May 10, 2019

Asteroids, Comets, Meteors, and Meteorites

Asteroid is a rocky object that orbits the sun in a circular fashion.
Comet is an icy body object that orbits the sun in an elliptical and possible unstable fashion.

Meteor is an object that has entered earth's atmosphere.

Meteorite is a meteor that has impacted the earth's surface.

Chocolate and Your Brain

Italian scientists have found evidence that a daily dose of cocoa acts as a dietary supplement to counteract different types of cognitive decline. The team found that regularly eating cocoa was linked to improvements in working memory and visual information processing and cocoa could be particularly beneficial for certain people.


Cocoa is the dried and fermented bean from the cocoa tree used to make chocolate treats. Over the years, it has been found that a range of naturally occurring chemicals in the cocoa bean have therapeutic effects. For example, polyphenols in dark chocolate were found to increase calmness and contentedness and flavanols were able to reverse age-related memory decline. Chocolate also contains theobromine, a toxic chemical, but to be at risk of poisoning yourself, you would have to eat about 85 full sized chocolate bars in one sitting.

In the study, the team looked through the literature for effects of acute and chronic administration of cocoa flavanols on brain activity and, more specifically, what happens if you do this over a long period of time. The studies used to perform the review mainly required the subjects to consume a low, medium or large amount of cocoa in the form of a chocolate drink or bar for a period of between five days and three months.

The scientists found that there was enough evidence to support the health claims attributed to cocoa, and, in particular, the flavanol compounds it contains. They noticed enhancements in working memory performance and improved visual information processing after consuming cocoa flavanols. The benefits varied depending on the demographic being tested.

For the elderly, long term ingestion of cocoa flavanols improved attention, mental processing, working memory, and verbal fluency. It was most beneficial in those who had mild cognitive impairments or the beginnings of memory loss.

For healthy people, without the beginnings of memory loss, cocoa could also enhance normal cognitive functioning and have a protective role on cognitive performance.

For women, eating cocoa after a night of total sleep deprivation counteracted the cognitive impairment associated with no sleep. Promising results for people that suffer from chronic sleep deprivation or work different shift patterns.

"If you look at the underlying mechanism, the cocoa flavanols have beneficial effects for cardiovascular health and can increase cerebral blood volume. This structure is particularly affected by ageing and therefore the potential source of age-related memory decline in humans."

"Regular intake of cocoa and chocolate could indeed provide beneficial effects on cognitive functioning over time," said the researchers.

Chocolate Milk Myth Debunked

Some Internet postings claim that chocolate milk is made with cow’s milk that was rejected as regular milk because it contains cow’s blood. Not true. Chocolate milk is brown because of chocolate. Incidentally, it does not come exclusively from brown cows either.

Bacon Fad Continues

Archie McPhee has a whole line of bacon products including: bacon candy canes, bacon frosting, bacon gumballs, bacon lollipops, bacon floss, and bacon air freshener.
Vosges has a complete line of bacon candy bars.
Tee & Cakes has the cutest bacon cupcakes.

Baconsalt created Baconnaise, bacon mayonnaise.
Burger King introduced their Bacon Sundae, Jack in the Box has a Bacon Shake (that actually contains no bacon), and Denny’s has a Bacon Sundae.
You can smell like the pork product thanks to Bacon Cologne.
There is also Bacon Vodka.


The Wake n’ Bacon alarm clock will hit the spot as the alarm uses real bacon to create a real bacon smell to wake you up.

Frits and Dots

The black dots on windshields and windows and the black rims that surround them, are more than decoration.
From the 1950s and 1960s onward, car manufacturers began using an adhesive to hold car windows in place, rather than metal trim.
The black rims around car windows are called “frits.” The frits and the dots that border them are made from ceramic paint. The frits are there to hide the adhesive. These painted rims are baked into the window and hold the glue in place, which in turn holds the windows in place.
The dots are there to make an aesthetically pleasing transition from the thick black lines to the transparency of the window. They are positioned in a halftone pattern, getting smaller and farther apart as the black recedes. This pattern is less jarring to the eye than opaque black paint juxtaposed with transparent glass.

Their other purpose is to provide temperature control. To get the glass of windows and windshields to be bent the way it is, the glass is heated up. The black-painted glass heats up faster than the rest of the window. The dots distribute the heat a bit more even and prevent the windshield from warping in the heat.

Honey Hack

Sticky ingredients, like honey, syrup, molasses, etc. are difficult to accurately measure. You pour it into the measuring cup and then into the bowl or pot, and a thick coating is always left behind.


A quick solution is to use cooking spray. Spray the inside of the measuring cup or measuring spoon with nonstick cooking spray and it will slide right out. It also makes for easier cleanup.

