Japan, after having faced a catastrophic Earthquake and Tsunami, has yet to completely recover as recent news states that the Japanese Nuclear crisis now threatens the youth of the island. Parents in Tokyo have been told that the city's tap water is not safe for babies to drink after radiation from Japan's earthquake-hit nuclear plant affected the capital's water supply.
After strategic sampling of the water supplies, scientists have concluded that the natural resource contains double the legal amount of radioactive iodine, a deadly cause and major catalyst for thyroid cancer.

Not only did this crisis affect the health structure of Japan, but has also inflicted a low-punch to its economy. According to recent reports, the United States Food and Drug Administration have disseminated information declaring that milk and milk products as well as fruits and vegetable produce from Japan are hazardous, and as a result are to be banned from entering home ports until further notice.


In response to Japan's turmoil, US-based, grassroots philanthropists have orchestrated an effective relief plan titled "Dining out for Japan." This project involves select restaurants based in New York, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle, where consumers can dine and a fraction of the proceeds from the dinners served, will be allocated to the Japanese Tsunami/Earthquake Relief Efforts. For more information and to find out which restaurants are participating visit the following links provided below:

New York
Portland
San Francisco
Seattle

Fewer than half of Americans have had an AIDS test since guidelines were expanded to include routine screening, according to a government report released Tuesday.
Last year, an estimated 45 percent of Americans ages 18 to 64 reported they've had an HIV test at least once in their lives, up from 40 percent in 2006. That's an increase of 11 million people to 83 million people who have ever been screened, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in Atlanta.
CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden said the increase was significant and encouraging, while one outside expert called it disappointing.
"The numbers show that progress is possible. They also show how much more progress is needed," Frieden said during a teleconference.
In 2006, the CDC urged routine testing for everyone ages 13 to 64, even if they're not in high-risk groups. For those at high risk, including gay men and intravenous drug users, annual testing is recommended.
Because more people are getting tested, Frieden said, fewer people are being diagnosed late with HIV. In 2007, about a third of infections were discovered late, an improvement from 37 percent diagnosed earlier in the decade. Frieden said those cases are often only detected when the disease has progressed to AIDS.
AIDS drugs lower the amount of virus and are more effective when given earlier. People who know they are infected are more likely to take steps to prevent spreading it, Frieden said.
He said 28 percent of those at high risk have never been tested.

This information has starkly changed as the percentages have increased since.*

"If you don't know your HIV status, you can't effectively protect yourself and your partners," he said.
The CDC estimates that about 1.1 million Americans have HIV, but about 20 percent don't know it. About 56,000 new infections occur each year in the U.S.The CDC report was based on nationwide health surveys and state reports on infections.
Dr. John Bartlett of Johns Hopkins University called the testing figures disappointing.
"It's an incremental gain," said Bartlett, an infectious disease specialist.
He said that when the CDC changed its guidelines, many states still had laws that required special counseling before and after HIV tests. Most have since dropped the restrictions, but there are still some barriers. Maryland, for example, still requires doctors to note the patient's consent on charts, he said.
He said more screening could be done if hospitals were pressured to adopt routine HIV testing of patients by Medicare or hospital groups.
___
Online:
CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns
HIV test: http://www.hivtest.org

AP News Source

Image Courtesy of Abigail Hayworth

Again, we introduce to you, a new, yet very ancient cultural practice that is genuinely shocking to the Western Hemisphere, (of that which Life and Style Union resides.) Welcome to Mauritania, a small African locality off the coast of Algeria, whose practices are far more intriguing and buzzworthy than the Lindsay Lohan's jail send-off. Close your eyes, and envision a land of fat, black women - a part from the United States of America, where about 4 out of 5 African American women are overweight or obese. In Mauritania, it's acceptable to fat as it is a sign of beauty, glamour, splendor and rank. What a perfect paradise for us curvy kinds - smiles.

Well, here's the dish...and it is the least appealing, quite frankly. See, in Mauritania, young girls are housed in fat farms and are governed by "fatematous," (fat managers) who over a span of three time periods-morning, afternoon and evening- forcefeed their victims. Girls enter these fat farms at between the ages of 5-7 and are coersed into eating meals of crushed peanuts, blended dates and oily couscous. Water is then given to them by the gallons, and a mandatory "resting" period is enforced, to allow the food to settle. Goat milk which is high in fat and cholesterol, also comprises of the liquid, young girls are forced to drink by the liters.



Lejwana, a young girl from Tara, a small region in Mauritania, Africa explains "It sounded like a fairyland. They were going to send me away on vacation from school, and when I came back, it was promised that I will be beautiful." Lejwana, however, later found herself in a smoldering hot hut, deep within the Sub-Sahara, laden with gusts of sandy winds, eating breakfast with five other young girls. Breakfast was not a lightly poached egg with herbs garnishings. It was an unforgiving mixture of chokable, oildrenched couscous with peanuts and watered-down millet.

In a land where marriage and dowery are powered by governmental and economic policy, fat farms still exist and are in no way, extinguishable in the forseeable future. "Men love female flesh in excess" says the fatematou, " the thick, and sweaty layers of fat are not only comforting to potential grooms, but evoke eroticism in Mauritanian culture." Lejwana has approximately three more years to go until she will be auctioned off for marriage. At 16 years of age, she will be more than capable of bearing children. The Fatematou explained that girls who are fattened at an earlier age, like 3-6 years, can bear children when they are ten years old. The earlier the fattening process, the quicker the girl can be married off, the faster the Fatematou gets paid. This capitalist cycle continues day in and day out in Mauritania.

It's the day after Thanksgiving. Reflect on how much food you ate, and how fast you flew to the nearest sofa or bed to rest. Now, imagine this process of eating til' your belly bursts and sleeping, repeated three to four times a day, 365 days a year, for anywhere up to 2-5 years at a time. A true shock, isn't it?

A new dating service that says it's the first to use DNA matching to find that "perfect someone" is scheduled to launch in Boston Tuesday.ScientificMatch.com promises its technology will use DNA to find a date with "a natural odor you'll love, with whom you'd have healthier children and a more satisfying sex life."How does it work?In analyzing DNA, the company said it looks at immune system genes and identifies compatible mates from people with different immune systems.

"Nature attracts us to our genetic matches with our noses. The fact is, we love how other people smell when their immune systems are different from ours—they smell sexier," the company wrote in a release on its Web site.The DNA collection technique will look familiar to viewers of "Law & Order" and "CSI". The company sends sealed cotton swabs and instructs customers to swab the insides of their cheeks. 


The company promises to keep the genetic information private by giving its labs only customer numbers, not names.The Boston area could be a fertile market for the service. With its large numbers of college students and recent graduates, 39 percent of the population is single, according to Sperling's Bestplaces.com Web Site.Woman who take birth control pills, use hormonal patches or implants aren't good candidates. The hormones, the company said, leads women to be attracted to different people than those using other forms of contraception.Finding one's soul-mate doesn't come cheap. 

The service costs $1,995, which includes the DNA matching and a background check on prospective dates.The company said it will not allow anyone who's been convicted of a sexual offense, a violent crime or an Internet crime to be a member.