Babies By Design. The Future Of Eugenics.

Have you ever thought to yourself “Wouldn’t it be great if I could be the mother of the next pop sensation ala Lynne Spears?” Do you want a child that naturally maintains a svelte size 6 frame while pounding rocky road fudge or can bulk up like the Governator without the use of anabolic steroids? Or maybe you are so in love with the crooning of Frank Sinatra that you want to gaze up into those baby blues every year when your greater than or equal to 6 ft tall son comes home for the holidays?

If so then I invite you to check out the UCLA Center for Society and... (more)

Tags: medicine

Black Thursday And The Tale Of Hercules

People keep reminding me that Valentines Day is coming up and it’s starting to annoy me. I don’t care about Valentines Day. I think Valentines Day is stupid. It sucks if you’re single because you are constantly reminded that you are single. It also sucks if you are not single because people keep asking you what you are going to do on Valentines Day. What is that? Why must we judge the man/men in our lives based on what he/they do or dont do for us on Valentines Day? Doesn’t May 12th count equally as much as February 14th? What if…on February 14th he (or you for... (more)

Tags: los angeles

Video Killed The Radio Star

When I was a little girl we didn't have cable television. "Our television was a piece of furniture unto itself." It sat in the living room; a large plant stand from which Little House on the Prairie blared religiously on Monday evenings.

"Mondays were my favorite night back then." After cheering for Laura as she triumphed time and again over the detestable Nellie Oleson my mother and I would sit cross-legged in front of the TV folding the weekend laundry while she watched M*A*S*H. It was quality time. I had her all to myself -- even if I did have to sit and match socks. It wasn't... (more)

Tags: mtv, lost, television humor, television has gone nowhere, 1980s on tv, video killed the radio star

Run for your life!

After 6 months of Friday nights spent in an early bed so that I could greet the dawn with the crisp Santa Monica morning air filling my ever expanding lungs I was ready, and on March 4, 2007 I crossed the finish line of the Los Angeles City Marathon. As my friend and I huffed and puffed our way along the oft-times entertaining, sometimes dreary 26.2 mile course there was nary a moment that a young person in a bright turquoise hat and singlet couldn’t be spotted or their laughter heard. These middle and high school kids were members of a group called Students Run L.A. Students Run L.A. began... (more)

Tags: los angeles, santa monica

When Science Meets Morality: The Embryonic Stem Cell Debate

On April 11, 2007 the Senate passed the “Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007” where it now awaits the signature of President Bush. Similar to the bill previously vetoed by Bush, this bill outlines the standards by which human embryonic stem cell research should be conducted, and provides for the derivation of human embryonic stem cell lines from excess embryos generated for the purpose of in-vitro fertilization (IVF). IVF is the process by which donor eggs are fertilized by donor sperm in a Petri dish and allowed to develop for 3-5 days into the developmental stage known as the blastula.... (more)

Tags: medicine

He loves me...He loves me not.

Many of you ladies may have read, or at least heard of, the book "He's just not that into you" by Greg Behrendt. The book was touted to me as an all inclusive guide to understanding men. As I understood it, men were "quaking in their boots" in fear that all of their deceptive player games would be revealed. I opened the book with anticipation. In my hot little hands were the answers to age old questions like, "why hasn't he called me"", and it had only cost me $14.95 retail! As my eyes poured over the pages my excitement turned to disappointment. What I had in my hot little hands was... (more)

Tags: dating, hes just not that into you, greg behrendt, guide to understanding men, meeting men

Conscientious Objection: Not Just For the Military Anymore

A pharmacist working for Walgreen's in Milwaukee, Wisconsin refuses to fill a prescription for emergency contraception (EC) [1]. In Louisiana, another pharmacist sends a couple, instructed by their physician not to get pregnant for 2-3 years following cesarean section, 30 miles out of their way because he believes birth control is "œtantamount to abortion" and he "did not want to commit a sin" [2].

In Texas, a rape survivor is turned away by three pharmacists refusing to fill her EC prescription on moral grounds [3].

In New Hampshire a woman with a legal prescription for EC was... (more)

Tags: pharmacists rights

Living Doll II: The Rise of Talkie Telly

This just in! Men talk just as much as women! That’s right; thanks to researchers from the University of Arizona, and a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, we can safely put to rest the notion that “women just don’t know when to shut up”. Apparently, men are just as verbose as the “fairer sex”. The idea that women talk more than men is the subject of much western folklore, and has long been considered scientific fact. This idea being so engrained in society that when respected neuropsychiatrist, Louann Brizendine first asserted that women use 20,000 words per... (more)

Tags: journalism, sex

Pass the Soma: IVF in A Brave New World

In the 1932 dystopia classic “Brave New World” Aldous Huxley envisions a world in which the world state has complete control over reproduction. It is a world where natural childbirth is all but obsolete, and humans “engineered” to be perfectly adapted to their pre-determined station in life are produced in factories. Now, thanks to researchers from the University of Tokyo in Japan, we are one step closer to realizing his nightmare. This realization comes in the form of an artificial microfluidic chip designed to more closely mimic the womb for in-vitro fertilized (IFV) embryos. Traditional... (more)

Tags: medicine, environment, gay, sex, japan

Meanwhile In Darfur, U.N. To Send Troops To Sudan

Amid reports of Lindsay dodging cops, Paris losing millions, and Britney finalizing her divorce, the war torn region of Darfur, in Sudan, was granted a faint ray of hope Tuesday. This ray comes in the form of a U.N. resolution number 1769. Invoking Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter the U.N. Security Council authorized on Tuesday the use of a peacekeeping force of 26,000 troops and police, largely drawn from African nations, in order to address the humanitarian crisis in the region. In a compromise with the Sudanese government, which has until now refused to allow U.N. troops, the peacekeeping... (more)

Tags: sudan, darfur, united nations sudan