Aging touches everyone at one point or another. As you age your skin becomes thinner and can be damaged easier. It also loses its elasticity as it receives less blood flow. The loss of moisture and collagen that circulates in the skin causes the skin to dry out, wrinkle and sag.
As the skin loosens [...]

In a culture where “Bad Plastic Surgery Photos” websites have become popular as a place to kill time when bored, and “botox” is almost a hobby for some people, fighting the appearance of aging is obviously more than slightly important. And yes, most people care about looking the age they feel and not the age [...]

When I was a kid I thought some older people must have shrunk and had extra skin. I knew sagging skin was a sign of aging, but I didn’t realize it was because the skin was actually stretching; I thought it was because people get smaller and their skin doesn’t. Later I learned the scary [...]

While most people think of the desire to have large breasts as a current phenomenon, the truth is that there is evidence of this desire that dates back for many centuries. It may not be a new thing, but it has been taken to a whole new level in recent decades. Many women are searching [...]

Many women want to have larger breasts and are looking at the various options available to them. Breast augmentation is one of the most popular forms of plastic surgery, but it also full of risks and it’s expensive. Furthermore, most insurance companies will not cover cosmetic procedures, so all of the money has to be [...]

If you have been thinking about double chin plastic surgery to make yourself look thinner, or just better overall, then you need to make sure that you gather as much information as you can ahead of time. Plastic surgery is not something that should be taken lightly, and no matter what plastic surgeons would like [...]

There aren’t many things that are as unsightly as a double chin. Nobody ever looks at someone without one and then thinks, "Gee, that person would look so much better if they had more than one chin." If you have a lot of fat there, then it’s a safe bet that you would like to [...]

MSNBC host and radio talker Ed Schultz gave a "What I Read" interview to The Atlantic, but the reading list was less interesting than his complaining about how talk radio is owned by conservatives: "Citadel doesn't do liberal talk radio. Bonneville doesn't do liberal talk radio. The Salem Radio Network, same thing." Of course, he admitted, If Ed Schultz owned 600 radio stations, I can guarantee you Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or any other right-wing hack job would not be on my stations. But until liberals go out and buy signals, you're not going to get a lot of liberal talk radio."

Then Schultz admitted where liberal radio is located. It's at the left end of the dial. "I don't buy that there are more conservative listeners than liberal listeners. A lot of the liberal listeners are listening to NPR. In Washington or New York City, the NPR station has huge listenership. That's where most of the liberal audience is and that's who we, the commercial liberal format, have to peel away listeners from. This industry is ideologically-driven. That's the culture of it."

Say, Ed, why don't you call for defunding NPR, which might improve the business climate for commercial liberal radio? I'm guessing your socialist audience won't go for that idea.

Ed is not at all about attracting the mushy middle: "The hosts out there that think they can strike a chord with the middle of the road people have it all wrong. What's the middle of the road position on universal health care? What's the middle of the road position on having the wealthy pay taxes? What's the middle of the road position on fighting foreign wars? Liberal radio has identified absolutes. If you're true to your conviction, I think you can run a business in this industry."

Actually, "What I Read" isn't exactly a great title for this lecture, since he only identifies — yawn — that he reads The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, and he's not "a big magazine reader." He identifies more with broadcasters, praising Andy Rooney and despite the political disagreement, Paul Harvey.

Give Ben Hirschler and Kate Kelland at Reuters credit for a fair presentation this morning of the relative progress made in adult stem cell research compared to that achieved thus far in the embryonic arena. Maybe it was because they were reporting from London, where the constraints of insufferable political advocacy in journalism seem (sad to say) less present than they are in the U.S. Meanwhile, Health Writer Matthew Perrone at the Associated Press couldn't even bring himself to recognize the existence of adult stem cells in his Monday afternoon report, and in the process wrote a flat-out fib about the number of FDA-approved stem cell clinical trials taking place.

The occasion for coverage was Geron Corp.'s decision to halt the first government-approved clinical trial involving embryonic stem cells. What follows after the jump are the first six paragraphs from the Reuters analysis:

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A decision by one of the biggest names in stem cell research to throw in the towel will not stop other pioneering work that could yet produce cures for blindness and help mend broken hearts.

Scientists were shocked by U.S. biotech company Geron Corp's decision on Monday to quit embryonic stem cell research — a move it blamed on a lack of money and the complexities of getting regulatory approval.

Yet, at the same time, teams working with adult stem cells — a less ambitious area — are making good progress.

