AAAS: Sugar-coated Science

Whenever AAAS falls around Valentine's day as it did this year, there's always a theme session.
One year it was the discovery of a “fidelity gene” in voles. Another year it was something to do with flowers. But this year's session, “The
Neurobiology of Chocolate: A Mind-Altering Experience?” made me cringe. The upshot was that flavanol-enriched cocoa increases blood flow to the cortex, which might enhance brain function. I couldn't bring myself to go to the talk (I hear it was standing-room only) but if you're interested you can read about it here, here, here, or here.
I'm not necessarily disputing the science. The health benefits of flavanols, also found in tea and red wine, are not new. In addition to having antioxidant properties, they're also vasodilators. So why the ire? Well, the entire session, in fact, the research itself was sponsored by candy-maker
Mars, Inc. That's definitely not kosher.