The house, built in the 1950s, is in the Estates area of the Belmont Heights neighborhood of Long Beach, which has many single-family homes on larger lots. The coffee shops and boutiques of Belmont Shore are three blocks away, and the beach is within six blocks.
It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! More than three million people gathered to watch as the 86th annual procession hit the streets of New York City on Nov. 22, 2012.
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According to a French study, one in two women had watched porn on their own.
Who said porn was just a man's thing? A study released on Friday challenges the myth, showing that four fifths of French women have watched a porn movie before -- one in two of them without their partners.
Fully 82 percent of women questioned said they had watched an X-rated film at least once before, compared to 99 percent of men, according to the study of 579 women carried out by the IFOP polling institute in September.
Their number has jumped from 73 percent in 2006, and from as little as 23 percent in 1992 according to a major INSERM study on French sexuality carried out at the time, IFOP's Francois Kraus told AFP.
"In the space of a few years it has become an accepted thing for women to watch pornography, partly thanks to the Internet, and video-on-demand services that made porn more accessible and took away the shame factor," he said.
Sixty two percent of women said they watched porn to spice up their sex life with a partner, but fully one in two had also done so on their own.
"Women are now consuming porn by themselves," Kraus said. "That goes hand in hand with a widening of sexual behaviour, and changing attitudes towards sex toys or fellatio for instance."
"And of course it raises the issue of masturbation, one of the great taboos of female sexuality. There is a real generational break, with women in their forties and younger much more willing to admit the practice."
So what do women make of the films on offer? Women attached most importance to a natural-looking cast, a priority for 40 percent, while "realistic" sex scenes were essential for 35 percent, and for 48 percent of under 35-year-olds.
Most women felt strongly that the industry caters only to male fantasies, a view shared by 71 of women against 61 percent of men.
Likewise 72 percent felt the films on offer were "highly degrading" to women, against 50 percent of men, and 57 percent said they were too violent, compared to 41 percent of men.
Overall, women were still far less assiduous watchers than men, with only five percent of porn consumers watching frequently -- once a month or more -- against 34 percent of men.
Another 13 percent watched a few times a year, compared to 29 percent of men.
Frequent women viewers were younger, making up 17 percent of under-25s against less than five percent of the over-35s. And women with no sex experience were the most eager, making up a third of all regular viewers.
Based on a representative sample of 1,101 people aged 18 and over, the study was commissioned by Marc Dorcel, a provider of pornographic content, to mark the launch of a new porn site targeting the women's market, Dorcelle.com.
Florida officals say the survey will help them understand women's need for and approach to family-planning services.
The state of Florida is asking thousands of young women some intimate questions their sex lives and is giving them a $10 gift card in return — but some who received the survey are offended.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported Sunday that the Department of Health sent surveys to 4,100 women between 18 and 24, giving participants a CVS gift card.
Officials say the survey will help them understand women's need for and approach to family-planning services.
The state spent $45,000 on the 46-question survey, which was sent out in September and October, and 782 have been returned. Participants were asked how many men they had sex with over the last year, whether a man ever poked holes in a condom to get them pregnant and how they felt emotionally the last time they had unprotected sex.
A November batch weren't mailed after it was found that some of the surveys were sent to girls under 18.
"We obviously offered an apology sent back in writing and will work to ensure that moving forward, this never happens again," state Surgeon General Dr. John Armstrong told the paper.
He added that participation is voluntary.
"If somebody sees something they don't like, they can rip it up and throw it in the garbage can," he said.
The state says the names of those surveyed will be kept private, but some who received it questioned whether that would be true and how their answers would be used.
David Brown, a Broward County political consultant, said he was given the survey by a woman who was offended when she received it.
"Some of the questions are incredibly offensive and invasive," Brown told the Sun-Sentinel. "She thought that it was an unconscionable invasion of her privacy. There wasn't enough information to tell her who really did this and where the budget was for it, whether the information was going to be kept private, and really, what are they talking about in terms of how does this information in any way help?"
