New blog comments! One from a lovely lady from the UK, 
Auntie Em’s Cookies blog, who makes a great link to an earlier post on her blog, where a TV program tried to perpetuate certain stereotypes about women in skepticism, by asking for a much older skeptically-minded man for their ‘reality TV show’.
In that frame of mind, I pleasantly flipped through a few news-items that were on the RSS feed… and what-do-you-know, it’s all about seeking women participants for a health study involving chocolate EVERY DAY - in the UK!
So, I decide to do a little more unwrapping and chewing on the topic because my initial impression wasn’t the best: “Women? Being sought out for a chocolate study? Why not men?”
Scientists in the UK are seeking 150 women to eat chocolate every day for a year in the cause of medical research… participants, who must be postmenopausal women under the age of 70, will have their risk of heart disease tested on five occasions during the year to see whether change occurs.
“The hypothesis of this exciting study is that flavonoids may improve the level of protection against heart disease over and above that provided by conventional drugs,” said Dr. Ketan Dhatariya, a consultant in diabetes at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.
“If the trial confirms this, it could have a far-reaching impact on the advice we give to postmenopausal women who have type 2 diabetes.”
So, there’s a particular reason that this study requires women… but how many recent studies have compared different genders on chocolate, either in terms of health benefits, appetite or just plain preference? Because I get a lot of advertising material (and certainly a lot of advertising) that feature mostly the ladies going nuts over the stuff, either being presented with some or dealing with emotional states by scoffing some - and no, what Nigella bites doesn’t help with the image much either.
Uh, unless they’re squirrels going just plain nuts. Geeze, that advert freaks me out still.
PICNIC - ‘pik-nik‘. Advertised as ‘a unique combination of peanuts, wafer, caramel and rice crisps’ - probably not that dissimilar to any other wafer with a disgusting-looking outer surface that is reminiscent of what was thrown into the pool in the film ‘Caddyshack‘. Best eaten without any onlookers or by hiding the contents by keeping the wrapping covering it as you munch down.’
SNICKERS -’snn-ik-errs’ - yeah, they’re international. Same thing in Australia, don’t worry!
Stress is one thing that makes me think of chocolate… and I wondered if that was really good for you or even a universal effect on women and men? Apparently in 2007, for the good of science, both men and women got really unhappy with a few bars in the name of scientific discovery!
In this work two hypotheses were tested: (1) that eating a piece of chocolate immediately affects negative, but not positive or neutral mood, [48 normal-weight and healthy women and men] and (2) that this effect is due to palatability… Negative mood was improved after eating palatable chocolate as compared to unpalatable chocolate or nothing.
Uh, but don’t expect it to last long - ‘This effect was short lived, i.e., it disappeared after 3 min… It is hypothesized that immediate mood effects of palatable food contribute to the habit of eating to cope with stress.’ So for a quick hit, get a smile with a Snickers but don’t think it’s going to solve everything. Pfft, that wasn’t very new to me either, I must admit. Yet according to ‘The effect of stress on men’s food selection‘ - there is still a difference in how men and women get into chocolate though when stressed. Happy guys are oddly more likely to be getting into your stash of M&Ms. Whereas the women?
Men in the no-stress group ate significantly more of the unhealthy foods than did men in the stress group. This finding is quite different from that found with women [Zellner et al. (2006)]. Women tended to eat more grapes when not stressed than when stressed and more M&Ms when stressed than when not stressed. Thus, the effect of stress level on food choice is different for men and women.
Oh, professors and fellow teachers out there? If you’re particularly stressed about how well your course is going to go on the evaluation sheets handed out to your students at the end of term? Check out the great title of this study: ‘Fudging the numbers: Distributing chocolate influences student evaluations of an undergraduate course’:
In this study, we examined whether an event unrelated to a course would increase student evaluations. Six discussion sections completed course evaluations administered by an independent experimenter. The experimenter offered chocolate to 3 sections before they completed the evaluations. Overall, students offered chocolate gave more positive evaluations than students not offered chocolate. This result highlights the need to standardize evaluation procedures to control for the influence of external factors on student evaluations.
Uh huh. Funny, I remember a Literature professor who did give us chocolate treats, although he said it was just because our bunch stuck around to do ‘Shakespeare 300 - Jacobean Era and Beyond’ after three years of attending his classes!
You can practically get ‘Pavlovian’ with chocolate studies too: ‘Repeated cue exposure effects on subjective and physiological indices of chocolate craving’:
Chocolate craving was measured (alternately) through subjective report and the amount of saliva secretion to chocolate cues. Results showed a between-sessions decrease in both craving measures in the experimental group, whereas no differences in craving between sessions were observed in the control group. These results provide evidence for the effects of cue exposure treatment in chocolate craving.
No, they didn’t have a big bucket positioned under their heads as they waved cakes under their noses. I did read the paper to check!
CARAMELLO KOALAS - ‘mprhr-mphm-frmgh‘ - Australian effort to get bite-sized joy out of cruelly nipping off the head of one of our national emblems. Contains uber-rich caramel guts that spew into your mouth in a oddly appealing fashion, considering the cute shape of the outer chocolate shell. I suggest ears first.
FANTALES - ‘….hmelp!….’ - really nice wrappers with Hollywood stories and histories, including trivia questions and film myths. However, they cover some of the most jaw-locking caramels that have ever been known to humankind and have been responsible for a lot of lost fillings in the pursuit of the gooey goodness within. Good for shutting up kids in cinemas.
