- Anyone who has grown up with the complete and total hassle of having braces put on their teeth will appreciate this next story. Thousands and thousands of kids are saddled with this menace each year in the name of cosmetic beauty (and alleged dental benefits) and curse every second of having those ridiculous contraptions on their teeth. Even with 20 percent of those getting braces now over the age of 18 (vanity at its finest), news that researchers are testing a new device that shakes teeth back into shape to get braces off patients’ teeth faster than ever is sure to go over well. A clinical trial is ongoing and it centers on a device that researchers believe stimulates bone remodeling and speeds up the straightening process. In the trial, patients clamp their teeth down on the device for 20 minutes a day and it delivers low-frequency vibration to her teeth, which "Vibrations, when they are applied to the bone, there is a solid body of evidence in clinical trials and from experiments in humans and animals that the bone metabolism accelerates," said Dubravko Pavlin, D.M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Orthodontics at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. " The bone remodels at a faster rate." That, of course, leads to the obvious question of how much this treatment would shorten the time patients would need to wear braces. "If we are talking about the average orthodontic treatment being maybe 24 months, 24 to 26 months, that would mean that we can shorten that treatment to maybe between 12 and 16 months," Pavlin said. Patients in the trial are showing encouraging results, enough that the doctors running the trial are extremely encouraged by what they see. Of course, they all stand to make a crap load of money if this pans out, so of course they are excited. The device itself is called Acceledent and the battery-operated device is still pending FDA approval. As someone who suffered through several years of having braces and knows firsthand the hassle they bring about, I sincerely hope that this device tests out well and is able to shorten the misery and suffering of so many who are forced to live with braces as a part of their life for a prolonged period of time…………
- Once again, another of life’s infallible truths has held true. You can get away with a lot of crimes in this country – murder (O.J.), assault (the police officers in the Rodney King beating) and more – but if you try to jerk with the IRS on your income taxes, your ass is going down. Professional golfer Jim Thorpe has learned that lesson the hard way. He has been sentenced to a year in prison for failing to pay more than $2 million in income taxes, which is actually a pretty freaking good reason to send someone to prison. It’s one thing if the average, non-athlete gets behind a few thousand dollars on taxes, because that I can look at and say it doesn’t harm the government all that much. But being behind $2 million…….that’s going to raise a few red flags. How do you think you’re getting away with that, J. Thorpe? In actuality, you don’t get away with it and you end up with a year behind bars, two years of supervised release and 200 hours of community service. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Thorpe's attorney, Mark Horwitz, said that his client must turn himself in to authorities by April 1. In between now and April 1, he must also use his last few months of freedom for the foreseeable future to try to repay the taxes he owes. Thorpe pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to pay income taxes and to be honest, he got off easy on this occasion. He faced up to two years in prison and probably should have received the maximum sentence because his actions were an egregious “Screw you” to the rest of us who actually pay our taxes. Horwitz said Thorpe "has accepted his punishment and will be getting on with his life." On the upside, no one pays attention to Geezer Golf, a.k.a. the Champions Tour, so it would seem highly unlikely that Thorpe will become a target in whatever cushy federal prison he ends up doing his time in…………
- The end of the season is nearer than you might realize for Heroes and based on the lackluster season it has been, it’s not as disappointing as you may think. In tonight’s episode, Sullivan Bros. carnival began the evening with operations shut down because the rest of the super-powered carneys (people with powers – PWP – as I call them) hates Samuel for the massive earthquake/sinkhole he caused last episode when he couldn’t control his rage, unleashed his power and basically destroyed the small town near the carnival by using his ability to control the earth and its elements. Samuel confronts Lydia, a.k.a. the Tattooed Woman, because he believes she has positioned herself as the voice of those who are dissatisfied with his leadership. He vows to show everyone how much he cares for and needs them and to regain his position of authority. Meanwhile, back in New York City, Peter Petrelli is still having his prophetic dreams courtesy of the power of absorbed from his mother Angela and he is dreaming about his friend Emma, who has the power to see sounds as colors and a siren-like ability to draw others to her by playing the cello. Peter tries