‘Tis the season to start gulping down chocolates like they had been out of style for 63 years and you were trying to spark a revival, but no one was interested so you were downing chocolates by the handfull every second you were out of the house. Well, either that or it’s Valentine’s Day [...]]]> by Richard

‘Tis the season to start gulping down chocolates like they had been out of style for 63 years and you were trying to spark a revival, but no one was interested so you were downing chocolates by the handfull every second you were out of the house. Well, either that or it’s Valentine’s Day and chocolate is the traditional gift of the holiday.

I bring good news to those who don’t keep up with the science. Turns out that chocolate might actually be good for you.

Great news. Well, for the wives at least. I mean, sure, I like chocolate, but it’s not something I’ll go out of my way to buy or even ask for. If I really wanted something sweet to celebrate a holiday, I’d just as soon order a cookie bouquet. Still, let’s hear it for flavonoids. Yeah, I know. It sounds like the invading aliens from some horrible 1950’s SF epic. But, no. They’re actually naturally-occurring compounds found in plant-based foods recognized as exuding certain health benefits. And they’re what makes chocolate good-ish for you.

Flavonoids provide important protective benefits to plants, such as in repairing damage and shielding from environmental toxins. When we consume plant-based foods rich in flavonoids, it appears that we also benefit from this “antioxidant” power.Antioxidants are believed to help the body’s cells resist damage caused by free radicals, formed by normal bodily processes such as breathing or environmental contaminants like cigarette smoke. When the body lacks adequate levels of antioxidants, free radical damage ensues, leading to increases in LDL-cholesterol oxidation and plaque formation on arterial walls.

Well, in dark chocolate at least. That’s the — you should pardon the expression — skinny so far as we know it. Dark chocolate, having more flavonoids, is better at promoting good health. Not only is it good for reducing damage caused by free radicals, it also has other supposed benefits:

All in all, not bad.

But what about all the fat? you ask. Well, it’s actually not that bad. See, the fat in dark chocolate is made up of three different kinds of fat and, it turns out, only 1/3 of the fat is the bad, saturated, kind of fat that hurts your arteries and heart.

So, let’s hear it for chocolate. In moderation of course. Like that ever works.

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I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that humans, homo sapiens, were not alone on this planet and, oddly enough, it’s true. Over the past million years, we’ve shared the planet with any number of near humans, called hominids. You probably know about some, such as Neanderthals. They’re pretty popular and we see them [...]]]> by Richard

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that humans, homo sapiens, were not alone on this planet and, oddly enough, it’s true. Over the past million years, we’ve shared the planet with any number of near humans, called hominids. You probably know about some, such as Neanderthals. They’re pretty popular and we see them as pretty dumb.

What you might now know about, though, is a hominid species called the Boskop, for the town in South Africa where the first bones were found in 1912. See, the thing about this hominid is that it was smarter than humans. Much, much smarter.

The scientific community of South Africa was small, and before long the skull came to the attention of S. H. Haughton, one of the country’s few formally trained paleontologists. He reported his findings at a 1915 meeting of the Royal Society of South Africa. “The cranial capacity must have been very large,” he said, and “calculation by the method of Broca gives a minimum figure of 1,832 cc [cubic centimeters].” The Boskop skull, it would seem, housed a brain perhaps 25 percent or more larger than our own.

In addition to the huge melon, it turns out the Boskop people had another distinguishing feature: They had faces significantly smaller than humans. Basically, it would be like if you took a little dude’s face and plastered it on a big dude’s head.

Hmmm. Why does that sound so very familiar? Small bodies, large heads, small faces. Hmmm.

The combination of a large cranium and immature face would look decidedly unusual to modern eyes, but not entirely unfamiliar. Such faces peer out from the covers of countless science fiction books and are often attached to “alien abductors” in movies. The naturalist Loren Eiseley made exactly this point in a lyrical and chilling passage from his popular book, The Immense Journey, describing a Boskop fossil:

“There’s just one thing we haven’t quite dared to mention. It’s this, and you won’t believe it. It’s all happened already. Back there in the past, ten thousand years ago. The man of the future, with the big brain, the small teeth. He lived in Africa. His brain was bigger than your brain. His face was straight and small, almost a child’s face.”

Yes, the Grays, little space aliens blamed for every surprise hemorrhoid in the rural south. Probing and all that, don’tcha know? Looks like we were visited by those little alien dudes, only they were natives of Earth and they went extinct thousands of years ago.