The paper reported several questions from the survey:
— How did you feel emotionally when you had unprotected sex — were you trying to get pregnant, were you in the "heat of the moment and just went with the flow," or did you find the man attractive and "thought it would be nice to have a baby with him?" Did you feel "powerless"? Or was it that you "felt emotionally connected with your partner during sex"?
— How old were you when you first had sex? The last time you had sex with a man did you do anything to keep from getting pregnant? If not, why not?
— Has a sexual partner ever "told you he would have a baby with someone else if you didn't get pregnant?" "Physically forced you to have sex?" "Hurt you physically because you did not agree to get pregnant?"
— Are you depressed? Have you ever been physically abused? What's your religion? Do you smoke? How much do you weigh?
Armstrong said the survey was created using questions that have appeared in other surveys used nationally and that it was vetted by review boards at the state health department and Florida A&M University.
The state says Florida has one of the lowest rates of contraceptive use among women of child-bearing age. The results will be used to design the state's service offerings, including pamphlets and counseling. Women can receive contraceptives at the health department for a fee that's based on income.
Armstrong said that without a survey it is difficult to understand gaps and disparities in women's use of services.
"It's really important to emphasize," Armstrong said, "that we want people to be informed so that they can manage their health."
The first-ever Empire State Building light show.
The Empire State Building put on a glitzy light show on Monday night - with a little help from Alicia Keys.
The 14-time Grammy winner flipped the switch on the iconic Manhattan skyscraper's new LED tower light display, a moment that was also synchronized with the playing of her tunes “Girl on Fire” and “Empire State of Mind.”
"The Empire State Building has always been a symbol of what's possible in New York, and all the dreams that can come true in this city that never sleeps," Keys said in a statement. "I'm so excited to unveil the new tower lights that are going to illuminate the city below like never before—shining bright with inspiration. As a proud New Yorker, I'm so honored and humbled to be a little part of its history."
And Keys later tweeted a photo (below): "Watching the Empire State Building light up with GOF and Empire State of mind was BEYOND my wildest dreams!!"
Oh, baby!
Italian model Raffaella Fico stunned at Milan Fashion Week Saturday as she strutted down the runway while six month pregnant.
The glowing 24-year-old flaunted her baby bump in a series of skimpy two-pieces for the Pin-Up Stars swimwear line, an Italian brand helmed by designer Jerry Tommolini.
Though the mom-to-be looked at ease on the catwalk, her pregnancy has been marked by controversy.
Her ex-boyfriend, Italian footballer Mario Balotelli, publically demanded in July that she get a paternity test before he assumes "all responsibilities" for the baby.
Balotelli blasted Fico in a press release for waiting to tell him that she was pregnant until she was four months along, according to Goal.com.
"I am very disappointed. I do not think it's normal not to know anything until the fourth month [of the pregnancy]," the 21-year-old said.
"Also, it annoys me to see that she has already sought to make money from this story by selling photos and interviews."
Fico fired back in a letter in Italy's Chi Magazine, saying she was "deeply hurt" by the footballer's accusations.
"This child I desire with all my heart and I want it because it is not a child that arrived by chance but instead it is the fruit of love between two people and you know well what I am talking about," she wrote, according to The Mirror.
The couple ended their one-year relationship in April.
In this May 6, 2009 image released courtesy of Michael Jackson, pop star Michael Jackson, center, and director Kenny Ortega, left, are shown in Los Angeles during rehearsals.
Five days before Michael Jackson took his last labored breath in a darkened bedroom, the director of his ill-fated “This Is It” comeback tour was sounding the alarm — even louder than previously revealed.
Kenny Ortega sent a panicked email in the predawn hours of June 20, 2009, telling promoter Randy Phillips, the head of AEG Live, that Jackson appeared too “weak and fatigued” to rehearse the previous night, “trembling, rambling and obsessing” to the point Ortega recommended a psychological exam.
