Science News for Writers

Valentine's Day! Chocolate 101 Here’s a brief look at where chocolate comes from, nutritional information, how it’s made, and the ingredients that make chocolate -- whether milk, dark or white -- a memorable treat. Cocoa Seeds, Not Beans Cocoa comes from the cocoa plant grown in the remote areas of West Africa, Asia and South America. While often called cocoa beans, cocoa plants actually are large, brightly colored pods filled with many seeds. Cocoa to Chocolate Cocoa seeds are removed from the pod, dried and roasted, giving them a distinct dark color and unique flavor. After roasting, cocoa seeds are ground into a paste called chocolate liquor. The liquor separates into dry cocoa and cocoa butter, or fat. Chocolate Ingredients Cocoa is heated and combined with other ingredients, such as sugar and milk, to create chocolate bars and candy. Dark chocolate is at least 35 percent cocoa liquor; and milk chocolate, 10 percent. White chocolate has cocoa butter, but no chocolat...

Credit: © jinga80 / Fotolia  According the national crime statistics, 13 million individuals who pass through our nation's jails and prisons annually. Suggested Reading Click on image W ithin three years of being released from jail, two out of every three inmates in the US wind up behind bars again -- a problem that contributes to the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world.  New research suggests that the degree to which inmates' express guilt or shame may provide an indicator of how likely they are to re-offend.  The findings show that inmates who feel guilt about specific behaviors are more likely to stay out of jail later on, whereas those that are inclined to feel shame about the self might not. The difference between guilt and shame might seem subtle, but researcher June Tangney and her colleagues Jeffrey Stuewig and Andres Martinez of George Mason University hypothesized that feeling one or the other of these emotions might contrib...

Source:  www.eharmony.com G oing on a double date may be more effective at reigniting passion in your own relationship than the classic candlelit dinner for two. According to new research, striking up a friendship with another couple in which you discuss personal details of your life will bring you closer to your own partner. Suggested Reading Click on image "Passionate love is one of the first dimensions of love to decrease in couples over time as the newness of a relationship begins to wane," says Keith Welker, a doctoral student at Wayne State University. "Relationships have widely been thought to flourish and develop in a broader network of social relationships, while emerging research has suggested that novel, arousing experiences can increase feelings of passionate love." The new research fuses together the two research areas, showing that novel, high-self-disclosure interactions with other couples can increase feelings of passionate love. S...

Having money appears to make people more conservative in the attitudes and politics.  I think most writers will agree that this is something they've observed over time.  Now comes a study out of the UK that confirms this tendency, and explains why so many conservatives have money.  In the chicken and egg question of which comes first, money looks to be the answer. I have to admit I know people of wealth who are quite liberal, and, I know people of very modest wealth who vote a straight conservative ticket.  However, based on this study, the dominant cause of a switch to a conservative bias is money. Take a moment to read the survey, then think about the people you know.  And apply this result to the characters in your story.  Do you have a character who wins the lottery?  How does this effect them?  Conversely, do you have a wealthy character who loses all, and how does this effect their personality and world view.  Something to think ab...

Credit: Image courtesy of University of Oxford An area of the brain that appears unique to humans (in red) . Suggested Reading click on image W e are obviously different from apes and monkeys despite the fact that 99.6% of our DNA is the same as found in chimpanzees.  For millenia, we assumed humans had language and apes don't, and that's what makes us different.  But apes do have language, and can learn American sign language equivalent to a human six year old.  Well, humans make tools and that makes up unique.  Not so, says science.  Apes, monkeys, dolphins and ants all make tools as well.  So much for that. Social organization?  Not really.  Consider the sophisticated social organization of elephants.  Wolves.  Ants. So how are we truly different?  Oxford University researchers have identified an area of the human brain that appears unlike anything in the brains of some of our closest relatives. The brain area...

G reat eyes, full lips and harmonious features: actress Angelina Jolie is in possession of all of these. That she is regarded as the epitome of female attractiveness doesn’t come as a surprise for Dr. Holger Wiese of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany). “Her features combine many factors which contribute to the attractiveness of a face,” the psychologist says. In his research, he mostly deals with the perception of faces. Suggested reading click on image ”On the one hand we find very symmetrical and rather average faces appealing,” he explains. “On the other hand, people who are perceived as being particularly attractive stand out by additional traits, which distinguish them from the average.” Apart from being attractive, features like big eyes or a distinctively shaped mouth ensure a high recognition value. “We tend to remember those faces well,” according to Wiese. But this isn’t generally true for all attractive people – as Wiese and his colleagues, Caroli...

Simply put, freelancers who understand their own skills and experience, have a career path in mind, a goal, and who accept and decline jobs based on this focus, are more successful in landing contract jobs.   This report is based on an analysis of assignments made on Elance.com, but confirms my own experience.   Suggested reading Click on image When I made work proposals to prospective clients saying, "I can do any type of writing," I rarely got the assignment.   When I focused on what I do best and applied for that type of work, more often than not, I got the assignment. This is not new advice.  Variations of  "To thine own self be true," appears both in the Christian Bible and in Shakespeare's Hamlet and in other sources as well. Here's the report of an analysis of the experiences of freelancers on Elance.com conducted by the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. *  *  *  *  * A ccording to Elance.com, the online workplace li...