Health

From a BBCnews.com article of the same title:

Rubbing sunscreen into the skin reduces its effectiveness, a study says... They measured the levels of tissue-damaging particles called free radicals after exposure and found they rose in direct relation to exposure to UVA rays, which is associated to cancer and premature ageing. They found that when the sunscreen was rubbed in it offered almost zero protection because the cream accumulated in lines and sweat glands and did not offer even protection... Sara Hiom, from the charity Cancer Research UK, said: "The one message people should take from this research is that you cannot rely on sunscreen alone to protect you from skin cancer. "Sunscreen should be the last - not the first - line of defence against the sun's harmful rays. "The most important thing is not to burn and we recommend that people should spend time in the shade between 11am and 3pm when the sun is at its height and they should cover up with a T-shirt, hat and sunglasses.

From an AP story of the same title by Lindsey Tanner:

Teens whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study found. Whether it's hip-hop, rap, pop or rock, much of popular music aimed at teens contains sexual overtones. Its influence on their behavior appears to depend on how the sex is portrayed, researchers found. Songs depicting men as "sex-driven studs," women as sex objects and with explicit references to sex acts are more likely to trigger early sexual behavior than those where sexual references are more veiled and relationships appear more committed, the study found. Teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely to start having intercourse or other sexual activities within the following two years as were teens who listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

But which came first, the chicken or the egg?

In last night's episode of 30 Days, Jennifer, a pro-choice administrative assistant who works part time at a womens' health clinic spends 30 days at His Nesting Place, a Christian, pro-life maternity home. It struck me how caring and loving both Jennifer and the pro-life couple who ran the maternity home were. Most disturbing were the images on posters used by some of the protesters as well as the parents of the teenager who died after a botched illegal back-alley abortion which they blamed on their state's parental consent law. Choice or not, it just reminded me how ugly abortion is.

From an article in the LA Times by Karen Kaplan:

Scientists have created human embryonic stem cells using a technique that does not require the destruction of embryos - a development that could break the political roadblock over the highly touted but controversial research. The method, described today in the journal Nature, involves taking a normal 3-day-old embryo with eight to 10 cells and removing a single cell, which is then biochemically coaxed into producing embryonic stem cells. The original embryo, despite missing one cell, is unharmed, thus avoiding concerns about destroying life. Fertility clinics have been removing cells from embryos created in vitro since 1990 to screen them for genetic diseases and chromosomal abnormalities. Doctors estimate at least 2,500 children alive today had a cell or two removed when they were days-old embryos. The Bush administration, which has restricted federal support for human embryonic stem cell research to prevent taxpayers from funding the destruction of embryos, said it was too soon to say whether the new approach could solve the issue's ethical dilemma.

There are similar articles in the NY TImes and The Washington Post.

From an article of the same title by Rob Stein in the Washington Post:

Bad news for all those baby boomers starting to pile on the pounds as they go through middle age: You don't have to be obese -- just a little overweight -- to increase your risk of dying prematurely, according to a large government study. The 10-year study of more than 500,000 U.S. adults found that those who were just moderately overweight in their fifties were 20 percent to 40 percent more likely to die in the next decade. Another study involving more than 1 million Korean adults, also being published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, produced similar results... The number of Americans who are overweight has been increasing steadily in the United States. About two-thirds of Americans are now overweight, including about a third who are obese. Anyone with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, whereas a BMI of 30 or above is considered obese. (A 5-foot-10-inch adult who weighs between 174 and 208 pounds is considered overweight; above that is considered obese.)... But other researchers were not convinced, saying the findings are questionable for a number of reasons, including the fact that the weight data relied on the participants' recollections, which are notoriously unreliable, instead of direct measurements. Also, the sample was not necessarily representative of the general population, they said.