When Phillips didn’t immediately address his fears, Ortega fired off another email 11 hours later, the Daily News has learned.
“I honestly felt if I had encouraged or allowed him on stage last night he could have hurt himself,” Ortega wrote to Phillips in the confidential 1:20 p.m. missive obtained by The News.
Phillips responded within the hour, shooting down Ortega’s concerns with even more force than formerly exposed. “It is critical that neither you, me, or anyone around this show become amateur psychiatrists or physicians,” he wrote, adding that he was in touch with Jackson’s personal doctor, Conrad Murray, and had gained “immense respect” for the cardiologist who would later got to jail for involuntary manslaughter.
“(Murray) said that Michael is not only physically equipped to perform (but) that discouraging him to (perform) will hasten his decline instead of stopping it,” Phillips said.
“You cannot imagine the harm and ramifications of stopping the show now,” he wrote. “It would far outweigh ‘calling this game in the 7th inning.’ I am not just talking about AEG’s interests here, but the myriad of stuff and lawsuits swirling around MJ that I crisis manage every day and also his well-being.”
Signing off as Randy, he added: “Please stay steady. Enough alarms have sounded. It is time to put out the fire, not burn the building down.” Jackson, 50, appeared to improve significantly at followup rehearsals but died that Thursday after Murray provided a lethal dose of the surgery-strength anesthetic propofol to help the King of Pop sleep.
The trove of emails detailing dire concerns over Jackson’s health are expected to play a central role in two lawsuits set for trial next year.
One involves Jackson’s heirs suing AEG for wrongful death. The other is a battle over the $17.5 million insurance policy that Lloyds of London wants rejected due to Jackson’s alleged ailments.
A lawyer for AEG said the leaked emails were “cherry-picked” from more than 40,000 documents in an effort to “misguide” the public.
“Both Michael Jackson and his personal physician, Dr. Murray, repeatedly told all involved in the tour that Michael Jackson was healthy.
And indeed the autopsy showed that was in fact the case,” lawyer Marvin Putnam told The News. “AEG could not, and did not, cancel its agreement with Mr. Jackson, a respected performing artist who insisted he was ready and willing to perform, simply because he’d been ill one night.”
Putnam said Phillips and Ortega met with Jackson after the worrisome rehearsal to express their concerns and check on his welfare.
Jackson was “calm, lucid, and appeared fully healthy and engaged,” he said, and “backed up that convincing interview by performing brilliantly at the next two rehearsals, which Mr. Phillips attended personally.”
The more than 200 pages of correspondence obtained by The News — and first reported by the Los Angeles Times — also provide a window into the strange behind-the-scenes minutiae surrounding the King of Pop’s final days.
One striking exchange shows Murray micromanaging his proposed London accommodations while Jackson — the man he was hired to attend — lost weight as he begged for dangerous drugs.
“Make sure that the mattresses are in top shape or they will have to be changed,” Murray wrote in a June 15, 2009, email about the posh residence he planned to inhabit with his three daughters and infant son.
Other leaked emails show that even though London’s O2 arena holds some 20,000 people, Jackson was only allowed 10 comp tickets per night for the sold-out run.
And two months before Ortega complained to Phillips that Jackson appeared “weak” and neglected by his personal staff, an AEG executive personally fired Jackson’s longtime nanny and confidant Grace Rwaramba to help the bottom line.
“AEG has been cutting down on Mr. Jackson’s expenses in anticipation of his upcoming tour. Unfortunately at this time the services you provide do not meet our needs,” AEG exec Paul Gongaware told Rwaramba April 19.
Perhaps most shocking were emails Phillips sent an AEG colleague shortly before Jackson stood at a podium in the O2 arena on March 5, 2009, and blew kisses to his screaming fans as he announced the “This Is It” deal.
“MJ is locked in his room drunk and despondent,” Phillips wrote. “Tohme and I are trying to sober him up and get him to the press conference.”
