More than ever before, the human population has been turning to the drug caffeine as a stimulant in our everyday lives. As the fastest growing component of the beverage industry, caffeinated substances such as energy drinks, shots, and other supplements are being consumed in noticeably greater quantities (Kumar et al. 2105). 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine is a chemical compound commonly known as caffeine. In humans, extremely high doses of caffeine can be considered a drug, but the normal daily intake of the drug which is obtained through drinks and some food items such as coffee and candy bars can trigger a dopamine release in the prefrontal cortex and blocks adenosine receptors (Chawla, 2015). This then directly affects the central …show more content…
They each have a head section with antenna to help them sense what is around them and smell. Millipedes are extremely beneficial to test how caffeine may affect them because of their slow moving speeds and easily accessible sensory spots (Millipede, 2015).
When testing the effect of caffeine on millipede’s short term speed, it can be hypothesized that caffeine changes the short term speeds of millipedes. We predict that the millipedes will move at a faster rate when exposed to caffeine as compared to when not. Should our prediction be correct, this information could lead to justification in further research on the evolution of the Narceus americanus, along with useful information to environmentalists and conservationists on the effect of caffeine in our soils from a different perspective.
Methods and …show more content…
Because of time constraints we were limited to very little testing time which fused with the millipede uncooperation led to very few reliable measurements. The few tests showed the millipedes’ inconsistency in running a track and in some cases their disturbance by elements around them which made them not go across the track at all. This inability to run many tests led to very large confidence intervals in the data and ultimately to the data’s insignificance. The complete unreliability of the animal requires much more concrete data to be able to see and prove a correlation between the two, but with the uncertain actions of the millipede the data was incomplete and showed little to nothing about the experiment. In further testing, there are many different factors that could have been changed to bring about more conclusive results. Because of the difficulty in handling the millipedes, a different test subject could have been chosen. Another possibility would to have chosen a more measurable response factor other than speed such as respiration. Choosing speed left too many unfinished attempts by the millipede that resulted in a loss of a large portion of data. Other smaller sources of error could include the unknown handling conditions of the millipedes before testing and the sugar content of the energy drink used in