.
GOP tricks, scienterrific treat, per the NYTimes — “To Improve A Memory, Consider Chocolate“:
In a small study in the journal Nature Neuroscience, healthy people, ages 50 to 69, who drank a mixture high in antioxidants called cocoa flavanols for three months performed better on a memory test than people who drank a low-flavanol mixture.
On average, the improvement of high-flavanol drinkers meant they performed like people two to three decades younger on the study’s memory task, said Dr. Scott A. Small, a neurologist at Columbia University Medical Center and the study’s senior author. They performed about 25 percent better than the low-flavanol group.
“An exciting result,” said Craig Stark, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved in the research. “It’s an initial study, and I sort of view this as the opening salvo.”
He added, “And look, it’s chocolate. Who’s going to complain about chocolate?”…
Well, I’m sure they’ll find someone. Details at the link, with all the predictable cautions about small samples, large doses, the need for further studies, and the inadvisability of gorging on Halloween chocolate bars that have been processed to remove most of the vital flavanol epicatechin. But, hey — chocolate!
**********
Apart from hoping this won’t just be the next resveratrol, what’s on the agenda as we start another week?
Baud
Now if science could only prove that Balloon Juice has health benefits…
Mustang Bobby
My problem is that I keep forgetting to eat more chocolate.
Phylllis
@Mustang Bobby: Mine is I keep forgetting how much chocolate I’ve eaten recently (story, sticking to, etc.).
OzarkHillbilly
After working the wkend, I’m gonna take it easy for a day or 2. Putter around the shop, maybe pour a little concrete. Temps are heading for a freeze by the end of the week. Gonna hit 84 today. What’s that they say about MO weather? If you don’t like it, stick around, it’ll change.
raven
We have a dead rodent somewhere in the house!!!!
OzarkHillbilly
@Phylllis: What were we talking about?
Shakezula
I wish I had a buck for every Study Shows Chocolate [Health Benefit] headline I’ve ever seen. I’d be able to buy everyone a chocolate bar. Everyone. On the planet.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Good morning most dread sovereign.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: So are you sitting shiva for it? Shall I bring over a brisket?
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Better than the live ones.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yea except the smell is awful.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Just follow your nose…
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I’ve had both, at least the dead one’s are easier to catch.
Phylllis
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh dear, I was hoping you were the one keeping track.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
The spam in my honey trap is starting to get entertaining.
“Divorce not an option? It’s time for a discreet affair.”
Mustang Bobby
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I’ve gotten over 1,000 spam messages in the last two weeks from a post that got linked somewhere and I am pretty sure that not one of them is as interesting as that.
Schlemazel
@raven:
We just went through that a couple weeks ago. Had gone for a long weekend & when we got home the Mrs. thought we had left something in the trash that was acting up. Turned out I forgot one mouse trap last winter (we get a small invasion every fall but nothing the rest of the year so I always pick them up). It had done its job but some time earlier. yikes!
Happy hunting
OzarkHillbilly
Pet peeve # 238:
Measuring the expansion allowed researchers to establish the nova was about 14,800 light years away from the sun, meaning that the explosion witnessed in August 2013 actually took place nearly 15,000 years ago.
Exactly what was wrong with using the same, correct, number twice in the same sentence?
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Ha! You just made my day.
And the correct title is, “our most dread sovereign lord,” peasant.
Baud
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Nothing like a discreet affair to make divorce an option.
PurpleGirl
I’ve always known that chocolate was one of the essential food groups. Best dessert ever.
Mustang Bobby
@PurpleGirl: Godiva makes bacon-flavored chocolate. Life is good.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: (Offers a deep bow and pleads for forgiveness).
JPL
What a sweet post!
Botsplainer
Lest I be a party pooper, may I remind everyone that the study is talking about quality chocolate, not Hershey’s nor any other similar mass market HFCS garbage.
And don’t get me started on the vileness that is Palmer….
Woodrowfan
further discrimination against those of us who can’t have sugar. (pout)
PurpleGirl
@Mustang Bobby: I will have try it. IIRC there’s a Godiva store on Lexington Ave. at 50th St.
PurpleGirl
@Botsplainer: Of course quality chocolate.
Suffern ACE
@PurpleGirl: vossage has the bacon chocolate, too. As long as you’re in mid town, you might as well stop by Jacques Torres, Royce and Neuhaus. You never know if any old chocolate carries the elixir of life. You need to try them all.
NotMax
Around two-thirds of the world’s cocoa comes from western Africa. Ebola in every bite!
:)
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
I forgot my hotmail password. Haven’t checked it for a couple years.
My only indulgence is 85% dark chocolate. Guess if it wasn’t, I’d have forgotten I had a hotmail account at all.
Keith G
@raven: I woke up this morning to a dead (dying) refrigerator. So, I spent the pre-dawn hours getting ice chests out of storage and buying ice.
Happy Monday.
raven
@Keith G: ack
beth
@raven: We had that happen in a back guest room. Didn’t want to start poking holes in walls and ceilings to find it so we decided to just let it be. The smell was godawful and it took about six weeks before we could go in the room. Good luck.
debbie
@PurpleGirl:
Skip Godiva and head for Teuscher on Fifth.
http://www.teuscherfifthavenue.com/
rikyrah
@raven:
I’ll say it..
EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKK!!!!
rikyrah
Justice Is Served: Court Finally Overturns Marissa Alexander’s 20 Year Sentence
The appellate court ruling erased a decision by a jury that took just 12 minutes to convict Marissa Alexander, a mother of three, of aggravated assault
In another Florida shooting case that captured national headlines, an appellate court overturned the decision to put Marissa Alexander behind bars for 20-year prison sentence for firing a warning shot in proximity to her abusive husband.
The case has been often contrasted with the exoneration of white Hispanic George Zimmerman, the self-appointed neighborhood watchman who shot unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in a gate subdivision in suburban Orlando, Fla., two years ago.
The outrage on the two comparable cases sent social media into a frenzy and among some lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Alexander attempted to invoke Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law as the same prosecutors who unsuccessfully worked to put Zimmerman behind bars told the court that she did not act in self-defense, but Judge James Daniel was not having it.
http://thesource.com/2014/10/17/justice-is-served-court-finally-overturns-marissa-alexanders-20-year-sentence/
Kathleen
@PurpleGirl: Also, too – while we always hear about recalls for sprouts, spinach, fish and other so called “healthy” foods, we never hear about recalls for chocolate.
chopper
@raven:
you’d think the dog would help sniff out the location.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: The smell will go away eventually.
SarahT
@rikyrah: great news indeed !
Michael Bloom
I haven’t been eating enough chocolate that I can entirely trust my memory, but I seem to recall hearing about some consortium of the incredibly rich attempting to corner the world chocolate market a few years back. Maybe they succeeded, and this story is a trial balloon to boost their profits?
d58826
@rikyrah: Don’t get the party hats out yet. The prosecutor is retrying the case and is asking for a 60 year sentence if convicted. It seems in Fla. drywall has greater rights than young black men or a woman threatened by an abusive ex.
Hal
According to the New York Times Jeb Bush will make up his mind about running after the mid term. I wonder what result out of the midterms says run to Jeb? More or less crazy?
WereBear
@Botsplainer: I only eat quality chocolate, good point.
We all know who destroyed the standards for US chocolate, don’t we? Hitler.
No, no no, it was George W. Bush & Co. Yet another way they tried to kill us all.
Rob
@d58826
Sixty years?? WTF?
d58826
@Rob: In the initial trial she was found guilty on three counts each with a 20 year sentence. The judge sentenced her to 3 concurrent 20 year terms, of which she served 3 before the appeals court over turned the conviction. In the retrial the prosecutor (or would persecutor be a better term) is asking for 3 20 year consecutive sentences or 60 years total. In other words, a life sentence for putting a hole in some drywall.
WereBear
@rikyrah: OMG! What great news!
That one really burned me up.
raven
Nurse in Newark to Be Allowed to Finish Ebola Quarantine at Home, Christie Says
Debbie(aussie)
Summer has come early for us SE Queenslanders. 41 today with not a day under 35 since Friday. Should cool down by Wednesday to low 30’s for rest of the week. Nice storm this arvo, lots of noise and light, not much rain. Same tomorrow they say. I don’t like summer much. But have not experienced the types of winter you guys get. Haven’t yet seen snow.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
Rob
@d58826
Persecuter, yes. Vindictive too, it appears. Argh.
Smedley the uncertain
@raven:
Had the same problem; dead animal smell and about ready to tear up the floor. Then yesterday, opened the freezer! The freezer was the deader…
About 50 pounds of goods tossed out including venison and home made sausage. Nasty job.
Turns out freezer had lost power, shopping for an alarm today.
Gin & Tonic
@Smedley the uncertain: Had that once. Freezer in the basement, mice ate through some insulation, it shorted out and died. Was quite some time before I noticed. Cleaning that mofo out was one of the worst jobs I’ve ever been faced with. Damn thing stank so bad that when we cleaned it out we still had to throw the whole freezer away.
Tenar Darell
I read it, and I still don’t believe it. I swear, the Boston Globe endorsed Charlie Baker just ‘cos. Nostalgia for Bill Weld much? Blech.
Calouste
@Woodrowfan: 99% chocolate doesn’t have much sugar.
raven
@Smedley the uncertain: If only we had one! I crawled around under the house and in the attic, nada. It’s daid and it’s in the wall. Nothing to do but let it rot and try to live with it. We had this a few years back. When we tore off the back of the house for our addition (almost two years ago and still waiting) we found a fully skelotonized possum.
Another Holocene Human
@d58826: You want to really get depressed? AG Pam Bondi is expected to win reelection.
Another Holocene Human
@d58826: Standing your ground is only for white people.
You know how I know that’s true? Have you ever seen one of those shitty facebook memes with a Black woman scantily clad and stroking a gun with some message about “mom” “terrorists” “2nd amendment”?
David in NY
That chocolate thingy was funded by Mars, Inc.
Just sayin’.
mclaren
@Botsplainer:
“Quality” chocolate is like “quality” sewage. Chocolate remains inedible, period. The stuff tastes vile, bitter, and eerily reminiscent of biting into a well-burnt charcoal briquette.
As a rule of thumb, women go ga-ga over chocolate, men over bacon. Something genetic, presumably.