It’s a common misconception that evolution says we descended from apes. That’s not true. What it says is that both apes and men had, some time in the distant past, a common ancestor. Yet we humans keep seeing evolution as a process that consistently builds species better and better as they move forward toward the present, resulting in the pinacle of evolution: us. Humans.

Boskops argue otherwise. They say that humans with big brains, and perhaps great intelligence, occupied a substantial piece of southern Africa in the not very distant past, and that they eventually gave way to smaller-brained, possibly less advanced Homo sapiens—that is, ourselves.

There we go. Our alien overlords weren’t so very much alien, yeah? And, yet, they were. This kind of thing is why I love science.

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Dudes, I have been to the mountain top and returned with a revelation. I have had an epiphany. Or, to quote Joliet Jake Blues, “I have seen the %^$^%$ ^&%%&ing light!” Yes, this movie really is that good.

Of course, I’m talking about Avatar, the new blockbuster movie by James Cameron. He’s the man who [...]]]> by Richard

Dudes, I have been to the mountain top and returned with a revelation. I have had an epiphany. Or, to quote Joliet Jake Blues, “I have seen the %^$^%$ ^&%%&ing light!” Yes, this movie really is that good.

Of course, I’m talking about Avatar, the new blockbuster movie by James Cameron. He’s the man who brought us such classics as Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens and Titanic. At the time, Titanic was the most expensive movie ever made. There were many who doubted Cameron would be able to bring in even a fraction of the costs in box-office receipts. After all, everyone knew how the movie would end. The ship would sink. Please. No one’s interested.

Turns out, Cameron was right. Titanic went on to be one of the highest grossing movies of all time and won a number of Academy Awards. So now, with Avatar, Cameron faced the same sorts of criticisms. Too expensive. Too long. Experimental format. Blah, blah, blah. There’s even talk that the entire promotion budget and shooting budget and all the rest could creep upwards of half a billion (yes, with a b) dollars.

This movie was worth it. Every. Stinkin’. Penny. This movie was worth it. It really is just that good.

To start with, let me talk about the cinematography and the Real D 3D process. Here’s the skinny. You must see this movie in 3D. I know you’ll have to pay more than you would to see it in 2D, but, again, worth every stinkin’ penny. The 3D is flawless. It’s not so much the arrows shooting straight out into the audience (hint: there are none), it’s basically just the amazing feeling of depth that the entire movie is suffused with. The mountains in the distance look like they’re in the distance, not just small.

The jungle scenes (and there are a lot of them) are breathtaking. Literally. The wealth of imagination on display, coupled with the revolutionary 3D process, made this like I was walking on an alien world. It was that good. At one point, I thought to myself, I know this is animated, but it looks more realistic than live-action movies I’ve seen.

You’ve probably heard about the story now, but let me fill you in a little. Humanity in the year 2150 something, has basically used up the Earth’s natural resources and has moved on looking for more. They find it in Pandora, a habitable planet orbiting a gas giant a long, long way from home. Even better, the place is lousy with a precious ore called unobtanium. No, I’m not kidding. I wish I was. I mean, was cantfindium as a name taken? Anyway, the problem for the Earth corporation trying to mine the ore on this hot jungle planet, filled with an atmosphere toxic to humans, is there is an aboriginal population of giant, savage, noble Smurfs. Um, sorry. They’re blue. They’re called the Na’vi and they’re not especially friendly to the encroaching aliens.

Fortunately, the corporation has Ripley, sorry, Sigourney Weaver to bioengineer a mixture of human and Na’vi and then allow for a telepresence system for a human operative to drive a Na’vi. Jake Sully is a paraplegic former Marine who ends up as part of the Na’vi avatar program when his scientist twin brother dies. Jake takes his brothers place and then realizes he always loved Dances With Wolves. He eventually goes native, falls in love with a Na’vi woman and then leads the Na’vi in battle to expel the aliens.

Yeah, I’ve got issues with some of the plot. Don’t even ask me about the lightspeed lag or how the link can work in the vortex. (See the movie. You’ll understand.) Those are just a few of the problems I saw on a cursory first viewing. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll be going back. Heck, my wife, known to some as She Who Couldn’t Remember A Movie If Her Life Depended On It, came out of the movie and said the most amazing thing: “I want to go back and see that again.”

My little dudes were so enthused they wanted to give up video games so they could be a Na’vi. You really need to see this movie. In 3D. Save some time since it clocks in at around 3 hours. And, for those of you who’s little dudes have more sensitive ears, there a maybe a dozen instances of cursing, but nothing truly serious.

All in all, I’d give this six dudes out of five. The unprecedented extra is for the technical accomplishments. Yeah. That good.

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