Hollenberg’s follow-up work, reported in the PNAS paper, confirms that the islanders also have far larger exposures to cocoa flavanols. Tests showed that flavanol-residue concentrations in urine were six times as high in the islanders as in the mainlanders.
At the Cocoa Symposium, Hollenberg reported that dramatic long-term benefits may be attributable to the islanders’ cocoa habit: Their death rate from heart disease is less than 8 percent of that in Kuna mainlanders, and cancer kills only 16 percent as many islanders. The two populations were matched for age, weight, and a number of other factors that might affect heart and cancer risks.
Hollenberg concludes that the Kuna epidemiological data, although preliminary, “indicate that a flavanol-rich diet may provide an extraordinary benefit in the reduction of the two deadliest diseases in today’s world.”
Pretty impressive. Unfortunately, it turns out that, while dark chocolate is in theory good for your heart and helps fight cancer, the manufacturing process tends to destroy the particular flavonoids that confer the benefits. Hopefully, now that they know this, Hersheys et al can figure out how to make a healthier chocolate that still tastes good.
Some sobering thoughts, and a warning to Daniel Dennett, from John Derbyshire:
Science is…a fragile thing, and might easily be lost. (The same applies to math. Readers of, ahem, my forthcoming book will learn about a key development in mathematical thinking that was discovered in ancient Alexandria, then lost, then rediscovered 1300 years later.) It is my belief in this fact that makes me so defensive of science, and so hostile to obscurantist thinking, under which heading I include both Left Creationists like Wieseltier and Right Creationists like the “intelligent design” crowd. They are playing with fire. So, by their absurd provocations, are the village atheists like Dennett. If we lose science (again?), we shall be plunged back into a world far less comfortable, far darker and crueller, than this one. If the LCs and the RCs join forces, they might just possibly bring on that world… if the Islamofascists don’t beat them to it.
The natural tendency of human beings is to think religiously. Science and math are deeply unnatural activities, favored by only a scant few, who could easily be rounded up and dispatched by a mob of more normal human beings. Scientistic triumphalism of the Dennett variety is therefore foolish. An attitude of respectful humility by the more-scientifically inclined towards the more-religiously inclined is not only intellectually proper (at any rate to those of us non-Dennettians who think that religious belief is intellectually respectable, and that the reality of human nature should be faced honestly), it is prudent.
Film star blondes such as Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Sharon Stone and Scarlett Johansson are held up as ideals of feminine allure. However, the future of the blonde is uncertain.
A study by the World Health Organisation found that natural blonds are likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people carrying the blond gene. According to the WHO study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.
Am I the only person who said “Huh?” upon reading this? I’d be interested to see the actual study, because it sure doesn’t make much sense to me as reported.
Carl Zimmer reviews what looks to be an interesting and important new documentary about the science/philosophy war in the biology classrooms, and has some guest thoughts from the director, who has some thoughts about science education
Carl Zimmer reviews what looks to be an interesting and important new documentary about the science/philosophy war in the biology classrooms, and has some guest thoughts from the director, who has some thoughts about science education
Carl Zimmer reviews what looks to be an interesting and important new documentary about the science/philosophy war in the biology classrooms, and has some guest thoughts from the director, who has some thoughts about science education
James McCormick has a fascinating book review over at Albion’s Seedlings, on how westerners think differently, because of our use of math and the scientific method. Sadly, it’s a trait that we may be losing as a society, because we value it too little.
Eugene Volokh has an interesting (and frightening) series of posts on the innumeracy of both the general population and the press. There are anecdotes that I’d like to think that aren’t true, but fear that they are, about science students unable to do simple arithmetic. We’ve become much too dependent on “computing machines.”