Cocoa: Packed With Cancer Fighters

By Kelley Herring

Are you a chocolate lover? Good news! Cornell food scientists recently found that cocoa is teeming with antioxidants that help prevent cancer.

In fact, according to their recent research published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, cocoa has nearly twice the antioxidants of red wine and up to three times the amount found in green tea.

But there is a caveat. You'll do more harm than good if you start chowing down on sugar-laden chocolate. You're best bet to benefit from the bean is to use organic, unsweetened, non-alkalized cocoa.

Stir it into coffee, whirl it into berry smoothies, or try delicious chocolate desserts made with the all-natural "Super Sweetener of the Future": erythritol.

The Language Perfectionist: Quotable Metaphors

By Don Hauptman

An incisive quotation can often make your writing or speaking more effective.

But be sure that the one you choose is appropriate to your context and that your audience isn't likely to have read or heard it before. In addition, a quotation should never just be dropped into your text. Explain its relevance to your theme. Or cite a real-life example or story that illustrates its point.

Many fine quotation resources exist. One that I recommend was just published. Mardy Grothe's cleverly titled I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like is a collection of quotations, many unfamiliar, on numerous topics ranging from politics to sports to relationships and beyond. All employ metaphors, similes, and analogies. That makes the book a pleasure for lovers of language, too.

Here are a few quotable samples from the book:

• "Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down." - Ray Bradbury

• "Absence lessens the minor passions and increases the great ones, as the wind douses a candle and kindles a fire." - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

• "The highest intellects, like the tops of mountains, are the first to catch and to reflect the dawn." - Thomas Babington Macaulay

• "Reading is a means of thinking with another person's mind; it forces you to stretch your own." - Charles Scribner Jr.

Equally valuable are the author's comments, pointing out the significance of key quotations and linking them with others that share their themes.

With almost 2,000 entries at your fingertips, you're bound to find dozens of provocative and inspiring thoughts you'll want to cite - or post on your refrigerator, mirror, or office wall. This remarkable anthology contains so many gems that you may find yourself exclaiming, as I often did, "How did he find that one?"

Here's an appropriate metaphorical quotation with which to conclude, lest this review become too long:

"A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit." - Samuel Johnson

[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant.]

It's Fun to Know: The 8 New Natural Wonders of the World

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has added eight new entries to its World Heritage List, which denotes cultural and natural sites that are deemed of value to humanity. The new entries join 878 sites in 145 countries.

1. Joggins Fossil Cliffs (Canada) - site of a plethora of fossilized animal and plant remains

2. Mount Sanqingshan National Park (China) - home of unusual granite formations

3. Lagoons of New Caledonia (France) - a system of reefs with tremendous coral and animal diversity

4. Surtsey (Iceland) - an island created by volcanic eruption in the 1960s

5. Saryarka (Kazakhstan) - a vast grassland that's home to several endangered species

6. Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (Mexico) - the winter home of this migrating insect

7. Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona (Switzerland) - valued by scientists for its geologic features

8. Socotra Archipelago (Yemen) - known as the Galapagos Islands of the Indian Ocean for its plant and animal diversity

(Source: LiveScience)

Now's Your Chance to Get Ahead

By Suzanne Richardson

You've heard Michael Masterson's advice to cut TV watching out of your schedule. But most Americans just aren't listening. According to a Nielsen Company survey, the average American watches a staggering 127 hours and 15 minutes of TV each month. That's over five full days of couch-potato-dom.

And that gives you a big advantage...

Everyone has the exact same 24 hours in a day to accomplish their business and professional goals. So by limiting the amount of TV you watch, you can reach your own goals that much faster.

Imagine how much you could accomplish with the equivalent of five extra days a month - a full work week - to hone your business skills, attract new customers, create new products, and make your dreams come true.

What's keeping you from getting started? Flip off the TV and get going.

Word to the Wise: Stasis

"Stasis" (STAY-sis) - from the Greek for "standing still" - is a state of balance, equilibrium, or stagnation.

Example (as used by Jerry L. Mashaw in Greed, Chaos, and Governance): "The reality of governance was not stasis but change; institutions did not operate according to mechanical laws, they evolved organically."

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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2430, 08-09-08], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.