Since I’m currently working on a title for the Changeling series, Sex and Chocolate, I’ve had this decadence on my mind.

So, without any further ado, here are a few facts you may or may not have known about chocolate:

White chocolate is not a chocolate at all. It is actually made of confectioner’s sugar, cocoa butter, and milk solids. While it does come from the cacao bean (via cocoa butter), it doesn’t contain cacao solids so is not recognized by the FDA as an actual “chocolate.” As a matter of fact, a majority of the ivory white chocolate you can purchase today on your grocer’s shelves do not contain cocoa butter at all.

You can tell the difference between true white “chocolate” and the imitation in two ways. True white chocolate is ivory in color and consistency and has that cocoa butter taste. The imitation has vegetable extracts and animal fat (look at the ingredients!) and is almost tasteless in comparison.

Cacao beans were used as currency for the Mayans and Aztecs. It was also considered an aphrodisiac and only the richest of their people could afford to drink the bitter chocolate brews they concocted.

In 1960, Hershey’s chocolate syrup was what Alfred Hitchcock used as blood in the now infamous shower scene in the movie, Psycho.

Chocolate can be lethal to dogs. Theobromine, an ingredient that stimulates the cardiac muscle and the central nervous system, causes chocolate’s toxicity. About two ounces of milk chocolate can be poisonous for a 10-lb puppy. Dark chocolate takes even less. Keep that in mind around small kids who like to “share” their goodies.

For many years it was thought that chocolate was bad for your health. It has been proven, however, that dark chocolate can actually benefit the body. This dark decadence has the highest antioxidant content of any other food.  Good to know.

Dark Chocolate is also a mild stimulant (to help a bit with concentration). This effect is actually increased in horses, so it is forbidden in horse racing.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s edition of Brain Fluff! And now back to my Dove dark chocolate and Reese’s PB minatures.

Well, he wishes.  He should have been working, but played with this, instead.

As I grew up I put aside my dreams of being an astronaut and turned to science fiction. I inhaled everything I could get my hands, and still do.

So for today’s fun jaunt into Useless factdom, here are some interesting and bizarre things about space travel.

1. Without gravity, water doesn’t flow. It pools/beads. So an astronaut/space traveler can’t have tears sliding down the cheeks in zero G.

2. Cold fusion…the quick and easy way to repair a damaged ship? If two pieces of metal, cleaned (usually with a wire brush) of all oxidizing material will adhere to each other in the vacuum of space. It’s a phenomena called Cold Welding and has, according to several documents, caused problems in satellites. More research is needed, but think of the possibilities!

3. Moon Dust is dangerous and deadly. One of the most dangerous hazards to creating a working environment on the moon is a phenomena known as moon dust. It adheres to everything and is, according to theory, more adhesive in the middle of the day (as the sun “rises”, so to speak).

That makes it the largest environmental hazard to face engineers and scientists in the next lunar trip. Just think about what that dust will do to your lungs, lining the cilia, the tender tissues of the lungs. Also, imagine what it will do to sensitive equipment or how it will gum up mechanical parts. So for those sci fi writers out there, make sure you have a decontamination room.

Since dust would be kicked up (and stay that way for a while) by a shuttle arrival, the actual base would have to be farther away to lower contamination effects. Neat huh?

4. Muscle Atrophy is a side effect of space travel. Recent studies on the International Space Station crew has found a decrease by 15% in muscle mass and 20% in muscle performance during the average six month stay. The result: Increase resistance training to balance cardio. Bowflex, anyone?

That’s it for today’s crazy facts! I hope you enjoyed them.