Dr. Tohme Tohme was Jackson’s manager at the time and had negotiated a $100,000 per month salary from AEG.
“Are you kidding me?” the colleague wrote back. Together, Phillips and Tohme dressed Jackson in his glittering black satin neo-military suit and sunglasses.
“I screamed at him so loud the walls are shaking,” Phillips wrote. “This is the scariest thing I have ever seen.
He is an emotionally paralyzed mess riddled with self loathing and doubt now that it is show time. He is scared to death.”
The “99%” during their occupation of Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan last year. Occupy Wall Street will mark its first anniversary next week. The movement, which had a global impact, was extensively covered by the Daily News
The 99% is turning 1.
Manhattan activist William Dobbs remembers exactly where he was that first day, Sept. 17: standing near the Bowling Green subway station with a ragtag band of about 500 people.
Some were riveted by an economics teach-in. Others were practicing yoga. Most were preparing to march up Broadway and settle in an unremarkable plaza known as Zuccotti Park.
Dobbs, a veteran of protest movements, says there was “some buzz” about the action that had been named Occupy Wall Street, the brainchild of the anti-consumerist outfit Adbusters.
But he could not have predicted the extraordinary events to come: the two-month encampment, the massive protests and violent clashes with cops, the slogan “We are the 99%” and the speed with which it rocketed around the globe.
“I could never have predicted that it was possible to have a camp in the shadow of Wall Street,” he said.
What started as a call to action by Adbusters quickly swelled into a full-throated — some say fleeting — condemnation of corporate greed and social injustice.
It might have fizzled faster, but for the decision of one cop, Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, who pepper-sprayed a group of female protesters during a largely peaceful Sept. 24 rally.
It was the first in a series of flash points that pitted demonstrators against cops, generating serious attention from mainstream media and the now-iconic images of women pinned to the ground.
The number of people willing to take to the streets in support of Occupy Wall Street suddenly swelled.
Just one week later, 700 demonstrators were arrested trying to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. As city officials scrambled to restore order, the heady days of the movement took hold. It dominated headlines, political debate and cocktail party chatter.
“It got the unions’ attention,” said James Jasper, a City University of New York sociology professor who is an expert on protest movements. “That’s pretty unusual in a way, because Occupy, until then, looked like a bunch of scruffy twentysomething countercultural people.”
Hundreds of copycat encampments sprang up from London to Boise, Idaho, as videos of violent clashes with police went viral. “I knew it had incredible potential because it was exactly what was needed, at exactly the right time,” said Max Berger, 26, an Occupy Wall Street organizer. “But I don’t think we knew quite how big it could become.”
Zuccotti Park, a privately owned public space controlled by Brookfield Properties, became Occupy’s home base. A comfort station doled out blankets and clothes, a canteen supplied around-the-clock hot meals, a “people’s library” was stocked with thousands of books — all of it donated from supporters around the world.
Princeton University’s Cornel West gave a rousing speech to the masses one night, and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore wowed the crowd another. “There are plenty of people who now realize they can change the world,” Dobbs said.
Some will say that little has changed since the NYPD forcefully cleared the park in the early hours of Nov. 15: the 1% still has most of the wealth, the banks and corporations OWS targeted still stand, Republicans have a shot at the White House.
Zuccotti has returned to being a place where office workers take in the sun and eat lunch. Most of those who slept and volunteered there have returned to jobs and classrooms.
Still, many Occupy leaders insist lasting change takes more than 365 days. To mark the one-year anniversary of the first protest, organizers are planning a series of events around New York from Sept. 15 to 17 — dubbed S17.
It’s likely to draw thousands back to Zuccotti Park for a day of resistance, but it is not billed as a relaunch or the start of a new occupation.
Victoria Sobel, 22, who was on the OWS finance and media committees but is now minimally involved, says there’s no need for one.
“I’m personally not disappointed,” the Cooper Union art student said of the occupation’s end. “It was a concept-based movement. . . . To expect that kind of constant amassing of people wasn’t the goal.”
