Cockroaches Would Not Survive an Extreme Nuclear Fallout

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Myth: Cockroaches would survive an extreme nuclear fallout

     You’ve probably heard that “the only living things that would survive a nuclear war would be cockroaches and Cher”.  The latter may be true, but the former is most definitely not.  It has even be suggested that cockroaches can survive the amount of radiation at ground zero of a nuclear explosion, though of course, not the explosion itself if they were right next to it (assuming they weren’t in a lead lined refrigerator; then of course they’d definitely survive, as would humans. *looks disapprovingly at Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull*)
     In any event, more recent research has shown that, while cockroaches can withstand ionizing radiation bursts about 10 times as high as humans, they actually are relative light weights in that arena.  In fact, it only takes a burst of about 1,000 rads to significantly interfere with a cockroaches’ ability to reproduce, which would obviously be the eventual end of the cockroach, if they were all exposed to this level.  For reference, this is about the level of radiation at around 15 miles from Hiroshima directly after the bomb was detonated. (note: the Hiroshima bomb was a 15 kiloton weapon, which is nothing next to the megaton nuclear bombs that can be found in most nuclear stockpiles today.)
     Further, at levels of around just 6400 rads, about 94% of immature cockroaches will die and at around 10,000 rads, most adult cockroaches will not survive. While this is very impressive by human standards (humans only being able to survive about 400-1000 rads before death), it’s decidedly unimpressive by insect standards; most insects can survive much higher rates than the cockroach, according to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, who, when they aren’t spending their time trying to spit out their name, apparently enjoy zapping various living things with ionizing radiation. Squeal piggy!
     So who are the actual living creatures that would inherit the Earth after a world-wide nuclear war?  Well, it has been shown that fruit flies take around 64,000 rads to kill.  More impressive than that is the flour beetle which can withstand up to around 100,000 rads before dying.  Even better is a type of wasp, the Habrobracon, that can survive as high as 180,000 rads!  These all get beat by the Deinococcus radiodurans microbe.  This bacteria can survive radiation levels as high as 1.5 million rads at room temperature and nearly 3 million rads when frozen, such as during a hypothetical nuclear winter.
It isn’t entirely clear where the myth that cockroaches were impervious to ionization radiation got started, but it seems to have been largely popularized by anti-nuclear activists in the 1960s who often used the cockroach in their slogans and campaigns.  For instance, in a New York Times advertisement sponsored by the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy: “A nuclear war, if it comes, will not be won by the Americans … the Russians … the Chinese. The winner of World War III will be the cockroach.”

Bonus Factoids:

• The primary reason cockroaches and many types of insects are so resistant to ionizing radiation is that their cells don’t divide that much between molting cycles.  Cells are most susceptible to damage by ionizing radiation when they are dividing.  Given that a typical cockroach only molts about once a week and its cells only divide around a 48 hour period during that week, about 3/4 of the cockroaches exposed would not be particularly susceptible to damage by ionizing radiation, at least, relative to those whose cells were currently dividing.
• As you might have inferred from this, this means that if the radiation experienced by these cockroaches was consistent over a long period of time, they are going to be significantly more susceptible to problems than the numbers quoted in this article.  The above numbers are using specific bursts of radiation over a short span.  Given that at any given moment about 75% of cockroaches aren’t experiencing cellular dividing, about 75% of them are going to be much less susceptibility to damage from these short bursts of radiation, which will drastically skew the numbers of what the species as a whole could survive when talking about a global nuclear fallout scenario.  More accurate research would then have to be done to see what levels of radiation kill or otherwise will significantly harm the roaches that are currently having their cells divide.  Further, ionizing radiation is cumulative, so that would have to be factored in as well.
• The largest nuclear bomb ever detonated was the Tsar Bomba, detonated by the Soviet Union.  This bomb was estimated at around 100 megatons of TNT or about just shy of 7000 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
• The Deinococcus radiodurans  microbe was first discovered growing on rotten canned meat that had been sprayed with an ionizing substance meant to preserve it.  This microbe had no problems surviving such low levels of radiation.
• A cell’s increased susceptibility to damage by ionizing radiation when dividing is why humans and other mammals are so susceptible to this radiation, given that we experience cellular dividing all the time.  This is also why radiation is effective at such low doses at killing cancer cells, relative to what is required to damage healthy cells.  Cancer cells divide much quicker than most other cells in the human body; thus, you can kill the cancer cells faster than the healthy cells and hopefully find a happy medium where all the cancer cells die, but enough of the healthy cells remain and are undamaged enough for the person to continue living on more or less as before.
• While cockroaches may not be well equipped to survive nuclear fallout, relative to various microbes and most of their insect brethren, these little critters are extremely hardy with  fossil records of cockroaches dating all the way back to 300 million B.C., which pre-dates dinosaurs by around 70 million years.  Cockroaches have been shown to survive with their heads chopped off for nearly a month.  Further, they can survive as much as 45 minutes without oxygen and can survive on very low quality of food, such as the glue on a postage stamp, or cellulose, and very little of this food.  They can even survive by simply eating each other, if needs be, which would ultimately doom them if that was their only food source, but works out in the short run.