fruitlessly to trying to find her, but in the midst of his search, he gets a call from Angela. She asks him to come over, ostensibly to help choose the wording for the quote on the late Nathan Petrelli’s tombstone, but really Angela wants to see how her lone living son is. Peter assures her that he’s fine and wants to follow up on what he saw in his dream, namely Sylar coming to Emma’s aid, attempting to prevent the disaster that occurs in the dream in which Emma is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Angela reluctantly steers Peter in the right direction to find Sylar and he’s off. Parent-child relations are also front and center for Claire Bennet, who goes to see her father H.R.G. following her unexpected and bizarre visit from a discombobulated Sylar last week and also to talk about their recent tension over her visit to the carnival and his role in attempting to cover up Nathan’s death. Claire’s roommate/BFF/quasi-lesbian girlfriend (keep dropping those heavy-handed hints, show producers) drives her to H.R.G.’s apartment in D.C., but Claire decides that she has to go inside by herself and face the uncomfortable talk on her own. That ends up being a moot point when H.R.G. isn’t home and Claire is greeted by his lady friend Lauren, who tells Claire that her father will be back shortly. Things go from tense to confrontational when Claire spots files and documents laid out on the counter relating to Lauren and H.R.G.’s plan to attack the carnival and capture Samuel. Believing such an attack would lead to disaster, an angry Claire storms out and back at the dorm, she tries to talk Gretchen into loaning her car for a few hours so Claire can go warn her pals at the carnival. Gretchen suggests that Claire go to class, forget the whole thing and allow H.R.G. to do his thing, but an angry Claire snatches the keys and drives away. At the carnival, she warns Lydia of the coming attack and they in turn attempt to convince Samuel to turn himself in to H.R.G., thereby protecting the other members of his carnival “family.” He tells them he’ll go along with their plan, but then we see his right-hand man Eli lurking outside, not seeming too pleased with what he’s hearing. There is a lot of that going around, because Matt Parkman isn’t at all happy with what he’s hearing with archnemesis Sylar sitting in his kitchen, pretending to be an old friend from the police force. Parkman sits through an uneasy lunch with his enemy, but soon invites him down to the basement, away from Parkman’s wife Janis, to find out what’s going on. Sylar drops the bombshell that he wants Parkman to wipe his memory and take away his abilities so he can be “normal.” After protesting and saying he’s 50 murders too late for that, Parkman agrees to try after Sylar threatens his family. However, the first two attempts to erase Sylar’s memories and strip his abilities fail and both men become increasingly frustrated. When Sylar snaps, uses his telepathic power to pin Janis to the wall and threatens to use all of his powers to torture and kill her, a frantic Parkman talks him out of it and agrees to try one last time. He helps Janis flee the house and on the way out, she tells him that he needs to “bury” Sylar where he can never hurt them again. Parkamn concurs, goes back inside and places his hands on Sylar’s head. Instead of taking away his powers, Parkman traps Sylar inside his own tortured mind in a way that his abilities are suppressed but in which Sylar is also trapped alone inside his haunted mind – forever. Inside his head, Sylar is alone in a giant world, but in real life he is in a sort of coma. Parkman takes his limp body down to the basement and begins to wall him in brick by brick, Telltale Heart style. His plan looks to be succeeding (although having a comatose serial killer with superpowers inside a secret room in your basement would be unnerving to live with, no?) until Peter Petrelli shows up, following his mother’s guidance to find Sylar. He shakes Parkman’s hand, absorbs his ability to read and control minds and immediately knows that Sylar is in the house. Peter rushes to the basement, finds Sylar unconscious because a nearly-done wall of bricks and over Parkman’s strenuous objections, places his hands on Sylar’s head in an attempt to awaken him so he can help Emma like Peter saw in his dream. His attempt places him inside Sylar’s mind, where a frantic Peter runs along empty city streets in what appears to be downtown Los Angeles, with no signs of life to be found. Will he find Sylar or be trapped inside this lost mental prison forever? Not sure, but I’m confident we’ll find out soon. Meanwhile, all hell is breaking loose at the carnival. H.R.G. and Lauren have made their way there, looking to execute their plan and capture Samuel. As they watch from a nearby hill with rifle poised, Samuel strolls out onto the midway and stands up on a stage to address his family. He apologizes for his recent actions and reveals his plan to turn himself in. They gasp in horror and protest, but just as he finishes speaking, shots ring out. Bullets fly everywhere and multiple PWP are hit, including Claire, Samuel and Lydia. But the shots aren’t coming from H.R.G.; they are coming from Eli, who has replicated himself