In fact, she says, the internal focus on Zuccotti was one of the downsides.
“There became a preoccupation with the idea of occupying public space,” she said. “People idolized our New York encampment.”
Since the city evicted protesters, many have turned their energy to “smaller, localized problems and initiatives,” Sobel said.
Ex-occupiers also take some credit for pressuring Gov. Cuomo to enact a millionaire’s tax and the prominent mention of student loan debt at the Democratic National Convention.
City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan), who was arrested during the protests, said Occupy’s fingerprints were on the Con Ed labor battle this summer, a huge May 1 march and the Rev. Al Sharpton’s “Occupy the Corners” initiatives.
“This movement will continue having a presence in the city,” he said.
The NYPD says that 2,446 were arrested at various OWS demonstrations — which cost the city more than $17 million in overtime to police.
Some 389 cases are still pending in court, and a special unit was set up solely to handle Occupy-related issues.
OWS, which collected more than $700,000 in donations, recently put a freeze on spending so what’s left can be used for legal costs.
Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson, who was Mayor Bloomberg’s pointman for the protests, defended the decision to clear the encampment and the NYPD’s overall handling of conflicts.
“I think we acted when the situation appeared to be heading towards a risky outcome,” he said last week.
“This was the place the whole country was watching. It was Wall Street and it was the first occupation,” he added. “I’m very comfortable in retrospect that we made the right call at the right time.”
Jasper said Occupy may owe much of its legacy to City Hall and the Police Department and the images of police corralling and pepper-spraying protesters.
“Usually, police nastiness attains its goals — it dissipates a movement,” he said. “But sometimes it backfires. That’s usually how revolutions happen.”
OWS, he said, was far from a revolution — but can be seen as a success for “refocusing attention on the huge growth in inequality in the country over the past 30 years.”
“Is that a lasting impact?” he said. “No. These things always fade.”
Another of the original organizers, Yotam Marom, said supporters and sympathizers should not be disheartened that they can’t point to a laundry list of concrete changes because “this is a long-term movement to create systematic change.”
He insists that Occupy Wall Street will have a lasting, if somewhat abstract, legacy.
“People believe that things are possible in a way they didn’t before,” Marom said. “They believe it’s possible to fight back.”
The tornado as seen on Flatbush Ave.
Twin tornadoes tore through the city Saturday, peeling off a roof in Brooklyn like a tomato can and sending beach chairs and barbecue grills soaring in Queens.
The first funnel cloud swept through Breezy Point, Queens, about 10:58 a.m. after blasting into the Rockaway Peninsula with pounding winds of 70 mph.
Seven minutes later, a second, more powerful twister slammed into Canarsie, Brooklyn — shattering windows and ripping off Charlene Khan’s roof.
“It’s the craziest thing — my whole roof is just gone,” said Khan, 43, who owns a two-story rowhouse on Avenue N. “It’s sitting in my neighbor’s driveway. . . . I just can’t believe this. It floods out here a lot, but a tornado, that’s a first for me.”
No serious injuries were reported after the back-to-back twisters.
The Queens funnel cloud, stretching 150 feet wide, touched down for 15 terrifying seconds.
“It sounded like a freight train,” said Matt Schafer, 18, a maintenance worker at the Breezy Point Surf Club. “We didn’t know what it was.”
It didn’t take long to figure it out. People started sprinting for cover as the tornado took shape and bore down on the shorefront enclave.
Retiree Alice Marie, sitting in her Breezy Point living room, watched as a surfboard sailed past her window. Lifeguard Joe Kimmeth saw pool furniture bouncing like beach balls.
“All of a sudden, the wind got really, really strong,” said Joe, 16, who works at the surf club. “We saw stuff starting to blow away — like chairs and tables.”
Hail began falling and furniture started flying as the tornado came into view. “The shack started shaking and stuff, and the lights started flickering,” the teen said. “I was in shock. . . . Fifteen seconds later, it was over.”