Black Friday Best Buy Shoppers Rewarded for Record Start

     With more then a week to go to Black Friday, two Best Buy Black Friday shopping families started camping out to be the first in line. Needless to say, this got the attention of the press, which got the attention of Best Buy's marketing team. They decided to reward these early shoppers with iPads.

     The shoppers were Tina Thain and Lorie Davenport (their family members are rotating shifts) and the Best Buy receiving all the attention is located in St Petersburg, Florida. We're not positive, but we believe this is a world-record for Black Friday line starts. They officially started Wednesday at 10 a.m, a full 9-days before Black Friday.

     Again, the level of competition is set by Best Buy Black Friday shoppers. Last year a Best Buy Shopping Couple got married while in the Black Friday line.

Black Friday is not the biggest shopping day of the year!!!

     Black Friday is not the biggest shopping day of the year. In fact, it’s typically not even in the top five, though has cracked the ranks a few times in recent years.
The real biggest shopping day of the year is nearly always the Saturday before Christmas, excepting a few occasions where it typically then ends up being the Thursday or Friday before Christmas, when Christmas falls on a weekend day.  Thus, the procrastinators seem to outnumber the early birds in this respect.
Besides people’s naturally tendency to procrastinate, this should not be a surprise as most people are simply trying to get specific great deals on Black Friday and aren’t tending to look to get all their Christmas shopping done in one day.  So while there might be a lot of people in the stores, most of them aren’t coming home with a lot of items, according to consumer reports.  On the other hand, the last Saturday before Christmas is the last convenient time for many shoppers to get their shopping done and, for many, they put off shopping for a lot of the people they have to shop for until the last minute for various reasons.  So shoppers on this day tend to buy significantly more items per person than shoppers on Black Friday, making it a much more profitable day for retailers.
Bonus Factoids:

• While it may not be the biggest shopping day of the year, Black Friday still rakes in an amazing amount of money, typically bringing in $15-$20 billion worth of revenue each year for the last three years in the United States.
• Another myth online retailers would love for people to start believing is that the Monday following Black Friday, which is beginning to be known as “Cyber Monday”, is the busiest online shopping day of the year.  In fact, Cyber Monday historically doesn’t even make the top ten and before the term was coined and promoted, it wasn’t even typically in the top 30.  Most of the actual biggest online shopping days of the year tend to fall between December 5th and December 15th.  As someone who once owned a reasonably successful online store, I can attest to the fact that the online shopping days between around December 5th-ish to about the 20th, for my store, would see normal sales jump about fifteen times the normal volume per day on average, during that span; then typically tailing off a bit, but staying well above average until around January 5th, at which point sales tend to see their worst rates of the year until around the end of January or early February when things would begin to get back to normal.  The last two Cyber Monday’s I owned that store, I actually saw below average sale rates on that day.
• The idea for Cyber Monday was supposedly the brain child of Shop.org executives who were trying to find a way to get people to devote more of their Christmas shopping to online sales.  A year before the first official Cyber Monday, Shop.org began brainstorming the idea and sent out a mass email to many other major online retailers, hoping everyone would push the idea the following year.  Up until that point, most online retailers hadn’t noticed any significant jump in sales on that day vs. any other day around that time.

Chameleons Don’t Change Color to Match Their Environment

     Chameleons don’t change color to match their environment. Rather, they change color as a response to mood, temperature, health, communication, and light.
     Now, not all kinds of chameleons have the ability to change color and some only have limited ability for color changing; for instance, many types of chameleons can only turn, green, brown, or gray.  Others have the ability to change to a variety of different colors including: pink, blue, red, orange, green, black, brown, blue, yellow, turquoise, and purple.  Of the ones that can change color, they’ll often change to darker shades, when they are cold, and will lie out in the sun during this time.  Likewise, if they are hot, they can change to lighter colors which will reflect the sun better, helping to cool themselves off.
     Most color changes though are simply due to mood changes or for communication purposes.  For instance, the Panther Chameleon will change to red and yellow when they are angry or are getting ready to attack.  This serves as a warning to other chameleons and humans to back off.  Some types of male chameleons will also change to mixed bright colors when they are trying to attract a nearby female chameleon.

Bonus Factoids:

• Those chameleons that can change to a variety of colors can do so thanks to special cells, collectively called chromatophores.  These chromatophore cells are grouped in layers underneath the chameleon’s transparent outer skin layer.  The upper most layers contain yellow and red pigments.  The lower layers are comprised of a colorless crystalline substance and melanin, which both are used to modify the visible color of the upper yellow and red pigments, producing a variety of colors.  In addition to that, the melanin layer also controls the intensity of the final output color.
• Chameleons that can change color typically can change from one color to another in less than 20-30 seconds.
• Chameleons are extremely territorial.  They also typically like to be by themselves.
• Some types of chameleons have tongues that are actually longer than their whole bodies.  These tongues can be fully extended as fast as 26 body-lengths per second, which is faster than the human eye can follow.
• Chameleons have the ability to see ultraviolet light.
• People who own particularly colorful types of chameleons can usually quickly learn to discern the mood of their chameleons and whether the chameleon is sick or not, simply by looking at its coloration.

How to Most Effectively Battle the Common Cold

     I had my first bout with the common cold last week, and yours isn't far behind. This year, I decided to stop blindly subscribing to anecdotal "cures" and preventions and get to the bottom of what science says really works.

     The temperature is dropping, and with winter comes the coughing, sniffling, and sneezing of the common cold. The internet is overflowing with health "tips", but among the huge amount of information available online, it's hard to separate the myths from the realities. Everyone has their own anecdotal evidence proving or disproving home remedies, over-the-counter medicines, and alternative "miracle treatments", but it's hard to tell which so-called remedies are actually the most effective at dealing with the common cold. Here, we're going to dive into some of the most popular cold treatments and note what the scientific community has to say about their effectiveness.

Things You Can Do at Home (That Won't Cost You an Arm and a Leg)

     When most of us get sick, the first thing we do is rush to the drug store to stock up on over-the-counter medicines: Whether it's the cough suppresant dextromethorphan (found in cough syrups like Robitussin) or the antihistamine doxylamine succinate (found in the sleep-inducing Nyquil). Oddly enough, though, the most well-supported cold treatments are things you can find lying around the house. We've talked about winterizing your body for the chilly months to come, but if you start to feel a cold coming on, here are some of the best options for taking care of yourself.

Gargle with Salt Water

     We've actually mentioned this remedy before, but it bears repeating: One of the oldest tricks in your mother's book, it seems that gargling with salt water is actually an effective home treatment for the common cold. Not only does it alleviate throat pain and loosen irritating mucous, but it can even help prevent colds: A study by the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found people that gargled warm salt water three times a day were less likely to get sick during cold season. Just dissolve half a teaspoon of salt in a full glass of water, gargle for a few seconds, and spit it out. Photo by Casey Serin.

Try a Little Honey

     Another popular home remedy with some strong evidence behind it is honey. A 2007 Penn State University study found that one to two teaspoons of honey is not only effective at treating nocturnal cough, but it's actually more effective than dextromethorphan, the cough supressant found in oh-so-popular cough syrups we mob to. Photo by Bethany Egan.

Congestion Irrigation: The Neti Pot and Nasal Sprays

     If you're experiencing some nasal congestion, one of the best ways to get rid of it is to rinse it out at the source using a saline nasal spray, or other similar irrigation technique. Not only have researchers found that it reduces the severity of congestion, but that also reduces infection. While you can buy many such nasal sprays over-the-counter, you can also make your own at home by mixing a quarter teaspoon salt, a quarter teaspoon baking soda, and 8 ounces of warm water (or some similar variation). You an either spray it into your nose via a bulb syringe, or use a tool like the ever-popular neti pot to clear your nasal passageway. It can be a bit daunting for some, but it's been shown to be pretty effective and have little or no side effects, so if you're serious about feeling better, it's a good method to try. Photo by Dennis Yang.