Could there be a genetic influence on your preference for a Picnic? Nothing like some twin-studies to check that out! ‘Genetic and environmental contributions to food use patterns of young adult twins‘:
Sex differences were observed in the magnitude of genetic influences for use-frequency of four food items (chocolate, other sweets, fried foods, and meat), and in genetic factors underlying the use of three (fresh vegetables, fruits, and cheeses) items. In conclusion, family environment does not appear to influence the food use of young adults and thus nutritional education should be targeted at this age group to support development of healthy eating patterns. In addition, the results illuminate the importance of the sex-specific genetic effects on food use.
When it comes to the brain and the biology of cravings, it seems chocolate is a good choice for a study too - ‘To examine the neural circuitry involved in food craving, in making food particularly appetitive and thus in driving wanting and eating, we used fMRI to measure the response to the flavour of chocolate, the sight of chocolate and their combination in cravers vs. non-cravers.’
Look, see, do devour? I hope some of the pictures I’ve been showing are useful for your own study - get your own chocolate now and see whether you register a similar effect to that shown in ‘Enhanced affective brain representations of chocolate in cravers vs. non-cravers’:
For cravers vs. non-cravers, a combination of a picture of chocolate with chocolate in the mouth produced a greater effect than the sum of the components (i.e. supralinearity) in the medial orbitofrontal cortex and pregenual cingulate cortex… To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that there are differences between cravers and non-cravers in their responses to the sensory components of a craved food in the orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum and pregenual cingulate cortex, and that in some of these regions the differences are related to the subjective pleasantness of the craved foods.
Oh, by the way - just as the ever-tasty Cognitive Daily said - submit suggestions for the next edition of Encephalon Carnival to encephalon.host at the G to the M to the A to the I to the L!
Or just send them in to my ‘podblack’ Gmail account, as shown in my ‘About Podblack Cat’. There’ll be a May 12th edition here - get them in before the 10th! - that will feature your bloggy goodness on mind, brain, psychology, pathology, science and neuroscience!
References:
Keskitalo, K., Silventoinen, K., Tuorila, H., Perola, M., Pietilainen, K. H, Rissanen, A. & Kaprio, J. (2008 ) Genetic and environmental contributions to food use patterns of young adult twins. Physiology & Behavior. Vol 93(1-2), 235-242.
Macht, M. & Mueller, J. (2007). Immediate effects of chocolate on experimentally induced mood states. Appetite. Vol 49(3), 667-674.
Rolls, E.T. & McCabe, C. (2007). Enhanced affective brain representations of chocolate in cravers vs. non-cravers. European Journal of Neuroscience. Vol 26(4), 1067-1076.
Youmans, R.J. & Jee, B.D. (2007). Fudging the numbers: Distributing chocolate influences student evaluations of an undergraduate course. Teaching of Psychology. Vol 34(4), 245-247.
Zellner, D. A, Saito, S. & Gonzalez, J. (2007) The effect of stress on men’s food selection. Appetite. Vol 49(3), 696-699.
pairs. But darn it, you should join in!
Digital Cuttlefish’s brand new book… 
Entirely my bad and very sorry about it; feel free to rewrite unless you’re the commenter who thought I’d let that stuff about James Randi get through. I honestly think that person can deal with that sort of sentiment elsewhere.
21st Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy - over at 
Today is the last day for all you rammers out there, born under the sign of Aries, and Aries is the first sign in the zodiacal year. Arians, (not to be confused with Aryans or airheads), tend to find comfort and solace in intellectual pursuits, usually favoring PBS programs when they tune in to the boob tube. The Ridger, celestial observer par excellence and mistress of her blog, 
Greta Christina
that’s what they’re called) tend to have short stubby legs, thick dark hair all over their body, prominent ears, receding foreheads, an ability to walk on all fours and climb trees, with a gregarious outlook on life. Does this sound familiar? Perhaps you’ll recognize a few Cancerians in the excerpt from the essay called 
Leo, the lion, reminds me of Th. Jefferson, with that mane of red hair. Yes, I say that so that I can introduce the next post, which coincidentally features our third President quite prominently, but if you know any Leos you’d have to agree. As a rule they tend to be tall, lanky and redheaded, inclined to writing humanizing philosophical tracts, (or 
intelligent, erudite, and expressive, not to mention egotistical. If you don’t believe me now, you will if you ever meet me. Please note that I started this blog exactly one year ago, with yesterday marking the first day of the second year of this blog. So, everybody, sing along with the Fab Four!
I would think the next post would be from a Tauran, given the subject matter, but no, we’re in Libra now, and since Librans are intuitive and reflective, with a spiritual side to them (some might call them mindful), Christian over at 
very idea of Hope. They look carefully in the nooks and crannies of life, and see the hopeful in those thing that most people find dispiriting. Religion for instance. Lots of hope there, along with a bunch of people deluding themselves that they have found Hope, but for all the wrong reasons. Jeffrey Stingerstein at 
(Is it just me, or does the symbol for Sagittarius look like the one that designates the male sex?) Sagittarians, it turns out, are trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. They also have a tendency to wear little uniforms, pitch tents, help little old ladies cross the street, and light fires by rubbing two sticks together. Our favorite Sagittarian, Ebonmuse, of 
that’s not right. It’s actually H-E-M-A-N-T M-E-H-T-A (go ahead, sing it! You know you want to), the 
Easter is a big holiday around Christian parts, but what’s a good secular humanist, one who fondly remembers the good times but no longer believes in the original reason for the holiday, to do? Well, as good Aquarian 
women, called 
del.icio.us 
reddit 
OH GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING 
It also raises a big issue that I have with online ‘fake fortune telling’ programs like 
Looking For Some Kick-ass Female Heroines? The Amelia Bloomer Project:
