Man has Nose Grown on Forehead After Accident:

A Chinese man by the name of Xiaolian was in a horrible car accident and lost all availiblity to use his nose due to an infection cause by the accident.  Doctors said the only way for the man to regain his nose abilities was to surgically reconstruct it onto his forehead. The man, just 22 years old, only had this option if he wanted to be able to have a nose again.  However this is the first case for someone to have a nose reconstructed, there have been a few other cases like it, such as when a cancer patient had an ear reconstructed on their arm.  Also, I have read another odd story of ears being reconstructed on the back of a mouse!

The nose was reconstructed by tissue being expanded and placed under the skin on the man’s forehead.  This is not the final product though; doctors must take this nose and remove it, then implant it where the nose actually is.  The reason they use forehead skin for this procedure is because it is the closest match to skin found on the nose. 

I think if I, along with anyone, saw someone with a nose on their forehead would freak out.  Now me, not so much but there are some people out there and we all know someone who would have a panic attack!  However this procedure does seem very strange, it must be done in order for the man to ever have a functioning nose ever again.

Even if it may not seem like it, the easy procedure has already been done by the nose being grown on the forehead.  The hard part of transplanting the nose and keeping it healthy still remains and will be a difficult task.  Dr. Patrick Bryne says that there is a lot of things that could go wrong with this upcoming procedure.  Dr. Bryne says that the patient will need to be extremely cautious within the first 2 years after the operation take place.  Much can go wrong says Bryne, he goes on and says that “If he gets a little infection the cartilage can disintegrate” and “what was a nose, will now look like a blob”.  However, Bryne says the patients nose will almost function as well as before, making the procedure well worth the efforts.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/09/130928-nose-forehead-ear-arm-reconstructive-surgery-medical-science/

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/10/replacement-ears-grown-on-rats_n_1869825.html

Miller, Andrew. "RocketNews24." RocketNews24 RSS. N.p., 02 Oct. 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.

Potential Ban of Beauty Pageants in England for Girls Under Sixteen:

Recently in France, the legislature has decided to try and set a new law on beauty pageants, not allowing girls under the age of sixteen to compete.  The reason that the legislature wants to outlaw this is because they believe that the pageants promote the “hyper-sexualization” of minors, or in other words, young girls acting like women.  The French senate has approved of this but it must next go through the lower house of parliament and also be approved for the new law to be set into place.

Personally, I agree with this potential change, because beauty pageants aren’t at all concerned with “beauty” to me, but are focused on who has the best make-up, clothing, and physical characteristics.  When I usually think of beauty, I don’t think of these things but usually think about natural beauty, not so much of who looks the best in fancy clothing or with great ammounts of makeup on.  Also, these girls are still very young, and they should not have these competitions because they will end up crushing these little girls and their dreams, even if they are beautiful.

This so called “hyper-sexualization” these beauty pageants are promoting is actually very real.  The contestants in the beauty pageants are not performing in age appropriate ways, which was a main concern and eventually led to the potential ban.  With today’s world ’, you could probably guess these measures are being taken to the extreme.  Many places you go and even things you watch or see promote beauty and being skinny or losing weight.  All these things are ultimately leading to the problem and in the future will only continue to get worse.

Also, the potential penalties for allowing anyone under the age of 16 in a beauty pageant can be extremely costly.  Up to two full years in prison can be given depending on the seriousness of the crime can be given.  Even worse yet, up to $40,000 in fines can be given as well.  These harsh consequences will definitely be enough to stop most people from allowing minors under 16 to partake in their pageants in my opinion.

If someone really wanted to take measures to the extreme they could have false records such as birth certificates made.  With the total cost of participating in a competition between $3,000 and $5,000, and the rewards not much higher, will ultimately stop most people.  All in all, as I previously mentioned, the harsh consequences will be enough to stop most people from doing this as well, if the law is passed in England.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24224598

"Should the UK Ban Beauty Pageants for Children?" BBC News. BBC, 24 Sept. 2013. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.

Barilla Pasta Against Gay Families:

Last Thursday, the company president of Barilla Pasta, a very popular pasta company all around the world, said he will never allow for gay families to be shown on any commercials or advertisements.  Guido Barilla, the company president, said “We won’t include gays in our ads, because we like the traditional family.  If gays don’t like it, they can always eat another brand of pasta.  Everyone if free to do what they want, provided it doesn't bother anyone else”.