Keep Your Stress Level Down

We've made a few mentions of how stress can affect your health: if you have more psychological stress in your life, you're likely to have health issues. Even if you're lucky enough to escape the serious issues like depression and anxiety, you're still susceptible to cold and other illnesses: The Department of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University found a significant relationship between stress and acute illnesses. Everyone's stress is different, so examine your own life and be sure to keep up with our favorite stress-relieving tactics here at Lifehacker to stay healthy. Photo by John Mayer.

 

 

Get Plenty of Rest

     It's one of the first pieces of advice you get when you're sick, but we can never stress it enough: give your body time to fight off the virus, and don't waste that energy elsewhere. A number of studies (such as this one from the Archives of Internal Medicine) found that sleep deprivation results in poorer immune function. Not only do good sleep habits help you fight off a cold, but they will even increase your resistance to catching one in the first place. So, if you're sick, it's important to get plenty of rest—but don't neglect it when you're healthy either. Make sure this is quality sleep, too: drugs like NyQuil contain alcohol, and we already know what that does to your sleep cycle. You'll fall asleep quickly, but you won't get the deep sleep you need to get better. Photo by Craig Dennis.

Unproven, But Unharmful: Good Ol' H₂0

While the above remedies have quite a bit of supporting evidence, other oft-recommended treatments, mentioned in this section, have either received little attention or have yet to produce conclusive evidence. The plus side: These methods aren't likely to hurt you, so there's no reason not to give them a bit of attention on your sick days.

Increase Your Fluid Intake

     Very little hard research has been done on the link between fluid intake and alleviating cold symptoms, but it's long been one of the first pieces of advice given to cold sufferers. Drinking lots of fluids during a cold is said to break up your congestion, keep you hydrated and keep your throat moist. I had a tough time finding actual studies about the common cold and hydration, but it's no secret that hydration is good for your body and your health—it is, after all, one of those things necessary to bodily function—so there's no reason to not continue following this advice. In fact, this is good advice even when you're not sick. Just remember not to go overboard. Photo by Brian Turner.

Inhale Steam

     We've advocated using humidifiers in your home on more than one occasion, and while there are definitely a lot of good reasons to maintain good humidity levels (from keeping your walls in good condition to avoiding nasty static electricity), the research on its effect on congestion is actually inconclusive. A Cochrane review found that only three out of six trials found benefits of steam for symptom relief. However, apart from some minor side effects (such as nasal discomfort or irritation), humidification carries little risk and provides other benefits for your home, so there's no reason to avoid it. If you'd rather not spend money on a humidifier, other sources of steam (such as a hot shower) can serve the same purpose.

Treatments to Skip: Alternative Remedies

Apart from the popular over-the-counter cold medicine ingredients (like the few mentioned above), a few other widely discussed treatments have yet to be proven effective, and also carry unnecessary side effects. These are the treatments you probably don't need.

Vitamin C

     People have studied and argued about the effectiveness of Vitamin C for decades, and a Cochrane review of trials on the subject found megadosing (you know—taking handfuls of the vitamin when you come down with the cold) Vitamin C to be mostly ineffective. While there are a few exceptions in the literature (most notably athletes and those subject to cold environments), it doesn't look like Vitamin C is the miracle cold cure that many people swear it is. However, it carries little risk, so as long as you don't go overboard with it, feel free to drink up that orange juice—just don't rely on any magical powers therein. You're probably best off staying away from high-dose Vitamin C formulations like Airborne, though, since they not only contain high levels of other, megadose-unfriendly vitamins (such as Vitamin A), but they also include unnecessarily high amounts of Vitamin C, which may have unwelcome side effects in those susceptible to kidney stones.

Echinacea

     Echinacea is an herbal remedy said to enhance the immune system and reduce the severity and duration of the common cold. It's popular, but once again, not likely that beneficial: a study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that it was flat out not effective at preventing nor alleviating cold symptoms. Photo by London Looks.

     That said, Echinacea is a complicated treatment as well: There are many different types, strengths, and parts of the Echinacea root that have all produced different results, so unlike Vitamin C (which has been studied over and over again), the results on Echinacea are not consistent. It doesn't have a ton of side effects (other than a possible upset stomach), but allergies and other drugs can cause some more severe issues if you're not careful. Furthermore, herbal supplements aren't regulated by the FDA. When it comes down to it, it's a crapshoot as to whether the product you're buying is going to help or not.