The wind whipped the teen’s bicycle into the deep end of the pool, where it joined many of the surrounding beach chairs and tables. A metal barbecue, complete with propane tank, was hurtled into the middle of a nearby baseball field.
Manhattan couple accused Patti LaBelle of throwing a 10-minute, profanity-laced tantrum in front of their baby in 2010. The singer reached a $100,000 settlement with the couple.
Grammy Award winner Patti LaBelle reached an out-of-court $100,000 settlement this week with a Manhattan couple who had accused her of terrorizing their 17-month-old daughter in the lobby of their tony upper West Side condo.
But now, the soul singer is considering reneging on the deal because her neighbors went public about the payment, the couple’s lawyer says. The settlement stemmed from a 10-minute, profanity-laced tantrum LaBelle, 68 threw in front of the baby in 2010 .
The child’s mother, Roseanna Monk, spilled the beans on the deal on local television, saying she planned to give the money to the Hope and Heroes Children's Cancer Fund.
Sam Davis, the lawyer for the Monks, said Friday that LaBelle’s lawyer insists the revelation breaches a confidentiality agreement.
But Davis says there was no promise of her silence.
LaBelle’s lawyer, Dorothy Weber, could not be reached for comment.
Fascinating… Google boldly goes where no search engine has gone before.
Google is celebrating the 46th anniversary of "Star Trek" with a new doodle that's so fun it might even make a Vulcan smile.
The first episode of the landmark television series, "The Man Trap," aired on Sept. 8, 1966. The doodle appeared a day ahead of schedule to give Trekkies, or Trekkers — depending on your perspective — some extra time to obsess.
Although our neural pathways have become accustomed to Google's doodle patterns, nothing has prepared us for this.
The interactive animation tells a multi-scene storyline with the letters from the Google logo playing the crew of the starship Enterprise. Captain James T. Kirk, for instance, appears as the central "o" in Google. The animation features references to classic episodes that hardcore fans will enjoy.
Ryan Germick, a self-professed fan himself, created the doodle with a team of artists. He was "really psyched" when he got the opportunity but also a little intimidated.
"You might have heard Trekkies are pretty hardcore," he said on the official "Star Trek" site.
Google, though, is a technological service that is well-suited to honor the franchise. For years the search engine has helped people navigate the internet: the true final frontier.
The influential science-fiction program still inspires Germick and fellow Google employees to innovate and think of new possibilities.
"We often talk at Google about how awesome it would be to talk to a computer and get exactly what you want and have that kind of engagement, where the computer just knows all [like in "Star Trek"], and that's what we're moving toward," Germick told Entertainment Weekly.
"Star Trek" did more than entertain future technologists. The show was light-years ahead of its time, featuring a multi-ethnic cast working together with female doctors and scientists. The show's creator, Gene Roddenberry, also introduced a Russian crewmember during the cold war — depicting a positive future of humanity at a time of international tensions.
Fans have adored "Star Trek" for 46 years for being progressive and fun.
So head over the Google.com and, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard — from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" — says, “Engage!”
Marisol Simoes, 42, who co-owns two trendy eateries in Ottawa, Ontario, used Elayna Katz's name and photos when she created the adult profile, which boasted that Katz was "a tiger in the bedroom," who liked transgender mates and group sex, Canada's QMI News reported.
Simoes used Katz's wedding photos for the profile, and also sent emails to Katz's bosses at Federation of Canadian Municipalities professing the same kinky tastes, QMI reported.
The restaurateur was found guilty of criminal libel on Thursday. She's scheduled to be sentenced on Nov 8.
Katz said she was targeted because she wrote a bad review of one of Simoes' eateries, Mambo Nuevo Latino, on the website restaurantthing.com in 2009.
Katz complained that the service at Mambo was rude and slow, and that her server brought her a pasta dish with olives when she'd asked for it without olives.