Windsor and the Royal Family

The royal family changed its name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1917 so it would sound less German and chose Windsor because they had ties with the English town. The House of Windsor was named after Windsor Castle. Welcome to the newest member Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.

Palliative Care vs. Hospice

Palliative care is attending to the physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering of patients and families who are dealing with a serious illness. Palliative care is available at any stage of an illness.

Hospice is a type of palliative care that is provided during the last six months of life. Hospice is also distinct from end-of-life care, which is the care of patients in the last days and hours of their lives. In the US, hospice is overwhelmingly provided in a patient's home or in a nursing home.

Studies show that for patients with, for example metastatic lung cancer, if they received palliative care with their cancer treatment, as opposed to receiving cancer treatment alone, the patients actually lived longer and had better quality-of-life scores.

When we think of disease as a battle to fight, we tend to divide people into winners and losers, which does not benefit them. It is better to frame it as you may be a fighter, but your body cannot fight this anymore. The distinction is between the person not being a loser and the natural limits of their body.

May 3, 2019

Happy Friday

Attitude is a practiced art.

It takes a positive attitude to celebrate a Happy Friday!

Origin of Raisins

During 2000 BC, people found dried grapes on vines. These raisins were used for decoration, before becoming popular trading items, prizes at sporting events, and even medicine.

Strange Laws

For chicken lovers in Gainesville, Georgia, “finger-lickin’” is not a suggestion, it is mandatory. Thanks to a 1961 law added to the city code as a publicity stunt, it is illegal to eat fried chicken in “the poultry capital of the world” with anything other than your fingers.

In Japan, over-the-counter allergy/sinus medications that contain the ingredient pseudoephedrine such as Vicks inhalers and Sudafed are banned under Japan’s strict anti-stimulant drug laws.

It’s an offense in Florence, Italy to eat or drink while sitting on church steps or within a church courtyard. The same law applies to eating near public buildings.

In Wisconsin, public schools, jails, and hospitals are not permitted to feed margarine. Per state law, these groups may not be fed butter substitutes unless the substitution is necessary for their health.

You can buy caskets at Walmart and Costco, or direct from the manufacturer and save money. You can also rent a casket for the ceremony. You are not required to be embalmed.

Cranks and Screws

Some prison administrations felt that having inmates occupy the same space to work a treadmill or pick oakum was too much mingling. When they wanted to keep them properly isolated, inmates had to do work alone in their cells. Officials had also noticed something they found very interesting: Inmates hated a pointless task more than a meaningful one. This presented them with an obvious solution: the crank.
The crank was literally a crank that stuck out of a small wooden box that was usually set on a table or pedestal in the inmate’s cell. Despite its innocuous description, it was a truly soul-crushing monstrosity designed to exhaust inmates mentally and physically. Inside the box was a drum or paddle that turned nothing but sand and rocks. The axle on which the crank turned had a screw, which warders could tighten or loosen depending on how much punishment they wanted to mete out. The screw would make the crank easier or harder to turn.
Warders who came in to adjust the screw earned themselves the nickname “screws” for the suffering it caused.

A prisoner left in isolation with the crank usually did not need to worry about a beating if they just ignored the machine. Instead, they would worry about starvation. Each crank had a counter on the box that logged the number of turns. An inmate had to reach a certain number of turns before being allowed to do basic things like eat and sleep. Most were expected to make at least 10,000 rotations a day.

Apple and i

The i- prefix for Apple products was created as part of the iMac in the late 90s and was adopted into a full product line shortly after. The original meaning was "internet", meaning the iMac was capable of internet connectivity out of the box.

Later Apple and Steve Jobs used it more to refer to individual, innovation, instruct, inform, and inspire.

It became a handy and easy to remember code for all things Apple.

Gardening and Exercise

According to research, leisure activities, such as gardening, can actually have just as many physical benefits as working out does. A recent study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, measured in participants what the study refers to as “leisure time physical activity.”
Doing leisure time physical activity for just 10-59 minutes a week resulted in an 18 percent lower risk of all-cause mortality. The more you do, the less risk you have. Those who engaged in 150 to 299 minutes of physical activity each week had a 31 percent decrease in mortality.

Leisure time physical activity could refer to anything that exerts physical activity, but is more fun than your monotonous routine at the gym. Dancing qualifies as a leisure time physical activity, as does walking, hiking, and swimming. However, one of the best activities for this kind of benefit is gardening.

There have been many studies in the past that show regular gardening helps you keep in top physical shape. Whether it is weeding, trimming, or raking, gardening can help you burn up to 300 calories an hour. Plus, related activities such as spading, lifting and tilling can help you increase your muscle tone and strength.

In addition to physical benefits, gardening in general has been linked to many other health benefits, including less depression, anxiety, and stress, according to a meta analysis published in Preventative Medicine Reports. It also found that people who garden regularly also had a better sense of life satisfaction in general.