Zinc

     Another popular alternative medicine treatment is zinc, both in the form of throat lozenges or nasal sprays. Quite a few studies have been done on the treatment, but again, only some of them found positive results. In those examples, high doses of zinc did significantly reduce the severity and duration of the common cold—especially when taken at the first sign of a cold—but the side effects hardly make it worth the unproven possibility that it will help. Mild side effects include mouth irritation, a seriously awful metallic taste in your mouth, and stomach upset, while other studies have shown that high doses of zinc can lead to a loss of taste or smell. While shorter-term use is likely safer than long-term use, you're once again better off saving your money.

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"Daylight Saving" Not "Daylight Savings"

    

     It’s “daylight saving time”, not “daylight savings time”. “Daylight saving time” uses the present participle “saving” as an adjective, as in “labor saving device”.
     Daylight saving time was first used during WWI to conserve fuel. The theory was that by adding an hour of sunlight to people’s normal “awake time”, it would cut down on the nations need for artificial light. This may have actually been effective then, but because of our vastly different energy usage today (only 3.5 percent of our energy usage today goes towards lighting), it has generally been shown that the effect on energy usage is negligible; though it has been shown to be a profitable thing for many stores, particularly those that sell product related to outdoor leisure activities.

Bonus Factoids:

• Ben Franklin often gets credit for being the “genius” who came up with daylight saving time. Interestingly though, the letter he proposed something like what we now call daylight saving time and which was eventually published in 1784 under the title, An Economical Project, was actually a witty satire meant to entertain some of his friends, not to be taken seriously on any account. It’s quite humorous, click here to give it a read (scroll down a bit for the start). In it, he also proposes taxing people who have shutters on their windows, rationing candles, and waking people as soon as the sun comes up by ringing church bells and firing cannons. With Franklin’s humor though, he probably would find it hilarious that many countries in the world eventually decided it was an idea that made sense. Although it’s quite clear he’s joking around in this paper, he was known for putting more subtle jokes in many of his other papers that only the most astute would recognize. He was so famous for this that when they were deciding who should write the Declaration of Independence, they chose Jefferson over the significantly more qualified and respected Franklin, as they feared Franklin would embed subtle humor in it that wouldn’t be recognized until it was too late to change¹.
• The modern day version of DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson in 1895.
• The credit though for the modern day DST system is often incorrectly given to William Willett who independently thought up and lobbied for DST in 1905. He was riding through London one day in the early morning and noticed that a good portion of London’s population slept through several hours of the sunlit summer days. Willet lobbied for DST until his death in 1915. Ironically, it was one year later in 1916 that certain European countries began adopting DST.
• Daylight saving time once single handedly thwarted a terrorist attack, causing the would-be terrorists to blow themselves up instead of other people. What happened was, in September 1999, the West Bank was on daylight saving time while Israel was on standard time; West Bank terrorists prepared bombs set on timers and smuggled them to their associates in Israel. As a result, the bombs exploded one hour sooner than the terrorists in Israel thought they would, resulting three terrorists dying instead of the two busloads of people who were the intended targets.

Source: MisconceptionJunction.com

Pittsburgh Steeler's player's hair insured for $1,000,000

     Troy Polamalu's hair is as iconic as he is. As such, the Troy Polamalu hair style must be protected, so Troy Polamalu hair responsibility now falls on Head & Shoulders. The company has been attached to the Steelers' safety for two years, as his unique style makes him an ideal spokesman. However, his locks are so long that they can be damaged on the field, especially since it's legal to grab them during play. Therefore, Polamalu's hairstyle is the first in sports history to get its own insurance policy.

     Procter & Gamble, which owns Head & Shoulders, got Lloyd's of London to draft a policy on football's most famous mane. It was taken out for $1 million, according to a statement yesterday. However, their investment was probably secure before this policy was made.

     The Troy Polamalu hairstyle has been growing for 10 years, as the Steelers' star has left it alone in honor of his Samoan ancestors. Given how that look has become his trademark -- and hasn't stood in the way of winning two Super Bowl rings -- he has no reason to take it off now.

     However, it is still vulnerable on the field, just like any other body part. Since Troy Polamalu's hair sticks out so much, players are allowed to grab it in order to bring him down. The Chiefs' Larry Johnson did just that in 2006, although the locks stayed where they were.

     It seems unlikely that a player can grab those locks hard enough to pull some off or ruin the style. But anything can happen in football, and since Head & Shoulders is tied to the Troy Polamalu hair image, they are not taking any chances.