Shortly after this was said by Guido, on twitter the hash tag “Boycott Barilla” was trending.  Now several people all around the world, straight and gay, are boycotting all of Barilla’s products.  Guido later says in an interview that his idea of a traditional family was one with a man, woman, and children. 

To me, this makes no sense why Barilla would even make a remark about not letting gay families be in their advertisements.  First off, you never see advertisements of families with same-sexed parents anyways, so why feel the need to go public and say why you don’t want to include them.  All the other companies just do not include them in their advertisements, and do not go public to explain why, like Barilla did.  There just was no reason for them to say anything about it when they could have kept it to themselves and saved themselves a lot of trouble.

Guido Barilla also says that he does support gay marriage but is against them adopting children.  This is why he would have no problem having gay couples on his advertisements, but not gay families.  This is odd because usually if someone is against gay families, they are also against the marriage of same sexed people.

Not as huge of deal here in America, but in Europe, especially in Italy, it is stirring up a big debate.  Guido Barilla was even interviewed on a popular radio station in Italy after his comment about gay families in Barilla’s advertisements.  On this live radio broadcast he continued to talk about how he likes to feature the “traditional family” which to him is a man, woman, and children.  Later in the week Guido came to say that he was sorry for his comment and that he respects everyone.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/26/barilla-pasta-anti-gay_n_3995679.html

Sieczkowski, Cavan. "Barilla Pasta Won't Feature Gay Families In Ads, Says Critics Can 'Eat Another Brand Of Pasta'" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 Sept. 2013. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.

Rihanna’s Instagram Post Gets Men in Trouble and Indicates Larger Problems

For those of you who don’t know, Instagram is an application on your Iphone or Android devise.  This application allows you to share photos and fifteen second long videos with people who follow you and has become insanely popular over the last year or so between many people.  Rihanna isn’t the first to be involved with conflict from instagram, many other stars and even people who aren’t famous, like students and adults, can get in trouble over Instagram along with other social media sites as well.  With Instagram getting extremely popular over last year, more and more people are starting to get punished for posting photos on instagram and tweets on twitter, and it is causing many people to get in trouble.

Currently Rihanna, a popular artist, is on her 5^th world tour, starting March 8^th in New York and lasting until October 22^nd in Israel.  Traveling through several countries all across the globe performing.  Tens of millions for dollars has been made so far and the tour still has a month to go.  Rihanna spent this last weekend in Bangcok, Thailand while on break from her tour.  After several tweets and a few Instagram photos that were posted, police were led to arrest two men for allegedly peddling protected animals.  In simpler terms, these men were accused of trying to sell animals that were illegal to have because they are protected for certain reasons like being close to extinction.

While on break this last weekend Rihanna posted a picture with a slow Loris, which is a squirrel like animal with large eyes.  This animal is protected in Thailand along with several other countries in the world, which raises suspicions after being posted by Rihanna last Friday night in Bangkok.  Several Tweets were also posted by Rihanna on twitter; some were talking about the protected animal.  All in all, Rihanna has a combined 41.5 million followers between twitter and instagram, and by posting anything can be seen by anyone in the whole world.

Just several hours after the photo was posted, local authorities were alerted of the photo that was taken by Rihanna with the protected animal.  Just a day later, authorities arrested two individuals.  These unnamed individuals had brought the slow Loris as a photo opportunity for tourists in Bangkok.  After arresting a twenty year old man and a sixteen year old boy, authorities found two slow lorises and confiscated them from the two men.  These two could face up to four years each in prison just for having these two protected animals.  Also there is a $1300 fine for being in possession of the protected animals as well.  To me, the those charges seem extremely ridiculous just for having protected animals with you.  Especially for the boy who is only sixteen years old and not even legally an adult, four years and $1300 dollars seems like too much.  If they were harming the two animals it would be a different story.  Therefore, the penalty just for these two men being in possession of the two animals seems like too much.

For many years, authorities have been on the lookout, trying to crack down on vendors trying to get money from people taking pictures with protected animals.  This doesn’t just happen there in Bangkok, it happens all the time all around the globe.  Mainly, this happens in areas that are very popular and full of tourists.  People may pay money to these vendors to take photos with different exotic animals, mainly while on vacations.  I can even recall an instance myself while I was in Mexico when I was younger and took photos with different types of birds.  It really makes you wonder if you have ever been around people doing this or even if you have taken a picture with a protected animal from a vendor as well.  The chances are if you have been to a foreign country, you have most likely witnessed it. 

