was to perform the exercise with no caffeine consumption. The following day, the participant was to drink one cup of coffee and perform the required exercise. On the last day of the experiment, each participant drank two cups of coffee before the exercise was performed. The exercise was one mile of walking on a flat treadmill at a speed of 3.5mph. These individuals were wearing a Garmin fitness watch and the heart rate strap that was included in the packaging. Immediately following exercise, these individuals took note of both their heart rate and calories burned. The basis of this study is to show the effects of caffeine on calorie burn and heart rate fluctuation. Following this study, it is important to note that all four participants showed a slight increase in both calories burned and heart rate following the required exercise on each day. The average calories burned with no caffeine was 109.25 and a heart rate of 103 beats per minute. When one cup of coffee was consumed by each individual, the average readings were 118.5 calories burned and a heart rate of 110.25 beats per minute. On the third and final day, the averages were 123.75 calories burned and a heart rate of 120 beats per minute. Thus, proving that caffeine consumption before exercise can help increase heart rate and in return burn more calories. This information can be especially helpful to all individuals trying to lose weight

Evolutionary instability of Zero Determinant strategies demonstrates that winning isn't everything

Zero Determinant (ZD) strategies are a new class of probabilistic and conditional strategies that are able to unilaterally set the expected payoff of an opponent in iterated plays of the Prisoner's Dilemma irrespective of the opponent's strategy, or else to set the ratio between a ZD player's and their opponent's expected payoff. Here we show that while ZD strategies are weakly dominant, they are not evolutionarily stable and will instead evolve into less coercive strategies. We show that ZD strategies with an informational advantage over other players that allows them to recognize other ZD strategies can be evolutionarily stable (and able to exploit other players). However, such an advantage is bound to be short-lived as opposing strategies evolve to counteract the recognition.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures. Change in title (again!) to comply with Nature Communications requirements. To appear in Nature Communication

Black Girls Speak STEM: Counterstories of Informal and Formal Learning Experiences

This study presents the interpretations and perceptions of Black girls who participated in I AM STEM – a community-based informal science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) program. Using narrative inquiry, participants generated detailed accounts of their informal and formal STEM learning experiences. Critical race methodology informed this research to portray the dynamic and complex experiences of girls of color, whose stories have historically been silenced and misrepresented. The data sources for this qualitative study included individual interviews, student reflection journals, samples of student work, and researcher memos, which were triangulated to produce six robust counterstories. Excerpts of the counterstories are presented in this article. The major findings of this research revealed that I AM STEM ignited an interest in STEM learning through field trips and direct engagement in scientific phenomena that allowed the girls to become agentic in continuing their engagement in STEM activities throughout the year. This call to awaken the voices of Black girls to speak casts light on their experiences and challenges as STEM learners ⎯ from their perspectives. The findings confirm that when credence and counterspaces are given to Black girls, they are poised to reveal their luster toward STEM learning. This study provided a space for Black girls to reflect on their STEM learning experiences, formulate new understandings, and make connections between the informal and formal learning environments within the context of their everyday lives, thus offering a more holistic approach to STEM learning that occurs across settings and over a lifetime

Land management impacts on water quality following fire in a major water supply catchment

Salvage harvesting and land clearance to re-establish radiata plantations in the lower catchment followed the January 2003 bushfires in the Cotter River water supply catchment. We report impacts of post-fire catchment disturbance on water quality and pre

ATM germline variants in a young adult with chronic lymphocytic leukemia: 8 years of genomic evolution

The authors thank the Hematopathology Collection registered at the Biobank of Hospital Clínic—Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) as well as Sílvia Martín for the technical support. This study was supported by the “la Caixa” Foundation (CLLEvolution-LCF/PR/HR17/52150017, Health Research 2017 Program HR17-00221, to EC), the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (810287, BCLLatlas, to EC, and HH), CERCA Program/Generalitat de Catalunya, Generalitat de Catalunya Suport Grups de Recerca AGAUR 2017-SGR-1142 (to EC), CIBERONC (CB16/12/00225 to EC), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PID2020-117185RB-I00 (to XSP), FEDER: European Regional Development Fund “Una manera de hacer Europa”, and Fundación Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer FUNCAR-PRYGN211258SUÁR (to XSP). The authors thankfully acknowledge the computer resources at MareNostrum4 and the technical support provided by Barcelona Supercomputing Center (RES activity BCV-2018-3-0001). FN acknowledge research support from the American Association for Cancer Research (2021 AACR-Amgen Fellowship in Clinical/Translational Cancer Research, Grant Number 21-40-11-NADE), the European Hematology Association (EHA Junior Research Grant 2021, Grant Number RG-202012-00245), and the Lady Tata Memorial Trust (International Award for Research in Leukemia 2021–2022, Grant Number LADY_TATA_21_3223). EC is an Academia Researcher of the “Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats” (ICREA) of the Generalitat de Catalunya. This work was partially developed at the Centre Esther Koplowitz (CEK, Barcelona, Spain)