The Ostrich Head Burial

    By now, you probably know that I don't really confirm much of anything. I kinda gave up on the whole verdict thing. Actually I just forgot to put that in. Eh. Well, the whole ostriches burying their heads in the ground is just NOT true.

The whole thing probably started when Pliny the Elder wrote that the ostriches' "stupidity is... remarkable; for although the rest of their body is so large, they imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of the body is concealed. " 

He may have been right about many facts about the ostrich, but this just wasn't one of 'em. But, I guess it's not hard to see why he'd think this though. After all, the brain of an ostrich is pretty small in proportion to its body, and people tend to automatically assume a smaller brain means less intelligence. Plus, they also dig their nests into the ground, so when they flip or move their eggs around, it looks like they're burying their heads into the ground. 

Sorry Mr.Pliny sir, you are wrong.

When an ostrich DOES sense danger, it can run away, or try to scare off the danger if it's a predator by making itself look scary. But sometimes, if it's bold enough, it'll just straight out beating the peace outta whatever scares it!
Or you know, utterly fail and run away:

Well, that's all I had to say! GoodBye 

Verdict: FALSE

When you sleep, your Brain takes a break

​Well, this is sorta true. You see, when you're awake, your brain is constantly working to understand​ what is going on around you. When you sleep, you aren't aware of your surroundings because your brain is "refreshing" so to speak in order for you to fell ready to go when you wake up. This doesn't mean your brain completely shuts down though. If that happened, you'd die in your sleep! After all, your brain "still controls many body functions including breathing" while you dream (sleepfoundation.org). As you sleep, you eventually enter REM sleep, in which "dreams occur, breathing and heart rate increase and become irregular, muscles relax, and eyes move back and forth under the eyelids" (sleepfoundation.org). In order for all this to happen however, your brain must be working and at least somewhat active to allow for movement. So there. Your brain is active when you sleep.

Blue Pool Pee

Try saying that 20 times fast! Yup. You may have heard about this myth from your parents or even some movie. You also may have heard of the variation of the myth in which pee turns red (ew). Either way, legend has it that in some select pools, owners dump a urine indicator dye to discourage people from peeing in them. It also helps catch who and when does pee in the pool and warns others where the pee is to avoid it. At least, that's what the myth says it's for. But does it really exist? Nope. Sorry.  A professional named "Alan" at the Aqua Clear web site says: "There is no chemical that can function as an indicator for urine in a pool." So there. It's official. It does NOT exist.

Chocolate's not healthy at all

 Chocolate often gets a bad rep for being bad for you. "It's full of caffeine and sugar". "It will make you sick if you eat to much". These and more are the most common complaints about chocolate. People turn a blind eye to the good things about chocolate though. It's not this evil temptation treat
 that people make it out to be. Especially dark chocolate. Sure, it's not as nutritious as an apple, but it has its advantages too! Dark chocolate, for example, has many antioxidants like Flavonol. In fact, your average dark chocolate bar has the same amount of antioxidants as 2/3 cups of blueberries! 10% of a good quality bar of dark chocolate is fiber. Eating it also stimulates the production of Nitric Oxide in your body, which serves in part to "send signals to the arteries to relax, which lowers resistance to blood flow and therefore reduces blood pressure" (www.authoritynutrition.com).

White Chocolate is still chocolate

 

Well, many people argue that because white chocolate has cocoa butter, it must be chocolate. But, technically, and legally, that just isn't enough to call it chocolate. If it doesn't have cocoa powder, it likely isn't chocolate, and white chocolate just doesn't. Cocoa butter "doesn’t contain any of the flavor-giving cocoa solids" (Michael Laiskonis*). In fact is really just "edible vegetable fat extracted from the cocoa bean" (USDA). The butter is combined with milk powder and also sugar to turn it into what we call white chocolate. But, let's be honest. Whether or not it's "real chocolate" isn't going to make us stop calling it chocolate. To most of us, it still is, and always will be chocolate.

*Creative director of the Institute for Culinary Education

Chocolate = Acne?

Welcome to the second edition of Chocolate Month! Okay so, a lot of people, mainly teens, claim that eating chocolate causes breakouts in facial acne. Since the 1960s, scientists have tried time and time again to prove whether or not there is actually a correlation between chocolate and acne. They have had no success. Until now. Sadly, a French study found that some of their subjects did get acne, however, they didn't take precautions to prevent other factors from messing with their results. So, maybe, this study can be discredited. Even so, according to Rachel Nazarian, a dermatologist from the Schweiger Dermatology Group, sugars and certain fats have shown to "cause the sebum in ...pores to become thicker and less fluid, so instead of moving dead skin cells lining ...pores to the surface, it forms a plug that clogs the pore, and eventually causes a blemish". So, if the chocolate in question is high in these, which, surprisingly, isn't very common, it might cause some acne. Even so, it is unlikely unless you have sensitive skin.

Verdict: maybe

It causes HEADACHES?!

Yup, this is one that has everyone with chronic migraines on edge!
People are scared to enjoy a chocolate bar! NO! Chocolate is supposed to bring joy and  ​satisfaction! NOT pain... right?

Well, a study from a LONG time ago said;
 

"well uh... maybe? Uhm... AMINES!!!" 

... 

OKAY, okay, so maybe it didn't say that EXACTLY, but it basically stated that a possible cause of headaches could be stuff with names that end in 'amines,' like 'histamines' that are in foods like, you know, CHOCOLATE. So there, that's it.

Verdict: T̶R̶U̶E̶      NEVER EVER EAT CHOCOLATE EVER AGAIN

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  CALM DOWN! BREATH!
Why? Because "a [more recent] study by the University of Pittsburgh has shown no link between chocolate and headaches," and that other study? It "eliminated chocolate as a possible headache cause," so actually:

Eat ON!!

Verdict: when has this ever been true...​