This particular time it was a lot easier to solve the problem because the photo was exposed to several millions of people.  Authorities just had to contact Rihanna and talk to her about what happened so they could find the two men who were charging money to take photos with the protected animal.  Also her twitter revealed several places she was that night, giving authorities an idea of where the vendors were doing this at, and therefore leading them to make an arrest later on.  This case was very popular making it easier to solves, but every day things just like this happen and aren’t reported or questioned because they are on a much smaller level.

Rihanna’s run in with the vendors definitely wasn’t the first and is just one of several instances where people get into trouble over social media.  Today with all the social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Myspace, Facebook, and many more, more and more people are starting to get into trouble because of these social media sites.  There has even been laws made about them.  One I know of is that you cannot be friends with your teachers or students on facebook.  This is probably just one of several that are out there, but things like this are taken very seriously.  There can be cases where a teacher can even be fired over something as little as being friends with their students on Facebook.  I think that it is very hard to divide your social life from your work life, and as a teacher it would be even worse and they could have major consequences.  The only suggestion I have for teachers is to try to stay off of social media sites.  If that is a problem for you, like it would be for me, lock your profile so it is only viewable to people who you are friends with.

There are more problems with social media than just those involving teachers though.  Kids can get into a lot of trouble on social media sites as well, and It happens a lot more often.  Today with social media, it is a lot different than old times where there is no solid proof of who said or did what.  Now, when you post something on social media sites like twitter or instagram, it is out there for good.  Even if you decide to delete it, it’s been out there and chances are someone has seen it.  One person is all it takes, and once word gets out about something it spreads like a wildfire.  With texting and all the other technology we have today, word spreads a lot quicker.  When kids post pictures of themselves doing illegal things all it takes is one person to say something and it will eventually get around to people.  The majority of  people are on social media sites that are in high school and middle school also, making the problem even larger.  Therefore my advice to kids today is to be smart about your decisions.  These decisions you make as you go through life really reflect on everything you do.  Be wise and don’t do or post anything that you would not want the world to see.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/22/rihanna-instagram-photo_n_3971761.html

Leader, Jessica. "Rihanna's Instagram Photo With Slow Loris Leads Police To Smugglers."The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Sept. 2013.

New apple software released: IOS 7

After countless months of waiting, Apples newest software, IOS 7, finally came out yesterday (September 18^th, 2013) at 12:00 PM.  IOS 7 has been completely redesigned to look similar to the android device and makes most applications have a white colored background.  This new software also includes many new features that were not previously available on the IPhone.

One completely new feature is the control center, which makes it much easier to access certain controls now such as airplane mode, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.  Another feature the control center gives you is the ability to toggle your brightness without unlocking your phone.  Also, music is shown here and it allows you to skip forward or backward a song and control your volume.  Lastly, there are icons that allow fast access to the flashlight, compass, calculator, and camera.  Although this new feature may come in handy for most, I have found that it is difficult to pull up from the home screen, along with other screens, and it takes several attempts to pull up.

 

Another feature that has been added is the ‘3D’, or three dimensional, effect to the home screen.  This new feature allows you to tilt your phone in any direction and the background will move along with it to make the applications have a 3D effect.  Doing this just makes your phone look futuristic and gives it a completely new style.  Another feature that has been added with the new software is the zooming in and out affect when opening applications. Before IOS 7, applications would just appear open, but this software gives it a completely new look.  The affect makes it look like you zooming in and actually going into the application while it’s being opened.  Also, while exiting an application, the device does the same thing but zooms out of the application back to the home screen. Again, these new features really do nothing to the phone but give it a new look.

One other change that had been made in the new IOS 7 update is the newly designed weather application.  This newly designed application allows you to do several things and looks less complicated than the previous weather application did.  The application allows you to scroll through the hourly weather. Also, the daily weather for the whole next week is shown, giving us the daily highs and lows.  On the top of the screen it displays the city that you are currently in, the percent of humidity, and two completely new add-ons which shows the wind speed and what it feels like outside currently.  Lastly, the background of the weather application shows what it looks like outside whether if it is raining, snowing, or sunny outside. I personally really like this new feature because you can on up the app and look at the background and it will look almost exactly like how it does outside which can come in really handy when you’re in a hurry.

