The question “Does an apple a day improve a woman’s sex life?” anchors this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams — with dramatic readings by Yale/MIT/Harvard biomedical researcher Chris Cotsapas — tells about: Does an apple a day improve a woman’s sex life? — “Apple Consumption is Related to Better Sexual Quality […]
Tag: chocolate
Certain people would really like you to really like certain chocolate milk
Some people are working to persuade you to really like some chocolate milk — a particular brand of chocolate milk. Some other people — many of them doctors and scientists and journalists who write about medicine and science — are working to make you think about whether you should or should not like that particular brand of […]
Flake™ fragmentation fix (new patent)
Partial to a Cadbury(‘s) Flake? Had trouble with crumbs? You are not alone. The ‘fragmentation’ issue – present since the launch of the Flake™ in 1920 – is described by Cadbury UK Ltd. : “[…] existing bars of convoluted chocolate sheet can be difficult to eat as a result of the crumbly texture. It is […]
“Designing and Testing an Improved Packaging for Large Hollow Chocolate Bunnies”
Improbable Research podcast #1 savors a peer-reviewed study about improved packaging for large hollow chocolate bunnies. The study is: ‘Designing and Testing an Improved Packaging for Large Hollow Chocolate Bunnies,’ Gerald W. Greenway and Raul Enrique Garcia, TAPPI Journal, 80 (8), 1977, pp. 133-139 . The authors were at The Package Sealing Laboratory, at the School of Engineering, at the University of Missouri-Rolla. Here’s a […]
Writing About Thinking of Speaking with the Dead
This study speaks volumes, but in an unusual way: “Electrocortical activity associated with subjective communication with the deceased,” Arnaud Delorme, Julie Beischel, Leena Michel, Mark Boccuzzi, Dean Radin, and Paul J. Mills, Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 4, 2013. (Thanks to investigator Estrella Burgos for bringing this to our attention.) The authors are at the Institute […]
Fat Cats Disambiguation (tubby tabbies, or….?)
To (very loosely) paraphrase Murphy’s law : “If there’s a chance that something might be misunderstood, someone will come along and misunderstand it.” That’s exactly what happened when Improbable came across a 2010 paper in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, entitled : ‘Novel dietary strategies can improve the outcome of weight loss programmes […]
Oh: Brief Walks, and Chocolate Eaters
What of walks and chocolate eaters? Oh, maybe this: “Brisk walking reduces ad libitum snacking in regular chocolate eaters during a workplace simulation,” Hwajung Oh [pictured here], Adrian H. Taylor, Appetite, Volume 58, Issue 1, February 2012, Pages 387-392. The authors, at the University of Exeter, UK, report their discovery: “A brief walk may help […]
Purple (chocolate) is the new brown (chocolate) ?
As our informed readerbase will be aware, in 2004 the chocolate manufacturer Cadbury UK applied for an unusual ‘trademark’. It was unusual in that it had absolutely no distinguishing features other than its colour. The ‘trademark’ [shown above] would (eventually) allow the firm sole-use a specific shade of purple for packaging chocolate bars. [see notes […]
It’s not just chocolate: Foods and Nobel laureates
Professor Rodolfo Baggio [pictured here] has built upon Franz Messerli‘s recent research about chocolate consumption and Nobel laureates. We are publishing, here, Baggio’s study [which you are welcome to download as a PDF “Food consumption, cognitive functions and Nobel laureates“]: * * * Food consumption, cognitive functions and Nobel laureates by Rodolfo Baggio, Bocconi University, Milan, […]
The possible meaning and import of a chocolate brain
Much technology and much thought went into the making of an edible chocolate brain. The meaning, import, and worth of the effort have yet to be determined. This video explains to a limited degree: [vimeo]42116935[/vimeo] Further details are on the Instructables web site: Edible Chocolate Brain from MRI Scan This instructable will show you how […]