Staff at the ByWard Market neighborhood spot also tried to charge her for two dishes even though she sent the first one back, Katz said, the Ottawa Citizen reported.
Investigators noted the similarities between the language in the emails, profile, and some of Simoes’ online postings, and also tracked her using her IP address.
The profile was set up using a log-in with Simoes’ information.
At the trial, the restaurant owner argued that her husband or one of her employees may have used her computer to create the profile and send the emails.
Katz said she felt vindicated by the judge's decision.
"It's slightly ironic that the (bad press) she was trying to avoid was the one thing that came out of all of this," Katz told the Citizen.
Homeland Security issues ZOMBIE warning! Actually, it's part of a preparedness campaign for disasters.
If zombies take over, the government wants you to be prepared.
The Homeland Security Department warned citizens on Thursday that the “zombies are coming,” and urged them to be ready for a walking-dead apocalypse, The Associated Press reported.
The zombie “warning” is part of a public health campaign calling for citizens to be ready for disaster — to know to stock up on food, batteries and water, and to keep extra changes of clothes and medication on hand.
Of course, those same preparations will also come in handy in case of a hurricane, earthquake, pandemic or terrorist attack, and that’s the idea behind the campaign.
In an online seminar, emergency planners were told to use zombies to get their point across that emergency preparation — for anything — is important.
The Centers for Disease Control used the same tactic last year with its zombie apocalypse social media campaign. The agency posted a blog post with detailed recommendations of how to survive a zombie attack.
A CDC spokesperson explained at the time that the campaign was introduced to get Americans interested in its annual campaign for hurricane preparedness.
“I worry we try the same thing every year and I didn’t know how many people we were actually engaging,” Dave Daigle of the CDC told The Los Angeles Times. “Let’s face it — preparedness and public health are not exactly sexy topics.”
In a statement, the CDC later confirmed it does not know of any zombie-like virus or condition.
Feeling stressed? Climb into the latest spa pod, close the lid and, according to its manufacturers, enjoy 28 water jets pounding away your aches and pains, all without getting wet and remaining fully dressed.
While not for claustrophobics, Spa Shuttle, which is launching at this week’s FIBO fitness and health trade show in Germany, aims to provide the pleasures of “hydrotherapy," but while staying dry. Users can vary the degree of hardness, pulse frequency, and velocity, all while soaking in calming music and visuals from the integrated audio-video, as well as enjoying a built-in aromatherapy treatment. Spa Shuttle claims its device can not only help with body aches, but also with cellulite and weight loss.
Another space age-styled device designed for the home is the Concoon, created by German design company Wasserbetten. The Concoon's sleek design features a water bed to achieve a “floating feeling,” complete with surround sound audio and various light cycles that aim to provide therapeutic relief.
According to SpaFinder, an online spa industry news and information website, global spas are embracing these types of experiential pods that weave light, color, sound, and music together for the ultimate sensory experience. Look for the new Wolke 7 Cloud 9, a multisensory recliner created by Vienna artist sha, to show up in top spas soon.
The Slimline Pod is another personal sauna that claims to offer “the deepest organ cleanse.” A 30-45 minute session in the pod touts a host of benefits, including sweating out “toxins,” ramping up metabolism, reducing a range of ailments from depression to cellulite, and even tightening skin due to the LED lights within the pod.
Lisa Edelstein sure does love her vegetables!
The "House" actress poses in her birthday suit atop a bed of fresh green-leaf vegetables in PETA's new pro-vegetarian print ad, below the slogan: "Eat Green to Go Green."
Shot by celebrity photographer Jack Guy, the 44-year-old beauty attributes her fit figure to a meat-free diet that spans three decades.
"Vegetarianism is a really important part of what we need to do to help the environment," Edelstein says in an interview with the animal rights organization. "The meat industry is really toxic to the environment. The cattle industry-besides the fact that there's a lot of cruel things happening-the manure is extremely toxic."