The new internet application is almost completely different with several new features and looks.  First, the way you scroll through web pages you have open is now vertical, instead of horizontally like before.  Also, there is a tab that you can press and it will show you all the other web pages all of your other devices have opened.  I believe this feature will come in helpful for several other people along with myself.  If I have a page that I am looking at on my mom’s Ipad for something like a project and want on my phone, I can easily access it without having to copy the link which is really neat in my opinion and saves a lot of time.  Additionally, there is a new button which you can press and it allows you to send the page you are currently on to other people through text, email, twitter, and Facebook.  Also, you can bookmark the page, add to a reading list, add as an application in the home screen for easy access, copy, and a new feature which allows you to print to a selected printer.  In my opinion, the ability to print out the page that you are on is satisfying because you can get a hard copy on paper so you can highlight key parts if needed.

Another feature that is also completely new is the Itunes radio in the music application.  The Itunes radio is just like Pandora built into the music application.  This new feature allows you to add stations for the different types of music genres and artists, then it will play random songs that fall into those categories.  Like Pandora, Itunes radio gives you commercials and a limited amount of song skips.  However, you can purchase Itunes match for $25 a year, which will give you unlimited song skips and no commercials.  I think this new feature won’t be as popular as it probably was expected to be because it just like Pandora which is already a really popular application for all apple devices.

The Facetime application has been redone with a few new features.  First, Facetime uses your front camera the whole time you have Facetime open, faintly shows the image in the background while you are not Facetiming with someone which is completely new.  Another feature Facetime has is the new audio call.  This feature is just like calling someone but it uses your internet connection instead of your calling minutes, or is just like facetiming but without the video.  I don’t think this will be that popular because if you needed to talk to someone you could just call them instead.  Also facetime usually has connection issues depending where you are, which also is another reason why people would want to call instead.

Another application that has been completely redone is reminders.  This has a tab for scheduled events, groceries, things to do, and things to buy.  When you get into each tab it allows you to edit items on your lists to delete them once you have gotten or done them and also add items to your lists.  Also, it allows you to add when, where, and a more button for each item which you can also edit.  This application wasn’t used much by most people I have talked to, including myself, because it was kind of confusing, but now I believe this will be used much more often and is a lot more convenient for people.

Lastly, the photo application has a complete new look to it.  Now, your photos are organized by location and time automatically.  Also, your photos can be organized by collections and moments, which is also done automatically.  Additionally, photos can be organized by the year they were taken.  These new features allow you to organize your photos more specifically, which can be helpful if you are on a vacation and want to look at all of your photos from that vacation or something like that.  I personally think this new feature is confusing because the photos under “moments” aren’t necessarily all in the same moments and can be from different events or places.  Also, the photos application allows you to access all photos on your other devices through Icloud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuWOXLncQdA

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ios-review-apples-big-change-means-worthwhile-upgrade/story?id=20290551

(d, JOANNA STERN) Joanna Stern More from Joanna : Apple's Big Change Means A Worthwhile Upgrade For You." ABC News. ABC News Network, 18 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Sept. 2013.

Girls Bullying Story and Affects on Others

A boy who has just written a letter to Santa, asking him for no toys, but just for his twin sister to stop being bullied at school.  The boy writes in his letter that we wanted a remote control car but that he doesn't want that anymore.  He continues to tell that his twin sister is being harassed and bullied at school and explains that is not fair.  At the end of the letter then boys asked is a band called ‘Big Time Rush’ could come to their birthday party and talk to the girl and perform a song for them.  .  When a reporter from CNN news first saw this letter he was touched by it and wanted to fulfill his wish and contacts ‘Big Time Rush’.  The reporter says he understands what the girl is going through and about all the terrors of bulling.  The reporter goes on and explains how he was bullied to as a child for being overweight.  He explains how the bullying got so horrible he had to drop out of junior high school and was then home schooled.  He really does understand what bullying is like so he got Big Time Rush, who have a show on Nickelodeon to come to the twins birthday party.  The fact that the reporter would do this for a girl that he doesn't even know really moved me.  I was also bullied in middles school, and although it wasn't as bad, I remember coming home from school almost every day crying to my parents.  Bullying has a huge effect on kids and the outcomes can be very depressing.

