FOXNews published a health article in January titled “Plastic Surgery Regret on the Rise, Fueling ‘Revision’ Practices”. In typical Fox fashion, the article was rather alarmist. The blurb featured one plastic surgery horror story from a woman who was unhappy after two nose jobs, followed by a quote from respected surgeon Andrew Jacono stating that 1 in 3 surgical procedures is a revision.

Can this be right? Or is there a better explanation for all the revisions going on in American operating rooms?

Here are three practical reasons we propose that may explain the “1 in 3″ statistic - and only one of them is a fear mongering idea: Read the rest of this entry »

A fourth grader from Montana has coined a mnemonic for the 11 planets of the solar system. If you thought there were 9 - or 8, or 12, or whatever it was last week - this memory trick may help you remember all of the planet’s names.

The student, Maryn Smith, won a National Geographic Society contest for her mnemonic, which will now be featured in a book and turned into a song by Lisa Loeb (of 1990s “Stay” fame).

The winning phrase? “My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants” for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Eris.

The only downside is that Smith’s mnemonic invention will in all likelihood be rendered useless sometime in the near future, as the planetary shuffle and disagreements about what makes a planet continue.

At least we can revel in the fact that 10-year-olds aren’t nearly as cynical as adults… yet.

I clicked “Publish.” Now what?

Wired magazine has deconstructed the blogging process in their latest issue, following your blog post from the moment you publish it, all the way around the world as aggregators (feed readers like RSS), scrapers (spam blogs) and spiders (search engines) all chew on your information.

What’s darkly funny about the process - and anyone who has ever tried to run a commercially successful blog, rather than just a personal journal, will tell you this - is that the reader is the absolute last person considered in this process. Marketing a blog is not about how many hits you get or how many people are commenting, but rather who is linking to you (and in what way) and how important Google’s algorithms perceive you to be. Read the rest of this entry »

This article from ABC News highlights an important study that came out this week, which found that bisexuality is neither a phase nor a myth, but rather a distinct sexual orientation. But look closer at the link provided and see if you can’t spot the problem.

ABC News’ title line for the article reads, “‘Lesbian Until Graduation?’ It’s a Myth”; meanwhile, the title within the article says, “Study Shatters ‘Bisexual Until Graduation’ Myth”.

So what exactly is the myth here? That ABC News will report a landmark study on the validity of bisexuality, whilst simultaneously confusing it with what the study confirms is a completely different sexuality (homosexuality)?

Clearly all the reporting in the world still won’t allow stereotypes and misconceptions to die that easily.

The Associated Press’s Calvin Woodward exposes political dancing at its finest: every 2008 presidential candidate purports to help the middle class, but they each have radically different interpretations of exactly who that is.

Once each candidate’s tax plans and promises are examined, Woodward found that “middle class” definitions range from poverty level to those living the high life on $200,000 salaries.

The real middle class, of course, are conventionally defined as those households with income between 80-120% of the national median income - or, by today’s standards, $35,200-$52,800. Read the rest of this entry »