"This is not the end of an era," said Dusko Ilic, senior lecturer in stem cell science at King's College London.

Shortly before Geron told the world it was ending further development of its embryonic stem cell projects, Australia's Mesoblast Ltd reported its adult stem treatment slashed the rate of further heart problems in heart failure patients.

"It's a tale of two ends of the market. I believe the adult stem cell space was always more attractive anyway," said Navid Malik, a biotechnology analyst at Merchant Securities.

Perrone at the Associated Press failed to even recognize the existence of adult stem cell research, let alone the progress made in that arena, and acted as if nothing meaningful will ever be accomplished unless it occurs through the use of embryonic cells. Perrone's fib is in the second-last excerpted paragraph below:

Geron Corp. is exiting the field it pioneered in a calculated business move that underscores the long, costly path embryonic stem cells face to become real-world products.

Late Monday, the company said it would halt its study of a stem cell-based treatment for spinal cord injury, the first embryonic stem cell trial approved in the U.S.

Geron's withdrawal leaves a handful of U.S. companies pursuing medicines using embryonic stem cells, which are capable of morphing into any of the more than 220 cell types in the human body. Scientists hope that one day stem cells might be used to replace or repair damaged tissue from ailments such as heart disease, Parkinson's and stroke.

… Experts say Geron's departure is more a symbolic setback than a real one, since the vast majority of work in the field will continue to be funded by government and academic institutions.

Geron said it still believes in the potential of stem cells and the company is seeking a partner or buyer for its stem cells division.

Despite the promise, the payoff from stem cell research was too far off for Geron. It has no products on the market and would have spent $25 million per year to continue its stem cell program…. Last year Geron launched the first U.S. study of a stem cell treatment in humans: an injection of 2 million stem cells designed to repair spinal cord injury.

But late Monday, the company said the high costs and commercial uncertainties of stem cell research forced it to close the study and instead focus on the more lucrative, predictable market for cancer therapies.

Geron's study may have been the first embryonic study, but a quick search through the Adult Stem Cell Research Network website indicates that there are at least five studies involving adult stem cells which are FDA approved (here, here, here, here, and here). There are probably very many more; I just went to one source to show easy it was to disprove Perrone's ridiculous claim.

One doesn't want to lobby a charge that a news organization appears to be deliberately favoring life-taking research over that which passes ethical muster for purely political reasons. But what else explains the grim determination by the self-described Essential Global News Network to wish away adult stem cell research and fail to acknowledge its accomplishments?

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

At the Associated Press this afternoon, White House Correspondent Ben Feller relayed the essence of a statement by Obama administration spokesman Jay Carney about how the President believes that, in Feller's words, "it's up to New York and other municipalities to decide how much force to use in dealing with Occupy Wall Street demonstrations." Feller failed to mention both the President's previous endorsement of the goals of the Occupy protesters, and his inexcusable silence as the encampments have devolved into disease-infested swamps of criminal and antisocial behavior. How convenient.

Most of Feller's brief report follows:

It must be nice for the President can be so noncommittal now while Feller lets slide the fact that Obama was a big OWS booster in the beginning:

(Devin Dwyer at ABC News, October 18)

President Obama, who has become a target of the Occupy Wall Street protests sweeping the country, today embraced the economic frustration voiced on the streets and said in an exclusive interview with ABC News that his vision for the U.S. economic system is best suited to resolve protesters’ concerns.

“I understand the frustrations being expressed in those protests,” Obama told ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper in the interview to air this evening on ABC News “Nightline” from Jamestown, N.C.

(At the Weekly Standard's Blog, October 18)

In an interview that will be aired tonight on ABC News, President Obama continues to express his commitment to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

“The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded,” Obama tells ABC News. “And that people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their companies and their workers that those folks aren’t rewarded.”

The president also compares the protesters to the Tea Party.

(At BlackAgendaReport.com, week of October 10)

Obama Endorses Wall Street Protests

Comedian and social activist Dick Gregory had a “bulletin” for the protesters at the kickoff of the occupation of Freedom Plaza, in Washington, DC, last week: “President Obama endorsed what you all are doing here!”

The final excerpt goes on to note that Gregory's audience "was skeptical, to put it mildly." But Obama said what he said, and Gregory interpreted it correctly.

A Republican or conservative who had endorsed an activist movement decaying into lawlessness would have been hounded relentlessly (and appropriately) but the press to see if he or she was still sticking with the activists. With Obama, it's just another free pass in what has been almost three interrupted years of them.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.