Big Time Rush wasn’t the only people to contact the family though; many other people have contacted them as well, asking to donate gifts and money to them.  It is really amazing how the unkind behaviors in some people really bring out the kindness and caring in others who are willing to help out.  Although all these people are asking to donate money and gifts to the family, the mother is not accepting on bit of it.  The mother of the twins says that she doesn’t want people to think it was about the money or gifts.  She just wants to help her daughter and have her story be told to help other children and families with the same problems to help them be strong and stick together.  Many other people who are also famous have contacted the family as well.  After CNN put the story on their website it became very popular and was soon broadcasted.  The mother and children have already been on “Good morning America”.  Many others have contacted them as well, popular show including “Dr. Phil” and the “Today Show” have contacted them as well and want to share their story with the world.  The mother says that she isn’t used to all the attention but throughout her daughters’ story getting known; but it has shown her the good in people and how much people really do care.

The twins said that they are even seeing changes in school already.  The boy even tells his mom after school one day, “Mommy, I have new friends”.  Teachers and other workers at the school also are helping the girl that was being bullied and making sure kids are being nice to her, disciplining kids who aren’t.  At first, the family said they were embarrassed by all the attention they were receiving from everyone, thinking that measures were being taken a little too far.  Even the daughter was angry that they were receiving all the attention from her story, becoming frustrated.  She didn’t know what why she was receiving all the attention until she had talked to the Good Morning America producers.  She hadn’t a single idea that her brother had written the letter and was touched when she found out.

Story’s like that are very touching to some people and cause them to do a lot of good.  The fact that because of one girl being bullied got the attention of CNN, Dr. Phil, Good Morning America, and several other people and shows really comes to show how people really care about others.  The sad truth is that there is still a lot of kids bullied every day and there is nothing we can do to stop or help every single person.  The most we can do is to try our best and get peoples story known.  Once people truly understand the hurt and pain bullying causes to someone, they will want to help in any way possible.  Therefore, getting this girls story known and her caring brothers’ love for her reached out and touched a lot of people and wanted them to help stop bullying.

There are still several kids being bullied every day, I see it or hear about it every day at school.  It may not be someone being bullied to the extreme but is still happens and hurts people.  Bullying is not so much physical pain nearly as much as verbal abuse.  Name calling and other acts that kids do to each other every day is what people see and they become used to it, and accept that it happened when they really need to understand that it is not okay at all and needs to stop.  Cyber bullying is also very common in today’s age.  With social media sites and cell phones, people can be harassed at anytime of the day without even being face to face with the person.   That’s the problem with today’s people is that more people are becoming used to it and accepting it than people who want to stop it because it become so common being seen every day at schools.  I think whenever someone sees it they need to not be afraid and step in to help the person even if they do not even understand the pain that it causes to the person being harassed. Everyone can make a difference and everyone should try.

Not everyone understands the affects on people who are bullied and what it does to their lives.  Almost everyone is bullied at some part in their life, even I was as a child in elementary school, but there is always someone who has it a lot worse than you do and most kids can’t come to understand that.  People can be bullied so much that it can even drive them to hurt or even kill themselves.  In fact, there was a kid who was bullied so much that it drove him to kill himself and they ended up making a movie about it.  Just like the girl who was bullied at school and was interviewed by CNN, Good Morning America, and other shows, they wanted to get the kids story out to help people understand what it is like.  Also the impacts that it not only has on the person being bullied, the effects it has on their friends, family, coacher, teachers, and everyone else who knows the person.  Bullying has become a huge problem all around and they only way to stop it is to step in and help, even if you don’t know they person, you never know what good you are truly doing and the impacts you are making on their lives.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/lifestyle/2013/09/bullied-girl-whose-brother-wrote-viral-letter-to-santa-surprised-by-favorite-band/

Band, HT Bully Letter Split Jef 130918 16x9 608 Bullied Girl, Whose Brother Wrote Viral Letter to Santa, Surprised by Favorite. "Bullied Girl, Whose Brother Wrote Viral Letter to Santa, Surprised by Favorite Band." ABC News. ABC News Network, 20 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Sept. 2013.