The actress also said she decided to pose in the buff to help raise awareness of the negative environmental impacts of meat production, such as water pollution and land degradation.
"I like to encourage people to be a vegetarian once a week and then maybe twice a week," Edelstein continues, "because that makes such an enormous impact for the whole world that it's really valuable for everyone. So I'm just trying to push that campaign forward-with my body, apparently."
It has long been known that certain pain-related conditions, likefibromyalgia, migraine and irritable bowel syndrome, are more common in women than in men. And chronic pain after childbirth is surprisingly common; the Institute of Medicine recently found that 18 percent of women who have Caesarean deliveries and 10 percent who have vaginal deliveries report still being in pain a year later.
But new research from Stanford University suggests that even when men and women have the same condition — whether it’s a back problem, arthritis or asinus infection — women appear to suffer more from the pain.
There is an epidemic of chronic pain: Last year, the Institute of Medicineestimated that it afflicts 116 million Americans, far more than previously believed. But these latest findings, believed to be the largest study ever to compare pain levels in men and women, raise new questions about whether women are shouldering a disproportionate burden of chronic pain and suggest a need for more gender-specific pain research.
The study, published Monday in The Journal of Pain, analyzes data from the electronic medical records of 11,000 patients whose pain scores were recorded as a routine part of their care. (To obtain pain scores, doctors ask patients to describe their pain on a scale from 0, for no pain, to 10, “worst pain imaginable.”)
For 21 of 22 ailments with sample sizes large enough to make a meaningful comparison, the researchers found that women reported higher levels of pain than men. For back pain, women reported a score of 6.03, men 5.53. For joint and inflammatory pain, it was women 6.00, men 4.93. Women reported significantly higher pain levels with diabetes, hypertension, ankle injuries and even sinus infections.
For several diagnoses, women’s average pain score was at least one point higher than men’s, which is considered a clinically meaningful difference. Over all, their pain levels were about 20 percent higher than men’s.
Unfortunately, the data don’t offer any clues as to why women report higher pain levels. One possibility is that men have been socialized to be more stoic, so they underreport pain. But the study’s senior author, Dr. Atul Butte, an associate professor at Stanford’s medical school, said that explanation probably did not account for the gender gap.
“While you can imagine such a bias,” he said, “across studies, across thousands of patients, it’s hard to believe men are like this. You have to think about biological causes for the difference.”
An extensive 2007 report by the International Association for the Study of Pain cited studies showing that sex hormones may play a role in pain response. In fact, some of the gender differences, particularly regardingheadache and abdominal pain, begin to diminish after women reachmenopause.
Research also suggests that men and women have different responses toanesthesia and pain drugs, reporting different levels of efficacy and side effects. That bolsters the idea that men and women experience pain differently.
One reason for the lack of information about sex differences is that many pain studies, in both animals and humans, are done only in males. One analysis found that 79 percent of the animal studies published in a pain journal over a decade included only male subjects, compared with 8 percent that used only female animals.
In addition, experiments testing pain in men and women have shown that they typically have different thresholds for various types of pain. In general, women report higher levels of pain from pressure and electrical stimulation, and less pain when the source is from heat.
Melanie Thernstrom, a patient representative on the Institute of Medicine pain committee from Vancouver, Wash., said the newest research “really highlights the need for more treatment and better treatment that is gender-specific, and the need for far more research to really understand why women’s brains process pain differently than men.”
Some researchers believe the pain experience for women may be even more complicated. Women who have given birth, for instance, may have a different threshold for “worst pain ever,” causing them to underreport certain types of pain. The bottom line, Dr. Butte said, is that far too little is known about how men and women experience pain and that more study is needed so that, ultimately, pain treatment can be customized to each patient’s needs.
“If doctors have a threshold for when they give a dose or start a medication,” he said, “you could imagine that the number they are using is too high or too low because a person may be in more pain than they are saying.
“In the end, it comes down to what the brain perceives as pain.”