     Still, this policy is the least of his concerns, as he has to worry about the rest of his body. Injuries interrupted his season last year, and provided a huge hole in the Steelers' defense. In order to return to the playoffs and make another Super Bowl run, the Steelers need all of Polamalu to return and be healthy again.

     If the Troy Polamalu hair insurance policy makes him feel more secure in that goal, then the Steelers will not protest. He is on track to start the regular season on time, but Pittsburgh needs him to finish it on time as well.

Turkey Doesn’t Make You Drowsy

     Now that Halloween’s done, on to Thanksgiving.  Seems fitting then to start November off with one of the more popular Thanksgiving related myths.  That being that, in fact, turkey does not make you drowsy after you eat it.
     Now to be clear, turkey does contain tryptophan. Tryptophan is an amino acid which the human body doesn’t naturally produce, but is essential to proper body function and, thus, must be acquired from food. The reason tryptophan is tied to drowsiness is that it is used by your body to create serotonin. Serotonin, among other things, acts as a calming agent in the brain and plays a key role in sleep. So with turkey containing tryptophan, one would logically say it would make you sleepy after you eat it… except, this isn’t actually the case.
     So, why not? Primarily because of how we eat turkey and more importantly how the body deals with tryptophan. If you tend to eat turkey on a completely empty stomach and don’t eat anything else but a little turkey, then there’s a very small chance that the tryptophan in the turkey will make you a little drowsy right after you eat it. Add it to a sandwich or have it with some mash potatoes or really pretty much any other food eaten at the same time or just eat it on a non-empty stomach and it won’t be the turkey that is making you drowsy if you feel drowsy after.
     It turns out, tryptophan needs to not only be taken on an empty stomach to have any instant effect, but also with little to no other amino acids or protein present in order to make you drowsy after you eat something that contains it. Given that there is a lot of protein in turkey and other amino acids, even if you are a bit malnourished, you are not likely to get drowsy from the tryptophan after you eat turkey, though it will increase your body’s store of the tryptophan.
     What’s going on here is that when there are a lot of amino acids around, this causes competition among the amino acids as far as crossing the blood-brain barrier. Tryptophan is a particularly bulky amino acid so it ends up being at the back of the line, so to speak, and will generally stay there until those other amino acids are gone or, at the least, until quite a lot of them are gone so the ratio of tryptophan to those other amino acids is drastically increased.
     So why do you get drowsy after, say, eating turkey on Thanksgiving or the like? Well, there are a lot of reasons, but primarily because, with your holiday meal, you likely just crammed a couple days worth of food into your body in the span of an hour or so, possibly with some alcohol, which is a central nervous system depressant that has a mild sedative effect. Also, with a full stomach, your body directs blood away from your central nervous system and other organ systems to help with your digestive system. More than anything, this is probably causing most of the drowsiness after a large turkey dinner, such as on Thanksgiving or Christmas or the like.
     The “drowsy” effect is even more noticeable when your food contains quite a bit of various fats, which take a lot of energy to digest, and carbohydrates. Carbohydrates in particular release insulin. This results in a lot various amino acids being more or less swept out of your blood, being absorbed into your muscle cells, and thus the tryptophan to other amino acid ratio increases quite a bit, giving the tryptophan a better shot of crossing the blood-brain barrier and raising your serotonin levels.
     Now there is typically always a nice store of tryptophan in your body at any given time due to the fact that it is not only prevalent in turkey, but also higher levels than in turkey per ounce can be found in chicken, beef, pork, cheese, chicken eggs (which contain nearly four times as much tryptophan per ounce over turkey), sunflower seeds, and many types of fish; it also is found, in lesser or similar amounts as in turkey, in milk, beans, sesame seeds, lamb, wheat flour, chocolate, white rice, oatmeal, potatoes, and bananas, among a lot of other foods. So your body is typically stocked full of tryptophan most of the time and eating some turkey isn’t going to significantly change your body’s store, though it will add some.
     So, if you want to point to a specific food that can make you quite drowsy, it would be things high in carbohydrates such as pasta, mashed potatoes, breads, and the like; these not only cause your body to direct more blood towards your abdomen and away from other organ systems, which will make you drowsy, but also result in some of the tryptophan hanging out in your body to actually get a chance to make it passed the blood-brain barrier to eventually produce some serotonin.