and taken up multiple positions on the hill. He is the one doing the shooting, but when H.R.G. realizes this and shoots at the Eli he sees, the body vaporizes and he realizes immediately that it’s one of Eli’s copies and not the real thing. The real Eli appears behind him, knocks him out with the butt of his own rifle and drags H.R.G. into the carnival. Lauren, who took a bullet to the shoulder during Eli’s assault, tries to intervene but her wound prevents her from firing her gun. Eli drags H.R.G. into the midst of the carnival and Samuel immediately paints his nemesis as the one responsible for the shooting. H.R.G. is carried off to the hall of mirrors and tied up while Claire is carried off by multiple Eli’s to Samuel’s trailer to be kept prisoner. Eric Doyle (the Puppet Man) then summons Samuel to Lydia’s side. She is bleeding to death on the ground, having been struck in the chest by a bullet. As she lays dying, Samuel bizarrely plants a kiss on her, knowing that she can perceive a person’s innermost thoughts and desires from a single touch. She gasps, looks at him in awe and says, “You did this.” In other words, she knows he was the one responsible for the shooting. He watcher her die, says he did it to give the people of the carnival a villain to hate worse than they hate him and that she was a necessary sacrifice. Claire and Doyle rush to draw some of her blood to inject in Lydia to save her, but they are too late. She dies and her many tattoos vanish from her skin as the life ebbs out of her. In the aftermath of the shooting, Emma strolls into the carnival and is greeted by Doyle, who points her in Samuel’s direction. He asks her to treat his bullet wound and she does as he rants on about how she is not only saving him, but helping the PWP of the carnival to a new beginning, one in which they will show the world who they truly are and what they are capable of. The episode ends there, with a lot of key characters once again getting no screen time. That is the show’s ever-present problem and it’s made this season a train wreck for the most part. Can the last two episodes of the season provide redemption? Not likely, but stay tuned to find out…………
- Believe it or not, but counterfeit capsules of the diet drug Alli that are sold online can pose a serious health risk to users. How a drug that you bought from an online pharmacy could be dangerous in any way, I don’t know. After all, those places are so strict with who they will sell to and so adamant about demanding patients go through the proper channels and receive legitimate prescriptions that there should be absolutely no danger at all for any involved party. Yet there is the Food and Drug Administration said Saturday, warning consumers that fake versions of Alli are being sold, mainly on online auction sites, and those drugs could pose serious health risks. The biggest danger seems to be excessive amounts of sibutramine, a prescription drug and controlled substance that can place people with cardiovascular disease at risk for higher blood pressure, heart attack or stroke. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, spoke about the ills of these phony weight-loss pills late last week and hopefully her warnings will reach those who need them – i.e. morons who think that buying knockoff weight-loss pills online is a good idea. The fake pills contain at least twice as much sibutramine as would normally be recommended, Woodcock claimed. "Unfortunately, many people with high blood pressure or heart disease are trying to improve their health by losing weight, and we are concerned that such individuals might be exposed to the counterfeit drug," Woodcock said. Those who consume the bogus pills and thus ingest excess sibutramine could suffer heart palpitations, sleeplessness, anxiety, dry mouth, nausea and shakiness. Sibutramine is the active ingredient in the prescription diet drug Meridia, but is found in much lower doses there. "Sibutramine could potentially interact with other medications the consumer may be taking, and there are dosing differences between Alli (three times a day) and Meridia (once a day)," Alli's Web says. If all of these dangerous weren’t enough, research also shows that the counterfeit pills lack the active ingredient orlistat found in the authentic Alli product, which prevents a portion of the fat eaten from being absorbed. So……these pills could not only give you heart palpitations, sleeplessness, anxiety, dry mouth, nausea and shakiness, but they also may do little or nothing to help you lose weight? Shocking. According to GlaxoSmithKline, which manufactures Alli, consumers should look for the following in order to determine if their weight-loss pills are fake: LOT code information missing from the top of the box, an expiration date that includes month, day and year (example: 04222010), instead of only the month and year (example: 08/13), the absence of the words "SEALED FOR YOUR PROTECTION" printed in white ink on the seal of the bottle and a larger, more-powder-like pill. If you’re dumb enough to have wasted money on a pill that fits any of these descriptions, throw it in the trash without taking any and see if you can’t find a way to be a lot less dumb in the future…………
No comments:
Post a Comment