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Although in a previous study we showed that caffeine and theobromine were the main psychopharmacologically active constituents in a 50-g bar of chocolate, mere activity does not guarantee a role in our liking for the food. Our aim was to see if liking for a drink repeatedly paired with these amounts of caffeine and theobromine would increase compared to a placebo-paired drink. Participants (n=64) consumed a ‘novel’ drink + treatment capsule on six non-consecutive mornings using a double-blind, placebo-controlled independent-sample design. Aspects of liking and intensity of various sensory descriptors for these drinks were measured at every drink collection. Treatment capsules contained either an ecologically relevant dose combination of 19-mg caffeine and 250-mg theobromine or a placebo. Liking for the drink paired with the methylxanthine-containing capsules increased over time compared to the placebo-paired drink. This highly significant effect was confirmed by subjective, retrospective changes in liking for the drink. Methylxanthines in amounts found in 50-g chocolate may well contribute to our liking for chocolate, especially to the more acquired taste for dark chocolate.

What has this sociologist been doing in the years since his accession to the not quite exalted Emeritus state? Not much sociology, that's for sure. Retired or not, sociologists who don't see each other often have the habit of asking "what you're doing these days," by which they mean "what are you working on." Not to be working on something is an admission of idleness, stagnation, or worse. When I'm asked I usually reply, "Not much, some gardening, some carpentry, cooking, home maintenance; I don't use a cleaning woman, not even a cleaning person; I spent most of a day recently polishing my oak floors. I'm really retired." I had a deviant career (to put the best light on it), making it mostly on my criti cism and my writing skills rather than one timeless project after another. But I was well and quickly rewarded; I belonged to a demographically lucky cohort of Ph.D.'s. No assistant professor anxieties. In my first post-Ph.D. job I was promoted to ten ure by the University of Illinois after three years without even knowing I was being considered for it. No accumulation of files, no gathering of letters of recommenda tion, no ad hoc committees. The head of the department simply informed me one day that I was being promoted. Maybe one of the last gasps of the old boy network. One of the early high points (and an introduction to the ambiguities of university life) was when, as a young academic, I was solicited by The New York Times for articles in its Sunday Book Review and its Magazine. This was met by some of my then senior colleagues with a peculiar combination of envy and disdain?disdain because the Times was a "popular" (i.e., not scholarly) medium, envy because (something I didn't know then) the Times was harder to get into than even the most prestigious of the professional journals. But the highest points were my three years doing the field research for my commune book, followed by the three years run ning the journal Contemporary Sociology?those events being the closest I ever came to creating a community around me, although, as an "alienated" type, I never had much gift for community. I liked teaching too-never burned out on it?espe cially graduate students, though for some of them I was an acquired taste. Still I was most pleased to mentor a bunch of first class Ph.D.'s (inevitably, some medio cre ones as well) to teach theory to first year graduate students and, in a small

Eleven cases of feeding on driver ants (Dorylus sp.) by mountain gorillas (Gorilla gorilla beringei) are described. Ant eating provides the gorillas with more animal protein and other nutrients per unit feeding time than do other forms of insectivory that contribute to their diet, but it is so rare that it is unlikely to be of real nutritional significance. Gorillas obtain ants with their hands and do not use tools. Immature individuals (except infants) ate more ants than did adult females, and silverbacks were not seen to eat ants. These differences are more likely to reflect differences in individual taste and interest in novelty than differences in nutritional strategy. Not all gorillas in the Virungas population eat ants. Intra-population variability may be ecologically contingent, but ant eating appears to be a socially acquired and transmitted taste.

Two studies were conducted to study the effects of unpaired sucrose (CS) experiences on the acquisition, retention, and reacquisition of a sucrose aversion. In Experiment 1, rats received 0, 1, or 3 preconditioning CS exposures and/or 0, 1, or 3 postconditioning CS exposures. Sucrose exposures prior to conditioning interfered with the acquisition of a sucrose aversion, while sucrose-only experience following a single taste-illness pairing retroactively interfered with retention of the sucrose aversion and proactively interfered with the reacquisition of the sucrose aversion. In Experiment 2, two unpaired sucrose experiences following each sucrose-illness pairing (33% PRF group) resulted in little apparent sucrose aversion after six sucrose-illness pairings, while a single unpaired sucrose experience after each conditioning trial (50% PRF group) produced a moderate level of interference compared to the rapid acquisition in rats receiving only sucrose-illness pairings (CRF group). It is suggested that CS familiarization and extinction may represent a single process where the rat learns that a taste cue predicts no illness, and that this expectancy can interfere with the development of an aversion or impair the ability of the animal to reacquire a previously acquired taste aversion.